BWW Previews: KINGS OF KOBE Pop-up, Now in NYC

Enthusiasts of the all-American hot dog now have a Manhattan Mecca as of Tuesday, May 19th. The Kings of Kobe, serving all natural, 100% American Kobe beef dogs on brioche buns, popped up at Chelsea's Pounds & Ounce NYC Pub. Situated in a window overlooking 8th Avenue for the spring / summer hot dog season, the retro wood and galvanized metal kiosk offers two dogs. The Classic K is a grown-up, regular six-inch sized version of Pounds & Ounces' top-selling Kobe Cocktail Dogs with onion marmalade, sauerkraut and yellow mustard and a rotating weekly special that exemplifies the culinary creativity that can be applied to elevate the traditional frankfurter. The likes of: the BLT, bacon, lettuce, tomato, balsamic glaze and mayo; The Life, sweet and sour sauce, raisins, mustard greens, truffle honey drizzle; Whoo-Ah!, chile salsa, chipotle aioli, avocado, crispy bacon bits; and Almost PB&J, sheep's milk cheese, blackberry jam, mint.

The King of Kobe pop-up at Pounds & Ounces NYC Pub is the brainchild of the restaurant's managing partner, Etai Cinader, who considers the hot dog an important food symbol of the American way of life. "Hot dogs embody the essence of the American social experience; no matter the social status or political views, everyone enjoys a great hot dog. No other gastronomic experience is as symbolic of our social freedom as eating a hot dog on the Fourth of July," notes Cinader. "Kings of Kobe was created to honor the hot dog as such a symbol by providing an enhanced culinary experience suitable for the on-the-go New York City lifestyle."

The weiner centric pop-up at Pounds & Ounces NYC Pub serves as the prototype for the roll-out of the Kings of Kobe concept throughout New York City, where the hot dog was introduced in this country by German immigrants in the 1860s.

The Pounds & Ounces' Kings of Kobe hot dogs will be available Monday through Friday from noon to 3:30pm at $6.50 for take-away only; the kiosk will be located in an open window for ease of ordering from the sidewalk. There will be no need for patrons to enter the restaurant.

Kings of Kobe will be situated at 160 8th Avenue, at the corner of 18th Street, at the location of Pounds & Ounces NYC Pub. The pub's web site is: http://www.poundsandouncesnyc.com/.

Hot Dog History

Also referred to as frankfurters, franks, weenies, wieners, wienies and red hots, hot dogs are a cooked sausage made of beef and pork or all beef, that are grilled or steamed for service in a sliced bun as a sandwich. The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council estimates America consumes some 20 billion hot dogs annually, or about 70 per person. Their consumption is generally associated with warm weather and most hot dogs are eaten between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

While hot dogs are considered as American as apple pie, their roots as a version of sausage have been traced to ancient Europe. A line in Homer's Odyssey mentions sausage as a meaty comestible. And the cook of the notorious 1st century Roman emperor, Nero, is credited with inventing the first linked sausages.

Wherever and whenever sausage may have originated, Germany embraced them and claims the kind of sausage that is the 21st century hot dog made its debut in Frankfurt in the late 1400's.

America's love affair with the hot dog began when German immigrants started selling hot sausages with milk rolls and sauerkraut from pushcarts in New York City's Bowery neighborhood in the 1860s. In 1871, Charles Feltman, a German butcher, opened the first Coney Island stand selling hot sausages in milk. His business thrived given people's hearty appetite for a tasty, inexpensive and easy-to-eat food in a resort environment.

By 1893, it was clear people were equally enthusiastic about what was becoming known as the hot dog in a baseball park and they became de rigueur at ball parks across the country. As for the evolving moniker, hot dog historians believe the German immigrants are responsible for it too. They brought their dachshunds as well as their sausages to America and were known to refer to the frankfurter as the "little dog" or the "dachshund sausage" as a nod to their long skinny nature being akin to that of their pets.

The emergence of what he know as the hot dog, that long skinny sausage nestled in a split bun, dates to the 1880s with the invention of the bun designed to accommodate the shape of the meat. Its genesis is murky, but a German selling hot sausages on the streets of St. Louis is often credited. Anton Feuchtwanger was issuing white gloves to his patrons to protect their hands from the heat of his meat. Too often the gloves were not returned, a costly state of affairs that prompted him to consult his baker brother-in-law. He came up with a long soft roll to fit the sausage, as opposed to the conventional dome-shaped milk rolls, or dinner rolls that had often accompanied hot sausages at stands and carts.