Is this footlong dog worth $18?
Or is Kobe frank just your average wiener?
By Monica Eng
Tribune staff reporter
Published September 7, 2006
It was certainly the biggest wiener I'd ever seen.
The Kobe beef hot dog at Rockit Bar and Grill (22 W. Hubbard St.; 312-645-6000) checks in at 12 inches long and 1 inch in diameter--one formidable frank, to be sure. We came across this "Rockit Dogg" recently and thought it offered a novel twist on Kobe mania. But could any footlong dog really live up to an $18 price tag?
The short answer: No.
Despite its impressive girth (equal to your average jumbo dog), super juicy interior, snappy casing and rich garlicky flavor, it doesn't seem like something that should cost four times as much as your average Chicago-style footlong. Besides, Kobe (or wagyu as this beef from cattle raised outside Japan's Kobe prefecture is called) is prized for its tenderness and fat marbling so it seems like a waste of its finest attributes to grind it up into burgers and, even worse, to process it into a hot dog.
And how does it stack up against your standard footlong wiener?
When we taste tested the Rockit Dogg against a regular footlong from Murphy's Dogs (1211 W. Belmont Ave., 773-935-2882), the Murphy pup won, paws down. This skinny charbroiled Vienna link of 100-percent non-gourmet beef topped with mustard, onions, celery salt, tomatoes, sport peppers and pickle spear was Chicago-style hot dog heaven. And a comparative steal at $4.55.
For some, though, the value of eating a footlong Kobe frank is not strictly--or even remotely--about the flavor of the food, but rather the experience.
The dog has only been on the menu for about six months but, according to management, it has quickly become one of the top sellers among Rockit's hip and hungry patrons. For them, $18 might seem real bargain, given the dish's conversation value (can you say first-date icebreaker?), fancy condiments (it comes with chimichurri, cranberry mustard and housemade sauerkraut), decadent truffle fries and Rockit's coolacious vibe.
In other words, sometimes it's not the quality of the meat that matters, it's the story that you'll be able to tell your friends later.
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meng@tribune.com
