The opening of Dog House in Central Park's Tower 14 looks like a bit of a risk. Two doors down from Central Park's Jenny Lou's, the rent must be murder, which may explain why they're sharing the space with a dry cleaner (the two businesses share a door but are separated by a wall). We hope that hot dogs are a good way to monetize the space, which is painted white and accented with the classic hot dog colors, bright red and yellow.
On the recommendation of the courteous, slightly nervous woman who runs the place, I ordered a Philly, and added to that a Peking, because, Beijing. She warned me that two hot dogs might be too much for one person, and she was correct, although in the service of this fine publication, I finished both.
The Philly (RMB 45) is billed as an imported beef hot dog with cheese sauce, sauteed mushrooms, jalapenos, and crispy onions. It certainly has all that, although the combination of the cheese and mushrooms results in a bit of cream of mushroom soup feeling. It's good though – it's a quality hot dog, the crispy onions can be picked off like mini-onion rings, and the rest comes across like a mini-Philly cheesesteak placed atop a hot dog.
The Peking (RMB 45) is similar. It's also an imported beef hot dog, topped with sweet garlic sauce, braised duck, hoisin sauce, scallions, and cucumber. The duck was tasty, but its presentation was more like pulled duck – it looked and felt the way pulled pork does. The combination of sweet garlic sauce and hoisin sauce makes it slightly too sweet. But while place a hot dog inside your next Peking duck roll-up would be pointless, this one works.
It would be nice to see Dog House succeed. "Gourmet" and "hot dog" don't belong in the same sentence, but this is a solid product in a convenient location. Would I go back? Yes, I would, but probably only order one dog and a side of fries in the dog dish because that's just funny.
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