West Coast Eats: A Smash at Pink’s Hot Dogs, Literally

DATE: Summer 2015

LOCATION: Pink's Hot Dogs 09 N. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles, CA

Hello again, foodie followers! I have to apologize for the severe lack of food blogging, it’s been quite a busy year. It’s been a year since my West Coast adventure back in August 2015, and I still have many more food ventures to share from it… Not to mention my fellow Sundry Tomato, Esther, will be taking part of this blog to the south, with a focus on Austin, Texas! But fear not my NYC foodies, I will eventually return this to our NYC home base once the West Coast Eats edition is complete :) Or I’ll try to sprinkle a few in here & there. (Oooh sprinkles)

So on a sunny LA day, we decided to stop for an in-between meals “snack” at Pink’s Hot Dogs, a Hollywood Legend Since 1939. Pink’s is a very casual but iconic spot where you walk and line up outside, and once your food is ready, grab your tray and head to the back and pick any table. We stood on line for about a half-hour roughly, and while that is a long time to wait for a hot dog, it must’ve been worth it with all these other people willing to wait so long too. As we stood several feet away from the curb, we studied each item on the menu so we’d know what to order by the time we got to the grill. Hubs and I ordered 3 hot dogs between ourselves, ignorantly thinking these dogs would be similar in size to our NYC Nathan’s or Sabretts. But these are definitely not your ballpark types. These Polish hot dogs were packed with meat and toppled with ingredients. After we finally got our food, we bypassed the indoor seating and headed towards the back area to enjoy our food al fresco style. There was a good number of round picnic tables with umbrellas to sit at.

I can’t remember exactly which 3 items we ordered, 1 was a special off their regular menu, another I cannot recall even after looking at their menu today, but one I definitely remember we ordered was:

THE OZZY SPICY DOG - spicy Polish dog, nacho cheese, American cheese, grilled onions, guacamole & chopped tomatoes

Pink’s Hot Dogs has made me rethink how all hot dogs should be! Whether you like it simple and plain or loaded with toppings, there is no doubt that these are super tasty and well-worth the wait. So worth it that, we eventually returned to our meal after the chaos from a car crash, that had us running away and forced us to abandon our food!

As we were sat outside in the back area, we heard the screeching of brakes on a nearby street. We couldn’t see what really happened at the time, and had to only rely on what we could hear. Which was the loud, distinct sound of glass shattering, chairs hastily being pushed back, and people running away screaming from an impending collision. We couldn’t tell if the car had stopped yet but in the moment, it sounded like the car had crashed all the way THROUGH Pink’s and possibly coming towards our back area. Like the other patrons, we ran in the opposite direction just in case the car was still careening through. After several minutes of panic and everyone frantically searching for their loved ones, we were able to breathe a huge sigh of relief that nobody was severely hurt!! I had feared that the car barreled through where we had just been not too long before, and imagining all those people who had been waiting on line by the curb, hurt. Luckily, the car had just jumped the curb and it did NOT crash the counter. One person was scraped and limping, possibly getting bruised & twisted from running away, but thankfully there weren’t any life threatening injuries. As TMZ had covered this here: the lady interviewed in the video expressed the same sentiment a lot of us agreed on and felt that day. It was a miracle nobody was hurt considering how bad this really could have been. And once everybody was able to recollect themselves and be sure nobody else was hurt, we all still were able to go back to our abandoned food and enjoy our delicious dogs!

Bottom Line: Pink’s Hot Dogs was quite a smash! The plump, juicy dogs alone are great and even better with the different ingredients to top it with. Don’t be fooled, one hot dog is good enough to eat based on the sheer amount. Especially if you get any of the perfectly fried onion rings or fries. But if you really want to indulge and try more than one, be forewarned these are mutant serving sizes!

Happy Noshing, Jeanne