I love hot dogs since I was a little girl. My parents used to take us to
Joaquim’s, famous ‘lanchonete’ (snack-bar – burger joint), in Itaim São Paulo – Brazil, at least once a month. My brothers and sister used to order the famous burgers. In Brazil, burgers can be huge! I mean ridiculously massive! but this post is not about burgers. It is about hot dogs! I was the only one who always and only, in my family, who ordered hot dogs. However, since moving to London, I never found a nice looking and let alone tasty, hot dog. The sausages are dark and look totally unappetising. So much so, I never even tried one from a street cart till now… When The Rye announced two weeks of street food evenings. I thought I would try the Hot Dog from
Big Apple Hot Dogs, who I had ‘met’ in cyber space (twitter). Now I found a very tasty hot dog in London! Here is a guest post by the lovely Abiye, owner of Big Apple Hot Dogs.
Abiye’s story in his own words:
I decided quite a while ago that I could never work for a boss again, it just doesn’t fit with my outspoken nature. In truth Big Apple Hot Dogs was my back-up plan. It was the only business I could afford to start up, once I failed to get finance for my other new business concept (which I still have hopes of launching one day). The best thing is that right now I wouldn’t change it for anything. I absolutely love my customers (well most of them!) and it is a privilege to be able to see the pleasure on their faces as they bite into one of my dogs.
I’ve always loved sausages and watching Kojak and Starsky & Hutch as a kid, made me long for NY Hot Dogs from a cart, even though I’d never tasted them. There was just something so iconic about US hot dog carts. I was fortunate to live in NY in my early twenties and hot dogs, burgers & pizza pretty much kept me going, they were affordable and DELICIOUS!
The key is that our sausages are made with love. Whole carcasses arrive and are painstaking de-skinned and de-boned, before being diced, mixed and beginning the long process of becoming the finest hot dogs in the land.
I get my buns baked daily, just around the corner, by H.W. Anderson of Hoxton. The Anderson family have been baking in Hoxton for 5 generations and they use no hydrogenated or animal fats in their bread.
I would say that BAHD’s ethos is to try to offer incredible pleasure to as many as possible, at amazing value. Only street food can do this because of the low overheads and with our pricing at £2.50-£4 we are certainly trying to do just that, all we need now is the volume to make it work out.
I’m convinced that the dedication and passion that goes into my bread and sausages, gives my hot dogs an undefinable extra dimension – a little bit of stardust that makes me confident that they are amongst the very best available ANYWHERE, including the US and Germany!
I set up Big Apple Hot Dogs because I thought people in London would appreciate being able to buy good quality hot dogs from a cart, rather than the horrendous fare that is typically served up by British vendors, that genuinely do give a Dog a bad name!
Quality had to be the watchword, for BAHD. It had to start with the cart. It was important that it looked very different, so that people could reasonably assume the dogs would be a cut above also and try them out.
My sausages, however, are the absolute stars. I managed to identify a sausage-maker touched by genius. The passion he has for what he does shines through in every aspect of his sausages, from the look to the smell to the taste. They are all meat and hand-made in London, using only high quality natural ingredients.
We are now almost like brothers and work closely together. I am able to introduce ideas to him and he can incorporate them into his processes. We are soon to switch to locally sourced free-range meats, which I’m sure will make the sausages better on every level. We have also just formulated bespoke sausages for a top London restaurant. I’m delighted to be able to bring his talents to a wider audience.
My hot dogs are literally a revelation for my customers, we are just not used to such incredible hot dogs in the UK. First time customers often buy one on the way to the tube, then 5 minutes later they reappear saying that they turned back because they just had to have another one!
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| Big Apple Hot Dog home |
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| Abiye at work! |
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Great post. When passion meets talent, amazing things happen.
Those are mighty fine sausages (beautifully captured, by the way) and a mighty fine man, I have to add 😉
Yeaaaah this is just around the corner from my house and I've passed so many times! Beauty of a post!
Thanks for the lovely comments. Abiye is a very fine man indeed!
Hanna – lucky you! you must try the hot dogs, I think Abiye is having new sausages as well.