WSJ Readers' Letters on Detroit Coney Dogs Spur a Pilgrimage -- and a Rethinking

[Bozita]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120855171409927167.html?mod=at_leisure_main_reviews_days_only

Home for Hot Dogs
Readers' Letters on Detroit Chili Dogs Spur a Pilgrimage -- and a Rethinking
By RAYMOND SOKOLOV
April 19, 2008; Page W7
Detroit

In the hot dog justice system, two groups pursue truth in wiener: the critics who judge the franks and the people who eat them. They rarely agree.

Two weeks ago, I made bold in this newspaper to anoint the best hot dogs in America. By practical necessity, I omitted mentioning thousands of worthy wienermongers. Within picoseconds, wounded reader-fans of these neglected emporia were scorching the Web with protests and polemics in support of their favorite hot dog stands.

One fellow, a Pittsburgh notable, made a plausible pitch for Ted's in Buffalo. Another alerted us to an Okinawan variant on the national sausage in Los Angeles called Oki Dog. But the loudest compelling caterwaul came from dozens and dozens of irate fans of Detroit's "Coney Island" dog. How, they collectively demanded, could I, a Motor City native born in Harper Hospital within walking distance of the Coney's still-beating heartland on Lafayette downtown, have left my mustard-and-raw-onion-slathered chili dog heritage out?

Reader, I will confess that from my long-ago days of residence in Detroit, which ended in 1957, I can remember only one hot dog by name. That was Peter's, as in Peter's Red Hots, the hot dogs hawked in the stands at Briggs Stadium, the great green hulk later renamed Tigers Stadium, now a whited sepulcher looming empty over Michigan Avenue in the traditional Irish enclave called Corktown just west of downtown.

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[noonwitch]

1. Lafayette is the best in Detroit, but Yesterdog is the best in Michigan

Yesterdog is in Grand Rapids.

[Lefty48197]

2. I like Lafayette's. Never been in that place next door.

The Senate in Taylor on Ecorse Rd. is good too. Don't miss the rice pudding. Of course, everybody knows that the best dog in Michigan is served at that swank-French restaurant in Ann Arbor, Le Dog. Whatever happened to Red Hot Lovers in AA?