Jim,

I wouldn't make a one to one comparison between fRedhots and Hot Doug's. They are two different animals; both good in their own right. fRedhots is more of a straight ahead hot dog stand which happens to serve novelty sausages as well as the standard fare. Don't get me wrong, fRedhots is very good, but it's not going for the same exotica as Hot Doug's. I'd also recommend against getting Merkt's cheese on Fred's fries. His are thinner and more "frite-like" than a typical double fry hot dog place. I'd instead recommend getting one or two of their dipping sauces to go with the frites. The beef (and the debris sandwich) are very good as well but spiced differently than a typical Italian Beef.

thanks for the tips Steve, especially about the Merkt's, after I had some fries with the Merkt's @ the Brat Stop I have been craving a similar version, it doesnt sound like these are it.

Ill be going in with an open mind & for an inexpensive lunch before I spend a couple hours @ the Yardhouse while my wife and daughter do some shopping.

jimswside wrote:thanks for the tips Steve, especially about the Merkt's, after I had some fries with the Merkt's @ the Brat Stop I have been craving a similar version, it doesnt sound like these are it.

Ill be going in with an open mind & for an inexpensive lunch before I spend a couple hours @ the Yardhouse while my wife and daughter do some shopping.

Yeah, Fred's fries are much too delicate and crispy to cover with a gloppy blanket of cheesy goo, if you ask me. If you're looking for that kind of cheesy fry experience, I'd highly recommend Poochie's, WASC or Wiener's Circle as best-in-class purveyors of the Merkt's cheese fry experience.

Hi,

Is the Merkt cheese for fries the very same stuff we buy in the store? I have sometimes thought of melting some in microwave to have with fries I brought home. Unfortunately this thought never translates into action because either I don't have fries or I don't have Merkt's.

Regards,

made a visit here for lunch yesterday, packed around 12:30, but quick table turnover, and quick service. The Chicago style fedhot was the best item we tasted. Nice dog, fresh toppings, etc. W/ fries for about $4 not bad. Also ordered a kids meal for my daughter(fredhot ketchup only), fries, and a drink for under $5. Good deal there. Fries were good, perfectly fried and tasty.

I went with the gyros dog. It was ok, tasted more like a brat than gyros, it was ok. Topped with gyros sauce, diced onion, and feta.

Nice owner came over and chatted asking how I liked the food, etc. Nice guy, seemed to carea bout his place and feedback from customers. A place I was glad to go since I was in the area, and I would go again if I am back up that way to have another dog, see what special sausages are on the menu, or to try the debris po'boy.

fFredhot w/ fries:



gyros dog:

Hi there, I don't post too often, but I just wanted to say what a nice dinner I had at Fredhots tonight. The owner is really friendly and I talked with him about how I read about the place on here. We also discussed WASC some (of which I am also a big fan) and he said something along the lines of that he was friends with Gus through the industry and that Gus's dipping sauces had given him some inspiration to take it up a notch.

Well, the sauces were excellent. He gave me a sample of a pumpkin pie aioli that initially I wasn't too interested in but ended up loving. I had the filipino banana pepper one along with a thai aioli as well. All delicious and the fries had a great texture and were still good and ungreasy throughout my whole meal, as I ate slowly.

The elk sausage was really good too--onions carmelized just right, nice cranberry chutney. My coworker said he enjoyed the reindeer sausage.

Anyways big thumbs up to Fredhots, both the proprietor and the meal.

PlayItGeorge wrote:he was friends with Gus

Was??? Damn...hell of a way to find out. Guess that woud explain the Facebook Unfriending.

gp60004 wrote:

PlayItGeorge wrote:he was friends with Gus

Was??? Damn...hell of a way to find out. Guess that woud explain the Facebook Unfriending.

well, if it's on facebook, it's gotta be true!

Gus,

I would make a friend request and see what happens.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:Gus,

I would make a friend request and see what happens.

I was actually joking. Fred and I are good.

Haha, sorry about that. IS, not WAS!

Gus, I live around the corner from your restaurant. Next time I am in, I will introduce myself. I want to stop by soon to do a dipping sauce comparison.

Caught this on my DVR tonight. Tim Allen was in town over the holidays and made a stop at fRedhots, made enough of an impression that he mentioned fRedhots on the Jay Leno show last night.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/118575/the-ja ... =1116:1176

A buddy and I went to fRedhots today, and it was top notch. Between us we had the currywurst in a pretzel bun, the rabbit and venison dog, the salmon dog, the debris po' boy, and the frites with garlic aioli and thai chili aioli. The standout winners were probably the currywurst or the rabbit and venison dog and the frites, but everything was pretty awesome.

