How much would you pay for a fancy hot dog?
And you think the hot dogs at Minute Maid Park are expensive? A few days ago, I had lunch at B&B Butchers & Restaurant on swingin’ Washington Avenue. Supposedly it’s Beyoncé’s favorite steakhouse in Houston. I ordered the Break the Bank Frank — a hot dog for $124. Add a Diet Coke and tip, and the bill came out to $164.
Sure, $124 sounds like a lot for a hot dog, but it did come with french fries. So really …
B&B Butchers has a line of over-the-top dogs to celebrate opening week of the Astros baseball season. They’re all gone after Sunday.
The Chef Tommy’s Dog is a Wagyu beef frank topped with
truffle-infused honey, bacon and bleu cheese. It’s the cheapskate dog, only $26.
The Wellie Dog, inspired by Beef Wellington, is a Wagyu dog with mushrooms and foie gras inside a baked puff pastry. It’s a tidy $42.
B&B Butchers cranks up the crazy for its Break the Bank Frank, a Wagyu dog topped with 2 ounces of A5 Japanese filet mignon, sautéed lobster, truffled mustard beurre blanc and edible, actual 24-karat gold flakes on a bun toasted in truffle butter. I’ll have one of those. I was a little spooked by eating gold flakes. That’s not food. You got any Frosted Flakes back there?
Of course, these ridiculously ritzy hot dogs are just a gimmick to sucker gullible media into giving B&B free publicity. Nobody would really pay $124 for a hot dog, would they?
I asked my waiter, “How many of these have you sold?” He said, “I think you’re the first one.”
Glad I could be of service, B&B Butchers.
Competitive-eating superstar Joey Chestnut ate 70 hot dogs last July Fourth in Coney Island. If they held that contest at B&B Butchers, it would cost $8,680 to feed Chestnut.
This wasn’t the first time I bit on a publicity stunt. In 2013, I met Alison Cook, the Chronicle’s real restaurant critic, at a swanky restaurant on Westheimer called 60° Mastercrafted.
That was a dumb name for a restaurant, better name for a hardware store. Either way, it’s closed now.
Alison and I ate a 60° Bistro Burger, with a ground rib-eye patty, seared fois gras, caramelized onion, bordelaise, sautéed mushrooms and shaved white truffles.
Price tag for the burger: $200.
I still don’t know what bordelaise is.
The burger was OK, I guess. It had too much weird stuff on it. I’m kind of a burger snob. Nothing really satisfies like a big, juicy, meaty burger, done medium rare, with cheese and bacon on it. Lately I’ve been asking for a fried sunnyside-up egg on my burgers. The 60° Bistro Burger came up nothing special. My favorite part of lunch was when Alison paid the bill.
I got a table for one at B&B Butchers for my Break the Bank Frank. I rather enjoyed the company. The hot dog was served on a plate with potato wedge fries, ketchup on the side and a small cup of chili made with Wagyu beef.
Wagyu beef is super, melt-in-your-mouth tender with more marbling than a supermarket steak. The Break the Bank Frank has only 2 ounces of chopped Wagyu, so don’t get too excited. I saw some lobster claw and bits of lobster tail on my dog, too.
Now for the hot dog itself. It was big, I’d say a good quarter-pounder. It was made with Wagyu beef, too.
My verdict: You’ll like a Costco hot dog more.
And no hot dog tastes better than a baseball frank at Minute Maid Park with the Astros up 4-0 and the other team unable to hit anything Dallas Keuchel is throwing.
You know why a $1.50 dog at Costco tastes better than a $124 Break the Bank Frank at an upscale steakhouse? Because the Costco dog tastes like a hot dog should. It’s salty and kind of rubbery and packed with calories and fat. Man, they’re delicious. And $1.50 gets you two kinds of mustard, pickle relish and minced onions. And all the free refills of soda you can guzzle.
Now you’re talking hot dogs. Not some exquisite Japanese beef frank with lobster and filet mignon and truffled mustard beurre blanc, whatever that is. I was hoping that a gold flake didn’t hit a filling in my teeth. They’d have to peel me off the ceiling, and I’m not tipping extra for helping me down.
For $124, a family of four can go to an Astros game, and everybody gets a hot dog, soda and Blue Bell ice cream for dessert. That’s how you celebrate the opening week of baseball. ken.hoffman@chron.com twitter.com/KenChronicle