The best cart in the city needs no menu — it serves up a big, fat hot dog of prime pork
Mia Stainsby
Sun
Load up on condiments like sauerkraut, red onion and relish at the Fetch hot dog cart in Gastown. Photograph by : Photo by Ward Perrin, Vancouver Sun
A few weeks ago, I wrote about an unusual hot dog cart: Japadog, at Burrard and Robson, which has a distinctly Japanese approach. Today, I write of another.
Fetch (get it?) stands out by being the best hot dog cart in the city. There’s no menu to speak of. There’s just one kind of hot dog with a big fat sausage made with coarsely ground pork and none of that filler or byproducts of anything. It’s all meat.
“No L and A,” as proprietor Sean Heather put it, referring to “lips and ass.” (The salty-tongued Heather owns Salty Tongue, Irish Heather and the very hot Salt.)
The big bun surrounding the big sausage is specially made by Patisserie Lebeau and is a fancy-dancy elongated brioche. There are three condiments, all made at one of his restaurants — a sauerkraut, red onion and piccalilli relish with chopped veggies, spices and mustard.
It’s cooked the New York way: boiled, rather than barbecued.
“In New York, it’s called the Dirty Dog because the water gets discoloured over time. It’s a real tradition in New York and Chicago but here in Vancouver, we’re the only ones doing it that way,” says Heather. He made $8,000 renting his boil-a-wiener cart to film crews replicating New York streets — twice what he paid for it. He relished that little bit of profit because friends gave him a hard time about the expensive cart sitting unused for a good year or so.
The Fetch dog costs $4.50 or you can get a bag of chips and beverage with the hot dog for $6. There is a veggie alternative for the kinder, gentler vegetarian sort if they don’t mind it being cooked in the same hot water.
“Jamie,” who was tending the cart when I stopped by, was made for the job. I found out she’s an actor (musicals) and so you’re not likely to wait in awkward silence as your sausage heats.
– FETCH
Northwest corner of Water and Abbott Streets. Open Monday to Friday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
© The Vancouver Sun 2007
