A sports stadium isn't designed to be a place for gourmet food. Traditionally, dressing hot dogs is rather simple: a few basic ingredients is typically what you would find.
As we'll learn, there is an ideal way to dress a hot dog and, well, an attempt that needs a lot of improvement.
Let's start with how to dress a hot dog.
Toronto has a tradition of hot dog carts. The city's food truck scene isn't as developed as comparable other cities, but the hot dog is more definitely king, especially in the downtown core. So when Torontoians get a hot dog, they have plentiful options for dressing a hot dog.
So when fans of the MLB Toronto Blue Jays and CFL Toronto Argonauts fans go to Rogers Centre, they get great options for dressing a hot dog.
Hot peppers, jalapeno peppers, onions, relish, sauerkraut, greens, black olives, pickled red onions, salsa, and a few sauces.
Fancy mustards and relishes as well.
The classics are included as well.
The options at Rogers Centre rise above the level of the vendor carts. High praise given the great options on the hot dog carts.
Even at these hot dog vendor carts in the downtown area, you see onions, relish, sauerkraut, hot peppers, as well as ketchup, mustard, and other sauces.
On the other side of the glass is TD Place, brand new home of the CFL Ottawa RedBlacks, the league's newest franchise. The stadium is very nice looking, but as we'll see, they missed a step or two.
Ottawa's new TD Place is a beautiful stadium in a city that needed a great place to play Canadian football. The place is new, so there are some kinks to work out.
You might be excited by a relish container. I would have done too if you could get any relish from them. To be fair, I tried two different condiments areas at TD Place. Same results.
Ketchup, mustard, and relish were available in packets, the same packets you would find at fast food places and some high school football stadiums.
Ketchup and mustard are bad enough in packets, but they are liquid. Relish out of a packet is messier than it sounds.
No onions or any kind to be found. For those who don't put ketchup on hot dogs, your 2 choices are mustard and relish. Just hope your $4 hot dog is still hot by the time you get your hot dog dressed.
photos credit: me
Comments