I make it a point to always get some street food whenever I’m travelling, and Vancouver’s signature street food is the Japadog, a hot dog done Japanese-style. Here’s my coworker David smiling in anticipation of a delicious east-meets-west organ-meats-in-casings lunch on Friday:
Part of Japadog’s charm is their delightful Engrish signage. It’s so very charmingly quirky that I wouldn’t be surprised if their misspellings and malapropisms were intentional. After all, they did get me to take this photo and post it online:
Click the photo to see it at full size.
I had the “Spicy Cheese Terimayo Dog”, their biggest seller in 2010, pictured below:
I’d never describe it as spicy, nor would I call the sauce spread over it “cheese”. The shredded nori gives the dog a “Japanese” flavour, but in the end, it wasn’t the “Western food through the Japanese funhouse mirror” kind of good that a number of other places have mastered (MOS Burger are particularly good at this).
I think I would’ve preferred the Oroshi dog: bratwurst with green onions and soy sauce. Maybe I’ll grab one before taking the train to the airport tomorrow.
3 replies on “Japadoggin’”
The Food Network food truck show did a segment about this. I thought the soba noodle hotdog looked particularly tasty.
Did you find a Tacofino truck? They’re originally from Tofino, but apparently they have a truck in Vancouver now.
It reminds me of the Papaya King in Manhattan with all the celebrity endorsements. Back in the 60’s a hot dog with papaya juice was considered exotic. President Kennedy (JFK) was supposedly one of the pleased customers. (It’s a cult thing now.)
That looks pretty good, but if you’re ever in Calgary, you *have* to check out Tubby Dog:
http://www.tubbydog.com/
I spent three days in Calgary once and I’m pretty sure I went there four times. It’s a completely new definition of hotdog.
Have a safe trip back!