I’ll do a post about my diet in due course, but in summary I’m doing the Slow Carb Diet and it’s working rather well.
A major upside of this diet is that I get one ‘cheat day’ a week, where I’m encouraged, nay forced to eat stuff that’s off plan. I think Cheat Day is a bad name, as I’m not cheating, it’s part of the process. I’m therefore renaming ‘Cheat Day’ to ‘Reset Day’.
Anyway, this means that I save up my junk food for one day a week, then go a bit nuts. I’m a massive burger fan, and usually a burger pops up on my reset days, but I’ve been itching to try Big Apple Hot Dogs since I saw that they had set up a hatch in Camden Lock Market. Their site doesn’t seem to show the new place, just the cart. It can be found here, opposite Gilgamesh.
The Saturday before last, I wandered over to Big Apple (about a 10 minute walk from my flat in Camden) and the nice chap behind the counter said that they only had a Huge Pole and some small sausages left on the grill, but that he was putting some more on if I could wait 10 minutes. Since I’d been waiting all week, an extra 10 mins was hardly going to hurt me.
I went for the Big Frank, an all pork frankfurter sausage. The smells emanating from the grill were delectable, and it was very pleasant sitting on the chairs provided watching the world go by as my hunger pangs grew.
Eventually my dog was ready. The onions were put on the bottom underneath the dog, then I was free to add my toppings. I’m very much a ‘drag it through the garden’ person when it comes to toppings, so I added French’s Mustard, Pickles, relish & sauerkraut.
As ever I was too eager to get stuck in, so I took a mahoosive bite, before I remembered to take a picture. Half eaten food will probably be a feature of this blog, so be prepared!
As you can see, I didn’t go easy with the extras! However, all those extra flavours didn’t overpower the Frank. It was meaty and a little bit spicy, with a great snap and texture. I’m not a Hot Dog connoisseur by any stretch, but this was the best Hog Dog I’ve had in years, possibly beating my previous best which was a great Hot Dog I had in Chicago. Having said that, that was 10 years ago, so my nostalgia has probably made it better than it was.
I polished off the dog in double quick time, and seriously thought about getting another!
However, just next door I spotted a cart advertising Cronuts, which I’d heard about but not tried. Now Camden Market has a long and often deserved reputation for terrible tourist food, but with the new section opening up (more on this to come) I had hopes that this cart was going to give me a slice of deep fried heaven.
I chose a Caramel and Pistachio glazed Cronut. It was… ok. Rather greasy & heavy, it was full of pastry & fat so it tasted pretty good, but the texture was pretty hard going.
I should have had the second dog!