Bark Hot Dogs

Punxsutawney Phil predicted an early spring, which is cool, but there is a better indicator to me that spring is on its way: pitchers and catchers report one week from today. As Rogers Horsnby said: "People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring."

With my thoughts turning to baseball, I was in the mood for a Hot Dog. I've heard about Bark - they sell hot dogs in Brooklyn Bridge Park in the summer, not far from me - and I've walked by their restaurant in Park Slope several times. So, even though it was a little too cold for me to pretend like spring is really almost here, I stopped in for a dog.

They had only opened a few minutes earlier - only one woman had placed an order ahead of me. So I ordered, paid, took a seat, and waited. And waited.

My food arrived 24 minutes after I'd placed my order. Again, there was only one customer ahead of me. I shudder to think what the wait is like when this place is crowded.

I ordered the Bark Dog - sweet pepper relish with mustard and onion for $5, and "Salt & Pepper" fries for $3. The fries were good - sliced potatoes, cooked long enough for about half of them to be crisp, with plenty of salt. I didn't taste any pepper, but, considering how few fries I enjoy in this area, I was pleased.

The hot dog, on the other hand, was kind of a joke. The toppings only covered the middle third of the dog and there was nothing special about it at all. It wasn't bad - like, say, that dogs I ate at Nathan's - but it tasted like a regular dirty-water dog from a street vendor. Except you don't have to wait almost half an hour for one of those.

And five bucks for this? If it had been larger - or hell, even if the dog have been covered with toppings, I wouldn't mind. This dog was just a rip-off.

If Bark were the only hot dog place around, I'd give it another try. But that certainly is not the case. There are far too many options for me to ever bother returning here.

There is a hot dog place in Manhattan that I visited last summer and loved. I'd planned to eat there again before I wrote about it - I actually did go there a few weeks ago, only to discover that my camera's batteries were dead, so I left. I will try to get there again in the next few days to get the memory of this place out of my head.