Food Friday: Hot dogs of Troy
Indignity Vol. 5, No. 42
FOOD FRIDAY DEP'T.
An Encounter With Famous Lunch
Joe MacLeod: OK, so it’s FOOD FRIDAY and I am wondering how your drive from NYC to Montreal went, and also foodwise, did you stop at any of my recommended rapid-luncheon spots which should have been mid-journey, in the Albany–Schenectady–Troy “Capital District?”
Tom Scocca: The drive from New York up to Montreal went even more smoothly than the thoroughly documented return trip did; the biggest problem I can remember was that when it came time to ditch the car, the buttons on the parking-slip machine were so SUV-optimized that I had to get out of the Corolla to reach them. But yes, along the way we needed to get a quick lunch somewhere within your original home territory, and so I followed your very first recommendation and took the short detour to downtown Troy to try the Famous Lunch restaurant and its World Famous Hot Dogs.
Joe: Hot dogs! With sauce! And onions! And mustard!
Tom: In the difficult mental transition from the semi-hypnotic semi-solitude of the interstate to the frenzy of the lunch counter at peak lunchtime, I botched the ordering and got them with sauce only, rather than the works. I realized my error while I was still waiting for the dogs, but I didn't want to be an even bigger boob by interrupting the extremely busy staff to change it.
Joe: Ohhhh
Tom: I had already committed a minor faux pas by asking, 10 or so minutes into sitting at the counter, if we were supposed to be ordering up at the register. The answer was no, they were just too slammed to get to new customers. In the end it took us 20 minutes or something before our quick lunch was in front of us, but I would not let that deter me from making another stop there at all. Famous Lunch deserves to be famous!
Joe: Classic “nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded” action. Well, at least if you were gonna lose two outta three toppings, you ended up with the active ingredient! What did you think of the sauce on the dog?
Tom: Partly my mouth let out the words "with sauce" because my eyes were so taken by the sauce being served around me. The sauce looks like a chili but somehow falls outside the chili flavor profile? It is excellent.
Joe: Absolutely nothing like a “chili dog” sauce a la Los Angeles. Every restaurant in “Metroland” has a slightly different version. My spot is Newest Lunch in Schenectady. A tomato-y tang but no spice. Mike’s on Erie Blvd in Sch’dy has the spiciest iteration in the area in my experience. In Troy, I think Hot Dog Charlie’s is still in business, and they do mini-dogs with a unique watery, bitter sauce that you either love or hate.
Chopped onion and mustard complete the experience. Next time! Also I don’t know why so many joints up there have names that end in LUNCH.
Another one of my preferred spots, Broadway Lunch in Schenectady, on, well, Broadway.
Tom: I think specifically where I went astray on the ordering was that I was entirely focused on making sure that the prominently billed "Zippy Sauce" and the prominently visible chili-like substance were one and the same. That is to say, we never studied an actual menu. I just guessed three dogs would suit me, and my teenage companion ordered two of the sausage-peppers-onion sandwiches, extrapolating from the size of the dogs and the $4-something price of the sausage sandwich that two might be better than one. Then I traded him one dog for half of a sandwich.
But what was it about Famous Lunch that made it the first option that came to mind?
Joe: It has an up-to-date rep from friends in the area, and it seemed good for a quick diversion off the Thruway/Northway, whatever you were on at that point. I woulda sent you to Broadway Lunch if it wasn’t so far west off your trip.
But I did sorta confine my thoughts to HOT DOG WITH SAUCE because I haven’t had one in awhile and I am jonesin.
Tom: It was a really easy diversion. But also it was a gratifying lunch stop. Famous Lunch is clearly proud to be doing its thing, and the thing is absolutely a thing—the tiny dogs, the stools at the counter, the specific promotional loyalty to RC Cola, the sign on the front reading WORLD FAMOUS HOT DOGS directly above the awning reading WORLD FAMOUS HOTDOGS SINCE 1932—but it is not at all in quotation marks. It wasn't like eating at Katz's Delicatessen. People were there to eat lunch and the staff was there to make and sell lunch.
Joe: Yes! No self-conscious ripoff bullshit.
But wait, you say “tiny dogs?” You mean compared to a footlong, or did they have the teensy ones?