I will definitely be making the trip again. I honestly couldn't pick a favorite between fRedhots and Hot Doug's, however fRedhots is open on Sunday, and the line doesn't extend around the block, both of which are a huge plus.

mike

Stopped by last weekend and had one of the best polish sausages ever. Perfect char on the outside, resounding snap to every bite, and excellent flavor and texture. What brand of sausage do they serve? it was heavenly.

fRedhots was humming this afternoon, while fRed worked the room and register like a seasoned politico ('encased meats for mayor' would be fine in my book).

I enjoyed the merguez at his recommendation, a remarkably lean and fresh-tasting sausage on a soft bun with a lovely mint chermoula, but was particularly impressed by the debris fries, which were perfectly prepped with the fries still hot and crunchy, and the rustic barbecue sauce balancing the classic spicing of the meat rather than drowning it. I was lucky to get to sample this fall's batch of scratch curry sauce for the upcoming Oktoberfest menu, and having enjoyed several currywurst in their natural habitat, it seems right on. Pending no further appliance adventures, I'll have to come up with another excuse to get back to Glenview this fall.

I think I'm going here for lunch. What's your favorite fry dipping sauce? If I had the fries before, I think I had them naked.

And if anyone has a good excuse I can use for going when there are two upcoming pigouts and I've been practicing for weeks, I'd appreciate it.

Pie Lady wrote:I think I'm going here for lunch. What's your favorite fry dipping sauce? If I had the fries before, I think I had them naked.

And if anyone has a good excuse I can use for going when there are two upcoming pigouts and I've been practicing for weeks, I'd appreciate it.

My favorite is the wasabi and I get it every time. YMMV but give it a try.

You may also want to get some Merkt's on the side!

Whenever I go to this place, I get the Chicago style dog with everything, and the french fries with the Merkt's Cheddar. Did I say the fries with the Merkt's Cheddar ? These are definitely some of the best cheese fries I've ever had.

And then you have Pizano's Pizza across the street. Pizano's makes the best buttercrust thin crust pizza I've ever had. Their deep dish is pretty good, too, but you have to order it with extra tomato sauce because for whatever reason, the recipe at Pizano's uses FAR LESS tomato sauce on their deep dish pizza compared to their sibling at Lou Malnati's. The buttercrust is extra at Pizano's, but it's well worth it. Finally, the sausage used on the pizza is from the legendary Anichini Brothers Sausage Company and, in my opinion, is better than the sausage over at Lou Malnati's.

deepdish wrote:in my opinion, is better than the sausage over at Lou Malnati's.

Almost anything would be.

LAZ wrote:

deepdish wrote:in my opinion, is better than the sausage over at Lou Malnati's.

Almost anything would be.

Those are fightin' words

Those sure are fighting words; but, it's not worth fighting over. Thank God this is Chicago because there is definitely room for everything from Lou Malnati's to Burt's Place, and everywhere in between.

I personally prefer Lou Malnati's, even though the Anichini Brothers Sausage used at Pizano's, the original Pizzeria Uno/Due, and Gino's East are better sausage recipes. Lou's sausage, while good, is just not as good as the above mentioned places. That said, I think Lou Malnati's buttercrust is far superior to Uno's, Gino's East, Burt's Place, and Pequod's. Lou's buttercrust can only be matched by their sibling at Pizano's. And Lou Malnati's chunky tomatoes are absolutely spectacular.

Again, this is just my opinion, and Chicago is definitely big enough for all of the above. We truly do live in a Pizza Paradise.

deepdish wrote:Chicago is definitely big enough for all of the above. We truly do live in a Pizza Paradise.

Agreed.

Although I had to restrain myself recently when two other food writers asserted that deepdish pizza was now "just for tourists."

LAZ: I can't stand when people say that deep dish pizza is "just for tourists." It annoys me to no end. I recognize that most Chicagoans eat our thin crust cut into squares more often then deep dish, but that doesn't make deep dish "tourist pizza." Deep dish pizza is mostly consumed by tourists if you're eating at the original Pizzeria Uno/Due or even Gino's East downtown simply because both of those establishments are located in River North where the vast majority of hotels are located. And who stays at hotels ? Tourists.

On the flipside, the people eating at Pequods, Burt's Place, Art of Pizza, and Pizano's are NOT tourists. And I know you don't like Lou's, but the mere fact that they have 31 locations, mostly outside of the Chicago city limits, widely suggests that the vast majority of the people eating at these locations are not tourists. These are all people who were born and raised in and around Chicago who grew up on Lou Malnati's. Everyone I know and love eats deep dish pizza from all of the above places and none of us are tourists.

