Glass – Paris
Dogs have always been cool in Paris (nothing says fashion quite like a french bully). Now, it appears, dogs are hot.
Until recently, Le Mosaique in the Marais, the long-standing red and white tiled, hole-in-the-wall hot-dog booth was one of the only purveyors of hot-dogs in Paris. There is of course the french version which you will find stacked on top of each other in bad bakeries near The Pompidou Centre, but after a recent episode which I will call A Curious Incident of a (Hot) Dog in the Night-Time, I can safely say that there is nothing ok about a turgid boiled red wiener covered in melted emmental and lodged in a pasty white bun.
Never fear, these days hip hot-dog stands are popping up all over town. The team from Hutch Hot Dog House in the 10th whip up a mean New York style chicken dog topped with confit onions, red hot ketchup, cabbage and American mustard; while across town, the messiah of the burger, Little Fernand, has now branched into gourmet dogs with recipes such as the cider-honey mustard sausage – I guess we would call it a haute dog.
There is even a vegan hot dog and burger parlour, East-Side Burger, for those who are more about the soy-sage than the sausage.
So, not wanting to fall behind in the fast-moving world of food trends, Robert Brownie Jr., Katy Peri-Peri and I decided to try our luck with the ‘chien-chaud’ at Glass, the latest venture from the trendy crew behind Candelaria and Le Mary-Celeste. Located derrière an eery unmarked black door, next to a seedy flourescent-lit sex-shop in a side street in SoPi (South Pigalle) this hot-dog parlour/ speakeasy cocktail bar is pretty darn cool.
The dimly lit room is decked out with walls of broken mirrors, kitsch disco balls and beautiful bobo-chic Parisians sipping novelty cocktails and imported craft beer at the bar. Meanwhile the not-so French clientele sit in booths slugging pints of Brooklyn Lager, knocking back boiler-makers (a shot followed by a chaser of beer) and chowing down hot-dogs. We were, obviously, the latter.
For the hot-dog, we had the choice between two flavours – the Classic and the Chihuahua. I personally am not into small dogs. I had images of ordering a Chihuahua and being stuck eating a small fluffy bun with a nasty bite to it. So Robert Brownie Jr. and I went for the Classic – good pure organic beef sausage in a freshly baked bun, ketchup and mustard – it was ok (I wouldn’t want to give a dog a bad name) but it wasn’t wow.
Katy Peri-Peri’s misleadingly named Chihuahua, however – stuffed with homemade guacomole and pico de gallo, topped with a fresh side order of pickles and oozing with mustard and ketchup, was amazing. It was the god of dogs.
Robert Brownie Jr. and I were seething with food envy.
But, not ones to be upstaged in the food ordering department – we got back on the horse and ordered another dog.
The first hot dog was rather large. And added to a pint of Brookyn lager, there was definitely no need for a second. It was gluttonous and greedy and not altogether ideal before a week of sun-bathing in Normandy. But geez was it worth it. The Chihuahua exceeded all my expectations.
As we were munching on our Chihuahuas, I caught a few judgmental stares from the elegant French girls around us, sipping their cocktails and delicately nibbling on their singular hot dog.
But I brushed it off – this mad dog was worth the fatness. And in any event, people in Glass houses really shouldn’t throw stones.
xoxo
Paris Stilton
