FastFoodSnob.com

Feeling the dog days of summer right about now? Well, how about stopping by Evanston this Saturday for some dollar hot dogs and corndogs? Think that’d make things a bit better?

The Wiener and Still Champion is celebrating National Hot Dog Day this Saturday and is offering every Vienna Beef, Chicago-style hot dog (and freshly battered Dipping Dog) for $1.00, so make like a Kobayashi and get yer fill.

Now there’s some conflicting info on the web as to whether July 19th or July 23rd is the actual National Hot Dog Day this year, but I like having the offer available on the weekend. National Hot Dog Month is also most definitely July, so there’s little to do now but kick back and enjoy some super sausage… on the cheap. Eat up.

Guy Fieri of the Food Network’s Diners, Drive-ins and Dives stopped by Evanston, IL to tape additional material at Wiener and Still Champion today. Lucky for me, I was there to get this picture taken with him. (Thanks, nr706!)

Feel free to check out the other photos I snapped while he was there at the Picasa web album set up for just that purpose.

Yup, so there goes another chunk of my internet anonymity, but it was bound to happen sooner or later. And in case you were wondering, that’s a shirt for Korea University, which was established in 1905… in Korea. No, I didn’t go there for college.

Price: $0.99(+?); paid - $0.00

Promotion: Ben & Jerry’s Free Cone Day

Location: 1634 Orrington Ave., Evanston, IL, 60202 (map); phone: (847) 869-2640

Rating: 4 out of 5 - good

Eaten: 1 block away

After random tastings of Ben & Jerry’s socially aware fare over the years, it just felt right to swoop in to a Scoop Shop and begin to more systematically sample its sweets. The cone, at least, came free. (As well as the ice cream, though it was hard to tell exactly how much my scoops usually cost, if they cost anything in addition to the cone; the waffle cone was clearly listed as regularly selling for 99 cents). Not encumbered by the restrictions of price, I had come to check out the simple charm of a Chunky Monkey, as B&J’s concoction of “Banana Ice Cream with Fudge Chunks & Walnuts” is known. After making the Chunk my first priority, I had come to learn that it was apparently a favorite flavor of a friend of mine, so the urgency with which I waited ten minutes in line — out the door in downtown Evanston — became all the more acute as the metered minutes ran down for my publically parked car. Thankfully, the Monkey pulled through, oddly pleasing in a way… much like eating banana nut bread even.

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Price: $4.29

Availability: 11 A.M. - 5 P.M., Mon. - Sat.; call to be sure

Location: 1724 S. River Rd., Des Plaines, IL 60018 (map); phone: (847) 699-8590

Rating: 5 out of 5 - great

Status: independent

Judging by the regular restaurant hours listed above, you can see how this decidedly non-chain establishment doesn’t really cater to the dinner crowd. Reports seem to indicate lines out the door on Saturdays, so the 5-10 minutes I might wait on any given weekday to make an order might appear quite reasonable in comparison. If the time (and fuel spent) driving out to this northwest suburb from the city only makes a trip out to River Road that much more doubtful, take heart: the Char Cheddar Burger at Paradise Pup is destination dining for this Snob, and it’s well worth your money.

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Price: $2.05 for 1 Dipping Dog regularly; paid - $3.00 for 3

Promotion: National Corndog Day deal; buy more, save more

Location: 802 Dempster St., Evanston, IL 60202 (map); phone: (847) 869-0100

Rating: 4 out of 5 - good

Status: independent

If you noticed that new last line up there, this is the first time I’ve reviewed something from a non-chain restaurant here on the site. Not that I have anything against the more independent establishments out there; it’s just that I’ve tried to keep to items people can easily find outside of northern Illinois (and, particularly, the City of Chicago). I’ll make exceptions for the offerings I really enjoy, however, and the Dipping Dogs at Wiener and Still Champion certainly fit the bill with regards to my personal tastes.

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