Therefore, deep dish pizza, for the most part, is consumed by people like myself who were born and raised here in Chicago. Deep dish pizza is a true Chicago legend, and they were here FIRST in 1943 before all of our legendary thin crust places even existed. And that's not a dig at our thin crust because I love Chicago style thin crust pizza. It's just a fact- deep dish was here first- before Vito and Nick's, Pat's, Villa Nova, Bill's, etc.

My son and I had a great, 'while-Xmas-shopping' dinner last night at fRedhots. We had a Cuban-style pressed burger (only the bun was actually pressed), a smoked brat with caramelized onions, kraut and dusseldorf mustard, some Vienna dogs and an order of frites. Everything was delicious. The brat was a bit dense and crumbly but the flavor was still great. The burger -- topped with mayo, mustard, pickles and cheese -- was juicy and the fries were crispy and as good as I've ever had at fRedhots. The natural-casing Vienna dogs had a great snap to them and the pillowy, steamed poppyseed buns were textbook. I really wanted to try more but we were beyond full and couldn't even finish what we initially ordered. Even though we arrived right before their closing time of 7 pm, we were welcomed warmly and service was great. The total bill for our dinner was $26, which was a great value.

=R=

deepdish wrote:LAZ: I can't stand when people say that deep dish pizza is "just for tourists." It annoys me to no end. I recognize that most Chicagoans eat our thin crust cut into squares more often then deep dish, but that doesn't make deep dish "tourist pizza." gDeep dish pizza is mostly consumed by tourists if you're eating at the original Pizzeria Uno/Due or even Gino's East downtown simply because both of those establishments are located in River North where the vast majority of hotels are located. And who stays at hotels ? Tourists.

On the flipside, the people eating at Pequods, Burt's Place, Art of Pizza, and Pizano's are NOT tourists. And I know you don't like Lou's, but the mere fact that they have 31 locations, mostly outside of the Chicao city limits, widely suggests that the vast majority of the people eating at these locations are not tourists. These are all people who were born and raised in and around Chicago who grew up on Lou Malnati's. Everyone I know and love eats deep dish pizza from all of the above places and none of us are tourists.

I agree vehemently. There are too many deep-dish pizza parlors in places where tourists (and snobbish food writers) never go and too many Chicagoans who feel as strongly about it as we do to dismiss deep-dish as tourist fare. The food snobs can have their lah-di-dah, 00-imported-flour, burnt-crust Neapolitan crackers ... give me 2-inch-thick Chicago-style stuffed pizza!

I'm not a fan of Malnati's sausage (particularly in the thick pucklike disk format) but I do like the butter crust.

Yeah, I've slowly become a Pizano's deep dish fan. As long as I order extra tomato sauce (because when ordered the "regular" way, there is hardly any sauce), then their deep dish pizza is near perfect. Pizano's recipe is made by Anichini Brothers Sausage and it's just an all around better sausage than Lou Malnati's. And it's cut into pieces, unlike Lou's.

Out of all the above deep dish places, which place do you think is the best ? Between fRedhots and Pizano's, living in Glenview must be great, at least from a foodie perspective.

Since this thread has been hi-jacked into a deep dish pizza debate, I'll chime in. I love deep dish just as much as the neighborhood thin joint, and I never consider it being just a touristy thing (although let's face it, that's what the majority of America thinks Chicago pizza is and they come here to have it).

Malnati's (with buttercrust) is my favorite deep dish of all, but I am a fan of all the aforementioned pizzerias. And in case some of you are unaware, you can always order sausage in pieces instead of the giant slab that covers the whole thing.

That being said, it's been a while since I stopped at fRedhots and said hello to Fred.

stevez wrote:Yeah, Fred's fries are much too delicate and crispy to cover with a gloppy blanket of cheesy goo, if you ask me. If you're looking for that kind of cheesy fry experience, I'd highly recommend Poochie's, WASC or Wiener's Circle as best-in-class purveyors of the Merkt's cheese fry experience.

Paradise Pup uses Merkt's too, doesn't it?

Katie wrote:

stevez wrote:Yeah, Fred's fries are much too delicate and crispy to cover with a gloppy blanket of cheesy goo, if you ask me. If you're looking for that kind of cheesy fry experience, I'd highly recommend Poochie's, WASC or Wiener's Circle as best-in-class purveyors of the Merkt's cheese fry experience.

Paradise Pup uses Merkt's too, doesn't it?

Yes, they use Merkt's, but their fries aren't in the same league as the ones I mentioned in the quoted passage above.

Hi,

fRedhots is closed for vacation from February 23rd until March 1st according to his answering machine.

Regards,