Gauley Bridge HDJ Review: Two Broke Sisters

We've been passing by this little food trailer for months and noticed that it recently moved from the parking lot of a nearly-abandoned shopping center to a more visible location alongside a historic building that used to be the Gauley Bridge train station. Our attention was first drawn to the hand-lettered sign boasting "WV Hot Dogs" on the side of the trailer, and later we became more attentive because the obvious commitment they had of maintaining open hours in spite of bad weather. We decided today that it was time to give them a try.

When we walked up to the ordering window, our first question as always was "what is everything?" But before we heard the answer, we saw it in the form of a printout of the West Virginia Hot Dog Blog's "Anatomy of a WV Hot Dog" graphic that clearly explains it. Chili, slaw, mustard and onions, just as God intended it.

It only took a few moments to get our hot dog and we were well pleased to see it wrapped up in foil which is usually a good sign of quality. Opening up the wrapping we were treated to that amazing aroma that tells the story of a chili that was prepared with care. Indeed this chili is as good as any you will find, and the slaw was obviously prepared to complement the chili. You know it's great chili and slaw when it is applied sparingly and still has that great flavor and presence. The onions were chopped a little larger than we like, but they weren't too strong so it didn't matter much. The weenie was adequate.

But the bun. We need to talk about the bun. It was big and soft but not steamed. Now a food trailer has limited ability to have all of the necessary equipment, we understand that, and we could forgive the non-steamed bun except for the fact that it was cold to the touch. Hot dogs are supposed to be hot, it's right there in the name! 

Of course, it was in the upper 40s when were were there so it's eminently explainable why the buns were cold so we're not going to ding them too hard. And the owner told us that she plans to add a steamer to the trailer soon, so maybe soon this problem will be rectified. 

In spite of the cold bun, this is a great hot dog. We're going to give it a Four Weenie rating and hope to get back to re-review it once that steamer is running.

We also want to highlight one other thing about Two Broke Sisters: The owner told us that the reason she started selling hot dogs in Gauley Bridge was because there was nowhere else to get a decent hot dog in the area. That is the kind of entrepreneurial spirit we need more of in West Virginia. 

You can find Two Broke Sisters right beside of US Route 60 in Gauley Bridge. They are open most weekdays and Saturdays from 10:00 till 4:00. 

Fayette County HDJ Review - Skyline Drive In (Hank's Last Stop)

Most people in West Virginia know the story of Hank William's death: That he was discovered dead on New Year's Day 1953 in the back seat of his Cadillac when his driver stopped in Oak Hill; about that there is no dispute. But in Oak Hill, there are a lot of opinions about exactly where this final scene of the singer's life played out. Most reports say it was at the Pure Oil gas station on Oak Hill (that station no longer exists), but persistent local rumors say it was just outside of Oak Hill, at the Skyline Drive In located at Hilltop. The little diner has had many names over the years, but no matter how many times they change the name on the sign, almost everyone around here calls it "Hank's Last Stop." It recently reopened and the new owners have smartly reclaimed the name and added the nickname, so it is now known as "Skyline Drive In - Hank's Last Stop."

Now we're here to review hot dogs, not get into a revisionist history debate, but we would like to point out one key and seldom reported factoid that would make it more likely that the diner was the place: His driver -- when he discovered the lifeless body in the back seat--said that he was told that there was a hospital "6 or 7 miles down the road." If this had been the old Pure Oil station, that hospital would have been only a half-mile away, not six or seven. Most people around here say he stopped at the gas station to get directions to the hospital. But enough about that.

We made the trip to the newly reopened Skyline Diner recently because a recent newspaper article listed hot dogs as their specialty. Indeed their menu is very limited, but we didn't care at all. When asked what "everything" was, the server said confidently, "chili, slaw, mustard and onions" and then added "and I make my own slaw every day." Sold.

While waiting on our hot dogs we took in some of the Hank memorabilia that adorned the walls. There is far less of it than you might expect since they embrace their HDJ's history with a subtitled sign out front. A couple of album covers and a little shrine of sorts is all there is. You can't help but think that if they would go all out and make the place a kitschy roadside attraction that they would have a flood of cars pulling off of Route 19 to see it. If it were ours, we'd have an old baby blue Cadillac sitting in the lot and Hank Williams hits playing from speakers both inside and out. We'd have Hank Williams Karaoke, Hank Williams trinkets and tshirts, and maybe some Jambalaya, Crawfish Pie and Filet Gumbo on the menu. Son of a gun, we'd have big fun at The Skyline.

