Brooklyn Dogs goes uptown

For most of the 27 years Pete Soto has operated his food cart, Brooklyn Dogs, he’s done so by the Civic Center. But since the pandemic has thinned out both foot traffic and the lunch crowd downtown, he’s been parking it out front of the Uptown Car Wash in University Heights.

The Brooklyn native has lived in San Diego three decades, but for the most part, his food cart brings a taste of the five boroughs to So Cal. As the branded, blue and yellow umbrellas shading his cart suggest, Soto serves hot dog made by Sabrett, maker of “the original New York pushcart-style frankfurter.”

Along with Hebrew National and Nathan’s Famous, Sabrett is one of the original New York brands that helped popularize hot dogs in the U.S., going back to the 1920s and 30s. According to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, Americans now consume about 20 billion hot dogs a year. However, while Sabrett indeed dominates street carts in New York City, it’s less well known out here.

Same could be said about the red onion sauce that commonly smothers Sabrett dogs back east. Soto tops dogs with the tomato and red onion sauce for three bucks, offering a genuine taste of the city so nice they named it twice. I was able to finish one, plus a similarly priced sauerkraut dog, before the folks at the touchless car wash had finished cleaning my ride.

The cart offers grilled bratwurst ($3.50), and in a concession to our So Cal tastes, bacon wrapped ($6) and pico-topped Baja-style dogs.

But where Brooklyn Dogs really dips into local culture is its tamales. Made by Soto’s Mexican-American wife, the stubby, neatly tied $3 tamales are filled with beef, chicken, pork, cheese, or jalapeño. I doubt anyone in Brooklyn realizes how fine a street food pairing a hot dog and tamal can be.

When downtown fully reopens, expect Soto to take Brooklyn Dogs back to Civic Center, where business was more regular than this streetside car wash location (4157 Normal Street, University Heights). But who knows when that could be? For now, let the crust on your car be a reminder it’s time to eat tamales and hot dogs.

Post script, Oct. 2, 2020

A reader weighed in to point out Sabrett has for a long time been a New Jersey based hot dog brand. According to the Sabrett web site, the original company behind the hot dogs was founded on Manhattan's Lower East Side, but has been headquartered in Engelwood, New Jersey for going on eight decades. The brand does remain a part of New York City's hot dog landscape, supplying countless carts as well as shops including the iconic Gray's Papaya. However, as our New Jersey-born reader points out, "We're very proud of our hot dogs."