Hot Dog! (Update)

Raymond Sokolov is back. After receiving dozens of irate e-mails from hot dog-crazy Detroiters following his "best hot dog joints in the USA" article in the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Sokolov returned to his native city to visit several famous hot dog restaurants there. (I, for one, did not know that Detroit had any famous hot dog restaurants.) A sample:

"That pretty much describes the canonical Coney, as served in hundreds of little places in the Detroit Metropolitan area and other parts stretching into Ohio and upstate New York. It all began when a Greek shepherd named Gust Keros, who had sampled a hot dog on New York's Coney Island on his way to settle in Detroit, opened the American Coney Island restaurant on Lafayette in 1912, substituting Coney Island sauerkraut with a chili 'sauce.' Subsequently, his brother opened a copycat establishment next door, called Lafayette. They are there today as 24/7 stalwarts in a downtown still barely emerging from its worst days.

"Which is better? American has the superior dog, a spicy number from Dearborn Sausage, but the wedge-shaped dining area lacks the lunch-counter coziness of Lafayette, whose perfectly fine frank comes from a factory in nearby Eastpointe called Winter. I am aware that there are aficionados who will eat an after-hours Coney only in their favorite of these side-by-side rivals and will be easily provoked into reviling the other."

I've never been to Detroit, and I don't know if I'll ever have cause to go there. If'n I do ever find myself in that particular ville, I will not leave until I've visited the American Coney Island restaurant.