Anthony Bourdain Had No Issues Calling This City's Hot Dog The Best

In a 2009 episode of his show "No Reservations," Anthony Bourdain stated that he "loved few things more than meat in tube form." He was, of course, referring to hot dogs, of which he was famously fond. A New Yorker through and through, Bourdain once explained to Insider Tech that first-time visitors to New York should absolutely sample the city's hot dogs because it was simply one of the things that set the Big Apple apart from the rest of the food world. However, he also followed this advice with, "It's not the best hot dog in the world by any stretch of the imagination. If I was looking for the best hot dog in the world, I'd probably be looking to Chicago."

Bourdain later doubled down on this bold statement and got a little more specific in an episode of "The Layover," when he said, "By my way of thinking, the Chicago Red Hot is the finest hot dog on the planet." Also known as a Chicago-style hot dog, a Red Hot consists of an all-beef hot dog in a poppy seed bun topped with yellow mustard, neon green relish, tomato slices, a dill pickle spear, chopped white onion, celery salt, and sport peppers, Chicago's favorite hot pepper. It's messy, it's difficult to hold without the toppings spilling out, it looks more like a salad, but it is exceptionally delicious. Bourdain called it "perfection in a hot dog."

While Anthony Bourdain admitted that Chicago (a city that loves hot dogs) had a better hot dog than New York City, he was never one to brush off his hometown and the dogs it contributed. He was a huge fan of Papaya King on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where he was partial to sauerkraut and onion-covered dogs paired with a cup of papaya juice. The traveling television host was also known to frequent Gray's Papaya for hot dogs, which is just across Central Park.

During a visit to the West Coast in 2001 for an episode of "A Cook's Tour," Bourdain got his fill of hot dogs in Los Angeles, where he visited three famous hot dog spots. At Tail O' the Pup, he sampled a chili cheese dog topped with tomatoes. At star-studded Pink's, he gorged on a quad of dogs: a jalapeno dog with guacamole, a chili cheese dog, a bacon-wrapped wiener, and a fajita dog. Finally, at Oki Dog, he ordered a dog he ultimately described as "deranged," which consisted of two hot dogs, chili, cheese, and pastrami wrapped burrito-style in a flour tortilla.

Much further west, on the island of Kauai, Bourdain patronized Puka Dog while filming "No Reservations" in 2008. This unique dog features a soft bun that totally encircles a Polish sausage flavored with lemon garlic sauce, fruit relish, and passion fruit mustard. He loved it here, but it wasn't quite enough to top the mighty Chicago Red Hot, in his well-seasoned opinion.