Tom: It's itty-bitty dogs; I just looked at the website and apparently the house record is somebody eating 50 in 19 minutes and 34 seconds.
And that was definitely part of the whole situation. Everybody involved seems to be operating on the principle that it's funny, or at least fun, to be eating some specifically chosen, possibly large quantity of wee hot dogs instead of just two dogs or three dogs a la Gray's Papaya or whatever. Ordering 10 doesn't seem unheard-of, but with the sauce to consider and no option for a post-lunch nap, I wanted to keep my goals modest.
Joe: Wow, I didn’t realize they were still rockin’ the tiny dogs! Good to know. I shoulda guessed when you said you ordered three. So, for me, three tiny dogs would be a half-dog shy of an order of regular-size dogs at Broadway Lunch.
I am making this about me and my hot dog order. I need tiny dog lunch.
Tom: I had my eye on the tray or bin of rice pudding in the refrigerator in front of my spot at the counter, so I was trying to keep that option open, but after my two dogs and half a sandwich—and, crucially, my cup of coffee—I was basically replete. The coffee!
I needed caffeine to get me the rest of the way out of the country, so I ordered a coffee, and they grabbed a nice compact and sturdy little mug and asked if I wanted cream, and when I said yes they pulled a long shot of cream out of a metal udder on the rear counter and then topped it off with coffee and handed it over. I was only aiming for something to keep me alert without souring my stomach too much, but then I had a sip. Again, people are just in there getting a fast cheap lunch, nobody's doing a bit, and it took all the self-discipline I could muster not to pull a straight-out sincere Special Agent Dale Cooper out loud where I sat. It was a damn fine cup of coffee!
Joe: I feel like heavy-turnover places, old-school lunch counters, have good coffee because it just never sits for very long? Also some places shake salt on the grounds in the filter and that does something.
Tom: Maybe that was it. I ended up channeling the Agent Cooper urge into simply ordering a small coffee to go when I went to the register to settle up. And settling up left me with change from a $20. I didn't need more coffee, but I wanted to keep drinking it for the taste and warmth, and that decision didn't come back to trouble me at bedtime.
I'm always a little wary from my youthful memories of drinking late-night coffee at the Cloverleaf aka Cleaverloaf Diner in Aberdeen, only to realize afterward that the No. 1 purpose of that coffee was to jack overnight truckers into maximum awareness.
And that was Famous Lunch! Except also, speaking of things I've mistrusted all my adult life, I need to give the highest praise to their exhaust fan system. I have a real dread of quick-lunch spots because the meal might go by in 15 minutes but too often your clothes are going to smell like the griddle and fryer for hours if not days afterward. Sitting there for those extra 20 minutes before ordering, watching order after order of fries going into and out of the hot oil maybe six feet away, I was bracing myself for my parka to carry Famous Lunch with it for the rest of the winter. But not at all. Nothing lingers but the memory.
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, March 6, 2025
★★ Morning was humid to the brink of sweatiness, so the windows had to be opened to try to get the air moving. On the forecast graphs, the turn in the weather looked straightforward: the wind steadily driving off the humidity. The results, though, were erratic to look at. A clear interval came on, but a whole new batch of clouds came in behind it. The temperature stayed at 50 even as the moisture fell, yet it was chilly to walk in. Buds, taking the long view, fattened expectantly on the trees.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
HERE IS TODAY'S Indignity Morning Podcast.
Tom Scocca
Click on this box to find the Indignity Morning Podcast archive.
TOM SCOCCA
ADVICE DEP'T.
GOT SOMETHING YOU need to justify to yourself, or to the world at large? Other columnists are here to judge you, but The Sophist is here to tell you why you’re right. Direct your questions to The Sophist, at indignity@indignity.net, and get the answers you want.
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of a sandwich selected from Cook Book of Practical and Tested Baking and Cooking Recipes, Prepared by The Ladies Aid of the Lutheran Hospital, Fort Wayne, Ind., published in 1927, and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
CHICKEN AND CELERY SANDWICHES
Put through the finest knife of the meat chopper, 1 cup cold chicken; add to it 1 cup of celery cut very fine and 4 tablespoons of mayonnaise; butter rounds of white bread. Spread.
—Mrs. S. C. Lee.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net.
