Charleston HDJ - The Capitol Food Court

About 10 stories directly under the gold leaf covered dome of the state capitol building lies the newly renovated cafeteria that serves our state's public servants who work at the capitol complex as well as anyone else who might find themselves in the capitol and having a hankering for some vittles. We found out at our recent rendezvous with the folks from Fork You that they are familiar with the cafeteria and so we tentatively scheduled a second Great Food Blogger Summit and decided it should be a joint effort of our two blogs to sample the new food they offered.

You can hop over to Fork You's review to see what those folks have to say about their pinto beans, hamburgers, pizza and the other things they sampled. Me? I think I'll stick to hot dogs.

I was eager to see if the capitol cafeteria would serve an appropriate hot dog for our state's tastes, and I was pleased to find out that they almost do. Almost.

I found the the serving area that made the hot dogs and I asked the chef (yes, he was a chef and had the hat to prove it) what "everything" meant and he said "chili, slaw and onions". Before I could ask him about mustard I saw a little basket of mustard packages sitting on the counter so I stifled the questions and ordered two hot dogs. I was disappointed, though, when I found out this was one of those "some assembly required" HDJs. Not only was the mustard self-applied, but the slaw came in a little container on the side and I had to apply it. The silver lining was that having the hot dog sitting there with its chili exposed gave me a rare opportunity to taste test the chili without having to excavate. And since the slaw was sitting there in a cup by itself, it also yielded easily.

The chili had a good texture and it was almost spicy and almost flavorful. In other words, it was almost decent chili. The slaw was almost sweet, but a little too creamy and bland for my tastes. It was almost good, but not quite.

The weenie tasted like it wanted to be a premium all-beef dog, but it didn't quite clear the premium taste bar. In other words, it was almost good. The bun was OK: almost fresh tasting and almost warm.

We're gonna give the Capitol Food Court hot dog an almost good rating of 3 Weenies. If any one part of the hot dog was better than almost good then it could creep a little higher, especially given the value price point of $1.50 each with a generous helping of toppings.

The only thing that wasn't almost good about my lunch at the capitol was the companionship of my new friends from Fork You. That part was good indeed. I'm not sure if there will be more joint ventures such as this, but I hope they keep me posted if their travels take them to new restaurants with hot dogs on the menu.