RESTAURANT OF THE WEEK Baby do the Philly dog
A Philly dog, right, alongside an original hot dog and an order of fries from Phillydog in central Seoul, Jan. 9. Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar
It's hard finding a good hot dog restaurant in Seoul. And once you do find one, there's no guarantee it will stick around.
The latest place I've found is Phillydog, a small roadside storefront located in the street leading up to Yongsan District Police Station. An odd location, but not too far out of the way. The exterior is decorated with posters showing the menu items, as well as some odd artificial intelligence-generated images, plus lots of big windows so you can watch the food preparation process closely.
The first sign that this place knows its hot dogs is how good it smells when food is cooking on the flat-top griddle. Food preparation takes a while, at least 10 minutes, so it's a welcome distraction to be able to watch — especially when the blowtorch comes out.
A blowtorch is used to melt cheese on top of shredded beef at Phillydog in central Seoul, Jan. 9. Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar
The menu is surprisingly diverse, with five hot dog options. But the star attraction is the restaurant's namesake, the Philly dog. It's crowned with a thick layer of shredded beef, topped with slices of yellow and white processed cheese, similar to what you'd expect from a Philly cheesesteak sandwich, except here it's sitting on top of a sausage. Frankly it's amazing they can fit so much into the fresh brioche bun. Overall, it's pretty simple — just the bun, sausage, cheesesteak and some sauce, no other garnishes like onion. It looks like it will fall apart, but it holds its integrity, as long as you don't leave it sitting around for too long.
The Philly dog is the best thing on the menu, but I couldn't resist trying others. The original hot dog I tried was much the same, but instead of cheesesteak it was buried under relish. The taco dog repeats the formula, except here it is served with spicy pork as well as a side of nacho chips, which were helpful for spooning up the excess pork. It was a lot more challenging to eat than the Philly dog. I have not tried the Oh My God dog, which looks like a spicier option.
There's a sausage buried somewhere under there, in the taco dog offered at Phillydog in central Seoul, March 7. Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar
Here's one place where the restaurant might be inviting controversy: the fifth hot dog, the cheese steak hot dog, is not actually a hot dog. It's basically the Philly dog, but with double the cheesesteak and no sausage. So... I guess that would make it a regular cheesesteak sandwich?
Another creative choice I couldn't agree with was the fries, which looked promising, but instead of salt, they were flavored with something sugarier.
Looking over the restaurant's social media, it appears they are always tweaking the menu. The latest addition is a Dubai cookie.
At the end of the day, it's still a solid menu, as everything exceeds reasonable expectations for portion sizes, while the prices remain admirably small, with the hot dogs ranging in price from 6,900 won to 9,900 won. It feels like you're getting way more than you pay for.
A sign at Phillydog in central Seoul, Feb. 3 / Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar
Phillydog opens all seven days of the week at 11 a.m., and last order is at 7:30 p.m. There's also an afternoon break that I think is from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. You can follow @phillydog_yongsan on Instagram, but it doesn't have a lot going on there.