Shiftmeal, Halfway To A Eulogy

As you may or may not know, I spend a lot of my time behind this bar at Boulders on Broadway. A few years ago the bossman set me to the task of creating a couple of hot dogs to throw on a summer specials menu. After some seriously delicious research and experimentation I came up with two recipes to accompany the now infamous "Hung Over Man's Best Friend" breakfast dog. One of the creations, while tasty, didn't sell too well and was eventually removed from the menu. The other, however, has garnered much praise and adoration from our loyal customers.

We named it the Bombay Street Dog.

Inspired by one of my mother's recipes from my childhood, we started with two Hoffy Beef Franks, butterflied and grilled. Spread scratch-made mango chutney on toasted naan bread, topped with shredded lettuce and drizzled with Sriracha sauce and the BSD was born.

On Saturday night, before our two-hour service bar slogfest that most call trivia, I fired a ticket to the kitchen so I could wolf one down while the joint was still pretty slow. About ten minutes later the ugly monster of a wiener was delivered to my station. When I say ugly, I mean ugly. The naan was slightly over-toasted and no care was taken with the application of Sriracha. It looked like someone sliced off their fingertip and sprayed blood all over the damn thing. Except the blood was actually delicious hot pepper sauce.

Aesthetics aside, It was enjoyable. The way the franks are sliced allows even meat distribution within the confines of the flat (and, hopefully, usually soft) bread. The lettuce adds a little cool, a little crunch to temper the big flavors of spicy (easy with the rooster, there Lorenzo), sweet and funky chutney, and savory dog.

It was good, but it wasn't as good as the first time I tried it. The original recipe included some fantastic lime pickle that we made in house. The cool, citrus snap was nowhere to be found. Turns out we axed the lime pickle after a dip in wiener sales. Economics, or something.

If I'm being honest, I knew I was going to be underwhelmed. It didn't really matter. A hot dog is a hot dog and sometimes you just need caloric intake. My gut was rumbling and I needed energy to sling Angry Orchards (gross), Unicorn Tears (gross), and Jolly Rancher shots (really gross) to trivia patrons (plus more than 130 different craft brews, some fine bourbons, and a handful of creative specialty cocktails).

Shiftmeal is a beautiful thing. Sometimes it's a bag of Dorito's, half a Twix bar and a Red Bull (for vitamins) because you're busy. Sometimes it's a ginger orange chicken breast with roasted broccoli, baby carrots, and walnuts because the chef was bored.  Sometimes it's just cold bacon and green olives because, well, cold bacon and green olives. And sometimes it's a once-mighty multi-cultural hot dog creation that lost its mojo somewhere along the way because you write a blog about hot dogs and you're trying to recapture that magic.

I swear I'm not bitter.

If you happen upon my fine establishment, give the Bombay Street Dog a whirl. It's still a favorite of many patrons. I'd call it the Repo Man of hot dogs. A cult classic that maybe isn't as spectacularly weird as the first time, but has more going for it than just pure nostalgia. Also, feel free to mention to the staff that it needs some lime pickle. Maybe we can make a difference together.

Boulders on Broadway
530 W. Broadway Rd.
Tempe, AZ 85282