Many moons ago, in the Age of Iron Butterfly, with my dad, and on the way to the old, now-disappeared Chicago Stadium at 1800 W. Madison Street, I tasted the best-ever tube steak - a "Poly" (Polish sausage) for eternity. It had a crisp outer skin, and was bursting with fatty juice inside. Served on a toasty bun, and slathered with hot grilled onions. I think we'd already had dinner, but were on our way to a Chicago Blackhawks hockey game at The Stadium, and what can I say? Mom wasn't there to kibosh it as decadent, which it was.
From time to time afterward, with Dad, I'd score a similar treat on Maxwell Street, near Roosevelt and Halsted. The long-gone Maxwell Street Market, near the University of Illinois Circle Campus, was famous for crisp-skinned Polish sausages with greasy grilled onions, served from mobile home trailers up on cinderblocks. Nearby were vendors peddling stolen shoes and clothes, myriad hot hubcaps and auto parts, blues and r&b LPs, copulating keychain figures, and sundry junk of all kinds.
The big attraction at Maxwell Street Market, aside from the tube steaks, was live electric bands, playing kickass Chicago blues in beaten down gravelly lots with car battery-powered generators supplying the electricity for the amps. Every 45 minutes or so, the band would have to stop while the generators were recharged from the car battery.
It's all half milion dollar-plus townhomes there now, and I don't begrudge that, because I'm gentrification friendly, and time, ya know, marches on. But the grilled Polish sausages from Maxwell Street are hard to forget; likewise the mujik.
In Seattle, we can't be too, too choosy about gen-u-wine streetside hot dogs, as they're fairly scarce. We go more for fake Ital-yun here. Fortunately, though, on East Marginal Way in Seattle, is the landmark Matt's Chili Dogs. Toothsome Chicago-style dogs, slathered will all the right stuff. I went the other day. Ingest the many fine reviews. All eight Seattle-area locations here.
Here's the money shot - a New York-style Dog up top, (grilled red onions, mustard); and a Chicago Dog down low (onions, mustard, that crucial fluorescent green pickle relish, sport pepper and a pickle slice). They only forgot the celery salt.
Quite tasty. The East Marginal Way spot is the quintessential Seattle industrial zone fast food dive. Get there before noon, if you want an inside seat. It's just up the road apiece from Boeing's. As they still call it here. I'd recommend a Chicago Dog, a New York Dog, and a Chili-Dog. $2.59 each. Fine dining alright.
TECHNORATI TAGS: HOT DOGS, CHICAGO, SEATTLE, MATT'S, CHICAGO STADIUM, MAXWELL STREET MARKET, LIVE BLUES, STOLEN AUTO PARTS
Posted by Matt Rosenberg at March 4, 2006 10:52 PM
Stumbled upon Matt’s site during an erratic March blizzard...at my computer, in a tiny town on the big Lake Superior in northern Wisconsin. Even though I rarely eat meat and am somewhat frightened to imagine what is in a hot dog, I sure did like the pics of Seattle hot dogs! And were I there, would GO OUT AND GET ONE (or two).
Matt-- you are a very interesting guy. Thanks for writing.