- 3005 South Lamar
- Austin, Texas
- (512) 912 - 1105
Ooops. I've got this bad, bad feeling that I promised Mariah that I'd do at least 2 posts for her while she was gone, and I didn't expect her back until later in the week. So, you can imagine my surprise when I'm part way through an evening with Ms. Stunning last night and M txts me to say that she's back stateside. Yes, I know that I need to stop procrastinating so much, but I think I'll have to work on that later. In the meantime, I'm in a race to see if I can beat one of our most favorite bloggers before she gets to an internet connection again.
Anyhow, in case anyone who has read any of my reviews here or my own sorely neglected blog, The Adventures of Captain Gourmet, has missed a mighty important fact about myself, let me reiterate right now. I'm the single father of the world's most amazing five year old boy. Oh, I tell you, he's the light of my life and he is never short on the ability to make me laugh. Well...to make anyone laugh for that matter. As it turns out, he and I have been adjusting to a major change in our lives lately. He started Kindergarten late last month!!!! I know! I know! My little boy is growing up. He's becoming my little man.
Well, I've been receiving some great reports from his teacher about him ever since he started school. Yes, it's had me in Proud Daddy Mode for quite some time now. Well, after one of his excellent progress reports last week, I decided me needed to do a little celebrating. So, I told Austin that we were going out to dinner and he could choose anything and any place he wanted. Well, he chose hotdogs, and let me choose the location. Sweet!
I opted for Dog Almighty. It's been a while since, and I thought was a great excuse to go check it out again. I'm sure that long time Austinites will remember several locations for Dog Almighty, but apparently, the only one open right now is on South Lamar. That's the biggest reason why I don't check it out very often as I live in Round Rock.
The decor of the restaurant has that certain quality that I've heard Mariah refer to on several times as that "funky Austin charm". It's very small inside with only about 1/2 dozen tables or so. Yes, it's a hog dog place, but I have to tell you. The first thing that grabbed my attention when I stepped inside wasn't the hot dogs...it was a tray of red velvet cupcakes topped high with cream cheese icing. Yum! Those were certainly going to be part of the order....after all, Austin and I were there to celebrate, right?
The menu is very interesting. Lots of combinations for toppings on hot dogs and sausages, like you'd expect at any hot dog joint. A couple of burgers graced the menu, too. They also offered a Frito pie as well. The most interesting thing that I saw about the menu was a note saying that everything on the menu could me prepared vegetarian. There was even a note about the vegetarian chili. Apparently, Dog Almighty has won some awards for it in vegetarian chili cookoffs.
OK, I didn't do any of the vegetarian stuff, but I just might on my next visit just to check it out some. I can tell you that Austin enjoyed his hot dog and chips smiling the entire time while he told me all about school, and how things work during lunch when everyone is eating in the cafeteria. Apparently, the cafeteria serves hot dogs, too, but they just aren't as good. Quick aside before I the comments come flying in... Yes, I'm a foodie and I am quite guilty of buying my one and only child---the person who will carry my name into the future---a lunch card to get from the school cafeteria rather than packing him healthy and savory lunches myself. I already feel guilty about that, but I've made my peace with it. He'll be fine.
As for me that night, I partook of the Frito Pie, thickly covered in enough chili and cheese to make it a challenge to eat. I also had a Chicago Dog and a Reuben style polish sausage. The rueben thing was great, but I must say that I'm a bit disappointed in the Chicago dog. Yes, it had all of the key components from sport peppers to that strangely green relish. However, from all of the times that I've been to Chicago and ordered the local specialty hot dog, I just remember them being ginormous franks. Where I ordered the Chicago Dog expecting something large enough that I wouldn't be able to finish, I got a hot dog that really reminded me of those packages of $0.99 hot dogs that you buy at H-E-B really more as an aftersight because you realized at the last minute that there were going to be kids there and you thought you should have something like that for them. You know the hot dogs I'm talking about, right?
As for the drinks, Austin elected for the lemonade, which I thought was great when I tasted. There was something else called a Teamonade which, to me, sounded like it was going to be more lemonade than Tea, but I got just the opposite. Eck. Stay away from that.
Overall, it was a good meal that was VERY kid friendly. I wish that afterwards we could have gone to see a movie or hit an arcade for a bit, but alas school had other ideas. We needed to jet home and do homework, but at least we were both pretty content from a nice meal together. That night, we were supposed to practice the letters "A" and "C". I think I'll take Austin back to Dog Almighty when we have to practice the letter "H" for homework.
Well, I'm still operating under the mode that I should be abusing what little power I think I have here. So, let's close this one out again my stealing usage of Mariah and Laura's literary device once again, the bottom line.
Bottom line: Better than average food with Austin charm. Good for kids. Good for vegetarians. Good for vegetarian kids. (I'm really guessing on those last two).
Lee - 6.5
