474 Bergen St.
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Visited: May 9, 2010

What better way to spend Mother’s Day than by subwaying it over to Brooklyn to get hot dogs? I can’t take the credit/responsibility for the idea of going to Bark. A friend of mine and I have done all of these Food Tour stops together, occasionally with the company of others, too. I think we’d had in mind to venture into hot dogs even before our lackluster, memorable-for-the-wrong-reasons trip up to Meriden for steamed hams. He found the listing for this place online and sent it to me. It was in either the description or a review where the hot dogs were described as “artisanal wieners,” which oddly enough was already the name of my fantasy baseball team. The phrase alone made the trip necessary.

Bark is located on Bergen Street, where the street stretches towards its neighboring avenue at a steep angle. It’s a little bit commercial, not just residential in the more or less typical street vs. avenue fashion. It’s my favorite kind of commercial street, too, with the buildings not very tall at all, just large enough for me to know there’s something going on upstairs.

We were there just after noon and the place was almost full. No lines, just plenty of people sitting at the wooden tables. We got a spot by the window. If the patrons didn’t give away that we were in Brooklyn, the signage surely did: The management wanted to make perfectly clear that the food was all local and organic, if only to justify the steep, steep prices. I furrowed my brow in the expectation that the food’s being local and organic would interfere with its being magically delicious. My concerns were eventually allayed even before eating, because this place sells beer, too. Crisis averted.

Onto the meal itself:

That’s not my hand to the left, but it is my food to the right. I got a plain hot dog, called the “Classic” and the self-explanatory “Chili Cheese Dog.” The best part of the meal, not even sadly, was the bun. It was toasted and flavorful in itself. The “artisanal wiener” was fine. Just okay. If my conscience and heart appreciated the healthier ingredients, my taste buds tolerated them. The toppings on my one dog were a little odd, not bad, just odd: The chili was not the hearty mess I’ve come to expect out of chili. The meat was chopped more finely and did the job, but did not exceed expectations. The cheddar was white, just for the hell of it, and there were onions, purple and chopped and, if not raw, rawish.

I guess I got what I came for, something a little bit different. For over $4 for a plain dog, though, and over $6 for the Chili Cheese Dog, it wasn’t really worth it. Would I have been more satisfied getting as many as 10 hot dogs for the same price somewhere else? Probably. But I wasn’t entirely disappointed, or even disappointed at all, really. I figured they might try to reinvent the wheel. The result was just a tick above average. Not among the best I’ve had, but an interesting try.

GRAFT: Hot Dogs
1. Bark – Brooklyn, NY