Crif Dogs is located under a 3-D sign, a hanging hot dog adorned with the polite phrase, "Eat Me". When you walk down the stairs and into the entrance, your immediate thought is probably something like, "Just another dive joint." But no, you're wrong. It's so much more. This place is tiny, cramped, and always packed with hungry folks (particularly with hungry drunk folks if you visit in the wee hours of the night) looking to plow through some fat laden munchies and sip on cheap cans of PBR ($2.50). The waffle fries and tater tots ($2.50 small/$3.50 large) here are A MUST! WARNING: the pictures below are sexier than Jessica Chastain wearing a whipped cream bikini:
The drill is simple, and the setup is no frills. Walk up to the counter and name your edible poison. They'll take your name and ring a bell for you when your order is up. I often go with the Garden State Dog - it's a beef frank, wrapped in Taylor Ham (one of the few good things to come out of Jersey) then deep fried, and accompanied with a slice of American cheese, chopped pepperoncinis and slathered in spicy brown mustard ($4.75). EFF MY A! This thing is to die for. The frying process gives the dog great texture and you get a gnarly crunch on the outside. The peppers add a spicy kick, and the mustard here is just the bomb. Lars always goes for the BLT, a beef dog that's bacon wrapped, deep fried and slathered with lettuce, tomato and mayo (and at only $4.50, you better go ahead and insert a Homer Simpson drooling noise here). Aren't they cute together?
On this visit, our friend Carrie was with us. She's of the vegetarian persuasion. She went for the Veggie Special - a meatless dog topped with chopped onions, tomato, cucumber and jalapenos. The employee working the register informed us that you can sub any special dog with a meatless frank if your heart so desires. You can see that dog to the left below, and yes THAT IS A VINTAGE ARCADE GAME TABLE! At last year's Bonnaroo, Crif Dogs even had their own booth to feed hungry hippies. God I love this place . . .
I should probably go ahead and mention that Crif Dogs is also home to the infamous phonebooth entrance of the speakeasy, Please Don't Tell. You may be confused by the line of bougie folks lined up out the door. Although a few of them may in fact be grabbing a dog downstairs, chances are they are trying to gain entrance to the exclusive club located through the secret entrance. If you have scored a password to get in, please direct me to the person whose d*ck you sucked to obtain that. They only take reservations day of starting at 3 PM, and from what I've heard, they fill up almost immediately. That said, the cocktails and specialty dogs there are supposedly to die for (the Wylie Dog in honor of Wylie Dufresne's molecular cooking tactics, the David Chang dog slathered in spicy kimchee as an homage to the founder of Momofoku, you get the idea). One day, they'll let me go through the phone booth to this foodie wonderland.
But now for the important stuff:
THE DAMAGE: $22.00 for me and Lars (including tax and tip! Holy crap and that's with two PBRs! Woo hoooooo, this place is awesome.)
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