But what do we know? We just review hot dogs. Oh, and that reminds us:

When our hot dogs came we could immediately confirm that the slaw was homemade. You just can't get slaw from a tub that looks like that. And the first bite told us that it was good: Flavorful and creamy but not too runny. Slightly sweet. Unfortunately, the bun was a bit crusty - almost stale - but fortunately, that was the only negative we found. The chili was wonderfully complex and went well with the slaw. The weenie was big and beefy and the overall heft of the hot dog was great.

Skyline Drive In earns a 4 Weenie rating. It was a steamed bun away from being a 4.5, pushing a Five.

It's definitely worth a stop. Just hopefully not your last one.

Fayetteville HDJ Review - Wild Flour Bakery

When we were contacted by The Travel Channel about doing a West Virginia Hot Dog segment for the "Pit Stops" portion of their New River Gorge feature, we were a bit concerned when they said we were going to film at a bakery. I was afraid that we would get there and find that they only sold this kind of hot dog. Luckily, the owners of Wild Flour Bakery are savvy WVHD aficionados and had the real deal. Very real.

I arrived a little early of the appointed time and Jennie, the production company's contact person with whom I had been communicating for the past month or so, told me to relax and she would find me when the time came for our interview. With time to kill in a bakery, it's hard not to really work up an appetite what with all of the gorgeous baked goods in the case and the lingering aroma of hot dog chili emanating from the kitchen. To make matter worse, Jennie brought out a lovely looking specimen of a WVHD and sat it in front of me and left it there for the fifteen minutes that it took the camera man and the gaffer/gopher to set up the shot. It was almost too much to stand and I am sure that I drooled a couple of times during the interview. I really hope they weren't shooting in hi-def.

So after the interview was complete I was allowed to finally taste the hot dog that I had driven all this way for and subsequently tortured with.

It was worth it. Worth the torture and worth the drive.

Now to be honest, the hot dog was room temperature by the time I got to eat it, but even tepid, this thing was great. The chili, as is usually the case with chili in Southern West Virginia, was not spicy but had a complexity to it that included a little bit of chili powder and the dark, rich taste that only a long-simmering pot of tomato and onion product can have. The onions were so finely chopped that they were almost invisible but tasty and fresh tasting. The bun was soft and the weenie was perfectly cooked. And then there is the slaw.

You know how some ice skating judges never give out a perfect score of 10 because they allow that there can always be something better to come along? That's how I am with slaw. I have used superlatives like "nearly perfect texture" or "nearly perfect flavor" to describe lots of slaws over the years; that changes today. This slaw is freakin' perfect! This might be "The One True Slaw" that I have been looking for for the better part of 7 years doing this hot dog blogging. It is PERFECT in texture (finely chopped and exactly the right amount of dressing), PERFECT in taste (sweet enough to make itself known as sweet, but not enough to cover the cabbage flavor) and PERFECTLY matched with the chili. And if that's not enough, they serve it in a very generous helping.

Without any fear of dispute, I proclaim this as a 5 Weenie WVHD worthy for consideration as one of the very best hot dogs in the Great State of West Virginia.

In a bakery. I know, right?

Page HDJ - Woods Market

Obviously for most West Virginians, the first question that we have to answer is "where in the @#?! is Page?" The answer to that is easy: Between Montgomery and Oak Hill. The REAL question should be "How in the @#?! did you find this place?" The answer to that questions is that a small email campaign waged by Fayette County readers persuaded me that this little place in this little place that is between two other slightly larger little places just might have a great hot dog. So I had bookmarked it and the first time I found myself in Mongummy at lunch time I decided to hop over Deepwater Mountain and check it out.

As you can see from the picture, from the outside this is not a place that you might expect to find hot dogs, and without the aforementioned letters from readers I am positive that I would have never darkened the doorway of this establishment. Not that it looks terribly scary, it's just that it looks like every small community market I have ever been in and I felt certain that I knew exactly how it would smell inside, and I knew that the people that worked there would recognize that I was not local and watch every move I made in the store - which was exactly what happened when I went in (every time I go into one of these places I feel like the guy working there just might be on the news someday, ala Norman Bates).

But there are some rewards that are worth the risk and the promise of a good WVHD is worth a considerable amount of emotional discomfort, if not bodily harm. I'm not sure that this hot dog, though, was quite worth the risk.

Don't get me wrong, the hot dog was not without merit. My biggest complaint is that the chili was sparsely applied - so sparse that I really couldn't tell much about its taste except that it is heavy on onions. The slaw was finely chopped and wonderful tasting, but also served sparingly. The bun was nicely steamed and overall it was a good Utilitarian Dog, but hardly worth the trip to Page - even from Montgomery.

I'll rate Woods Market's hot dogs at a generous 3.5 Weenies, simply for being an outpost of Weeniedom on the rural Fayette County frontier. If you are in the neighborhood, stop and try it.