Vegan Carrot Dog is not so hot
Move over, Impossible Burger! Here comes the intolerable hot dog — the newest plant-based rival for the hearts and stomachs of meat-shunning, gullible gourmands.
By Chloe’s extremely terrible Carrot Dog is the vegan, fastcasual food chain’s latest effort to give them a guilt-free taste of what they’re missing.
The Frankenstein-furter is supposed to offer a wiener-like thrill to people who crave the taste, texture and aroma of an actual beef, turkey or chicken dog.
The 7-incher ($6.75) is termed a “whole, hand-picked carrot” by the place’s publicists, but would be better described as a former carrot.
The hapless root is oakand maple-smoked, salted to smithereens and further debased with garlic and oregano. The five-day curing and seasoning process yields a casing that supposedly mimics that of a real hot dog.
The barely-there “casing” and a few sear marks fool no one. The dog’s eerie orange hue lends itself to Instagram. Its bizarre taste offends the human gullet. It doesn’t remotely resemble any animal-product flavor, but approximates that of a past-itsprime carrot feebly disguised with yellow mustard and sauerkraut.
The bun it’s served on doesn’t help. No self-respecting carrot needs breadstuffs of any kind — and the dry and rigid potato number I had tasted a day old.
The Carrot Dog was created for By Chloe by the owners of Harry & Ida’s — a hitherto well-regarded East Village sandwich spot best known for such fleshy treats as pastrami, bluefish and eel.
By Chloe founding chef Chloe Coscarelli should be glad she got booted by her former partner Jimmy Haber two years ago: However the lawsuits are resolved, nobody can blame her for the carrot calamity.
Suckers who pay $6.75 for a Carrot Dog can blame only themselves.