Kingwood HDJ Review - The Dawg House

A last minute change in plans at work put me on the road to downtown Kingwood. It wasn't until I got into the downtown area where I finally spotted a sign for The Dawg House. Right off the bat I noticed two signs side by side above the door: one for The Dawg House and one for Fox's Pizza Den. The red lights started going off in my head that there existed the possibility that the hot dogs would take a culinary back seat to the other menu offerings here. After reading over the menu, I confirmed my fear: this was indeed a pizzaria that just happens to offer hot dogs...more or less as an afterthought. Still, you never know where the best hot dogs will turn up, so another gamble on the taste buds was in order.

"Everything" here will get you a ketchup, mustard, onions, and chili. Slaw goes for fifty cents extra. Even though I ordered by the numbers (that is, naming the ingredients one by one), I somehow still got ketchup on mine. I had to take this order to go, so I got a double-sized styrofoam coffin that seemed more suited for something like a wedgie sandwich.

The unheated and somewhat stale bun was a big disappointment. I'm spoiled by decently steamed or at least slightly warmed buns, so this was a bit of a shock to the system. The weenie was done just about to bare minimum temperature standard, but not more than that...absolutely no plumpness or juciness. I found the chili to be heavily on the thick side, and the sauce it was cooked had a rather pronounced tomato sauce taste. The slaw required a double-take, both in taste and appearance categories. It was a very, very bright green. At first I thought it might be some sort of reflection from my bottle of Mountain Dew against the white styrofoam, but that was not the case. Nonetheless, it had a most unique flavor; I found it to be rather sweet and quite delicious, but at the same time very crunchy. Although I didn't see any evidence, I suspected that there was a chance that relish had somehow been blended into the mix. It tasted incredibly fresh, and I would really like have to have had some of this slaw by itself, or on another quality hot dog.

The Dawg House gets two weenies. Slaw aside, these hot dogs were pretty sad. The prepartion and ingredients were sub-par at best.