Houston: James Coney Island chili dogs +

One of the best of the 80-some-odd-year-old Greek/Macedonian Coney Island hot dog joints: James Coney Island, multiple locations throughout Houston, established in 1923.

The menu now includes Vienna Beef products, and items like the NY dog (kraut), Chicago-style dog, Fire Dog, Chicago-style Polish, etc.

Regulars, though, stick to the tried and true: James' Original, with chili sauce, mustard, and onions ($1.44), chili, Frito Pie, tamales with chili, or corn dog with cheese and chili. Um . . . don't go there for the burgers (you want fast-food burgers, stay with Whataburger and the Sonic double cheeseburger with jalapenos).

Beer served (woo-hoo!)

A bonus photo: a quick supermarket local sausage haul (including boudin).

Bonus suggestion: I'm also partial to the Dairy Queen D.Q. Dude chicken-fried steak sandwiches and the chicken-fried steak fingers baskets, which are not available at the DQs in the Chicago area.










Cheers,
Wade

My mouth is watering from the Chappel Hill sausage. I love their pork and venison mix. One bad thing about James Coney Island is the varying quality from location to location.

It is, indeed, very good in any of the coarsely ground and smoked versions.

Um . . . I just learned today that one of my mom's friends is the sister of Chappell Hill's owners

Maybe I can work a way to get the stuff to Chicago.

Cheers,
Wade

. . . from Jim Goode's Goode Co. BBQ . . . .





Brisket and Czech sausage sandwiches



Close-up of brisket sandwich.

I'd love to hog-tie Jim up and haul him back to Chicago.

http://www.goodecompany.com/restresults.asp?restID=4

Cheers,
Wade

P.S. No sauce needed.

waderoberts wrote:. . . from Jim Goode's Goode Co. BBQ . . . .

Wade,

Did you make to any of the other of Jim's restaurants in the "Jimzaplex"? His seafood place around the corner is GREAT, and the Mexican/Burger joint across the street has some mighty fine burgers grilled over mesquite.

stevez,

Sadly, I haven't been to either of Jim's other places. although I've heard nothing but praise for them. On my next visit, I plan to park in the BBQ lot and visit all three of Jim's joints.

Cheers,
Wade

I eat at Goode Co. BBQ whenever I'm in town(haven't visited the diaspora). I have warm summer memories of jalapeno cheese bread *drool* outdoors of the big barn then moseying on over to the Alabama Bookstop and Record Rack(this'd be the mid-80's). I'm less enamoured of Goode's Texas brisket these days, but it'll do in a pinch

waderoberts wrote:stevez,

Sadly, I haven't been to either of Jim's other places. although I've heard nothing but praise for them. On my next visit, I plan to park in the BBQ lot and visit all three of Jim's joints.

Cheers,
Wade

Don't miss either of these places if you can help it. The seafood place is especially good, and if you're in the mood for a burger, check out the Mexican place (I've actually never had the Mexican food there). I'd be curious to know how those burgers stack up against the ones posted a while back in the top 10 list.

Instead of Goode Co. BBQ, what I really crave are the burgers and steak sandwiches at Beck's Prime.

Then, of course, there's Antone's orig. po-boy. Ocassionally, I make a facsimile of the "original" only problem being the scarcity of real Southern chow-chow in these parts. I'd make my own, but can't imagine canning in my (perfect for most other culinary endeavors) galley kitchen.

I enthusiastically second that. Palming a double-stuffed "original" is one of the first things on my to-do list when I visit Houston.

Cheers,
Wade

Wild buns on those dogs. Is that the standard hot dog bun in Houston?

annieb,

Thanks for providing me with the opportunity to use that suject header.

Actually, I wouldn't know about the "standard" hot dog bun, since I don't think I ever had a hot dog elsewhere while growing up and living in Houston (I'm not counting the few ones fixed at home).

I love the cute way the buns cradle/enfold the hot dogs.

They are still the Coneys that I remember from my childhood, and that my day remembered from his.

The bun size and type also seem to be another thing shared by the Coney Island joints around the country I mentioned earlier. I understand that James still has the buns baked especially for the various locations.

Cheers,
Wade

I've been following this thread pretty closely since it started with Detroit, where both my parents are from (actually Dad's from Pontiac) and where I spent ALL my childhood summers (well, Detroit and lakes around). But we never ate Coneys, on the one side of the family my grandma had really bad ulcers and we ate good but bland. I have this image of my grandma cooking a ham for us and watching us eat it while she couldn't eat but with her eyes, which she did avidly. I asked her one time and she said she loved ham before she had ulcers. If we went out with that side of the family it was for breakfast or cafeteria. There used to be quite a few good cafeterias in the Detroit area.

The other side of the family was a bit more boisterous, and a lot of times the adults would go out to a party and some food would be brought in for the kids and babysitter. I can remember after I learned to read asking about Coneys because they were everywhere, and we ate hot dogs at home and liked them well enough. My papa, who was the cook and arbiter of most things culinary, said something offhand like "we don't like them" and I never had one in Detroit.

When I was a teenager living in NY, I developed a taste for Sabrett's, mustard and kraut. Can't get them here, really, and Chicago hot dogs have always eluded me, taste-wise. Not looking for a fight, here, in some things you just go with what you learned to like.

Correction: It connected with the Detroit Coney thread in my mind.