But as I’m standing in front of the cart near the corner of 14th and H streets NW, owner LemLem Merri tells me she hasn’t sold Sabrett franks for nearly 15 years.
The Eritrean native shows me the bright-yellow label from her package of dogs. In capital letters, the label reads: WASHINGTON FOOD VENDING BEEF FRANKFURTERS. They’re made by a Brooklyn company called Golden D Brand. The ingredient list starts well enough — beef, water and salt — but quickly ventures into chemistry-geek territory with terms such as sorbitol (a sugar substitute), isolated soy protein (a binder), hydrolyzed vegetable protein (a flavor enhancer), smoke flavoring (who needs a smoker?) and sodium nitrate (a preservative).
Merri says many District street carts sell these franks, which a quick call to the company confirms. Thousands of Golden D links are hawked on our streets monthly.
Over in Arlington, in a corner booth at Tallula restaurant, Nathan Anda has trotted out a couple of cutting boards loaded with his line of all-natural hot dogs, which he makes with cuts of locally raised beef and pork that he butchers in-house. He grinds the meat, emulsifies it with ice, seasons it, stuffs it into natural sheep casings and even tops the finished franks with his house-made condiments. Anda, in short, can rattle off every single ingredient in his dogs, and none of them comes from a chemical company.
“They’re all in the style of a hot dog, but different,” Anda says. “There are no nitrates or even anything that could be a substitute for it.”
Formerly chef at Tallula and EatBar, Anda is now the muscle-manipulating machine behind Red Apron Butchery, the cured-meat-and-sausage concept created by the Neighborhood Restaurant Group. Anda, 34, has produced hot dogs and half-smokes for two years, selling them at locations as diverse as the Penn Quarter FreshFarm Market and the Passenger bar near the Washington Convention Center. But since March, he’s been quietly developing a line of links that he officially debuted last week as part of NRG’s new Wharf Farmers Market on the Southwest Waterfront. Anda even has his own hot dog cart, with a branded name, which should be easy to remember. It’s “Frank.”
Anda sells five specialty dogs, each with a name that riffs off the cart’s brand. There’s the Franz, a Swiss-style brat stuffed with cheddar cheese and covered in a tangle of onions braised in a milk stout from Colorado’s Left Hand Brewing; the Yo Frankie!, a version of the Coney Island dog with yellow mustard, diced onions and Anda’s own sweetened chili for better balance; the Francisco, a chorizo link lounging in a cheddar cheese sauce (Anda’s fresh take on Cheez Whiz, because he has a “hard time opening a can and using it”) and topped with a smoked jalapeno and onion relish.
_1337038921.jpg)
Loading...
Comments