Ray's Red Hots - Chicago Style Hot Dogs in Ann Arbor
William Gatziolis & Harry Werts
Issue date: 11/9/09 Section: Features
For a city of ~100,000, Ann Arbor has a ridiculous variety of food options. Zingerman's, EVE, Gandy Dancer, and the like provide the "upper crust" places to eat (upper crust=snobby MBA students). Sometimes, and in fact most of the time, students require dining establishments that feed us quickly, hopefully cheaply, and without getting us incredibly sick. It's all we ask for.
Since Seigle Café has gone green (we love you, Eva and team) the prices have gotten a bit, how do we say, more green. In response to this, Harry Werts and Will Gatziolis have decided to partake in, and create reviews of a few lunch options in close proximity to our fair school since you might as well let your money buy you some variety. Plus, since these two epicurean fantasticos are from arguably the two best restaurant cities in the US, Chicago and NY (stuff it SF), they provide that awesome element us editors are always looking for - conflict. We haven't really agreed on any sort of approach to this thing so we'll copy MMM for the time being. Sound good? Spot 1 - Ray's Red Hots.
WG: Ray's Red Hots has a simple goal of bringing the Chicago style hot dog to Ann Arbor which seems reasonable enough to these two writers since Ann Arbor has Chicago-style pizza (see Pizza House), Chicago style driving (see State St on a Friday afternoon) and Chicago style weather (see weather.com from November-March). In the end, I think Ray's does a pretty good job at bringing that specific brand of experience to Ann Arbor.
HW: During our discussion two things happened: 1) I granted that Chicago does hot dogs better than New York even though I still believe the best deal in late night anywhere is Grey's Papaya on 72nd and Broadway. Those guys know what is up. 2) We saw Denard Robinson get his incredibly over ticketed SUV get put on a tow truck and then taken off said truck when it became apparent that, yes, he was Denard Robinson. Wish that worked for me when I tell the NYPD meter maids that, "I am a former basketball player at Haverford College and a member of the University of Michigan B-League Intramural Champions of 2009." Just doesn't work. Anyway, I am happy with any place that has waffle fries. And these were pretty good - crispy, a little too salty, but all together quite good. Dipping waffle fries in anything is transcendent. Waffle fries are a dip net.
Since Seigle Café has gone green (we love you, Eva and team) the prices have gotten a bit, how do we say, more green. In response to this, Harry Werts and Will Gatziolis have decided to partake in, and create reviews of a few lunch options in close proximity to our fair school since you might as well let your money buy you some variety. Plus, since these two epicurean fantasticos are from arguably the two best restaurant cities in the US, Chicago and NY (stuff it SF), they provide that awesome element us editors are always looking for - conflict. We haven't really agreed on any sort of approach to this thing so we'll copy MMM for the time being. Sound good? Spot 1 - Ray's Red Hots.
WG: Ray's Red Hots has a simple goal of bringing the Chicago style hot dog to Ann Arbor which seems reasonable enough to these two writers since Ann Arbor has Chicago-style pizza (see Pizza House), Chicago style driving (see State St on a Friday afternoon) and Chicago style weather (see weather.com from November-March). In the end, I think Ray's does a pretty good job at bringing that specific brand of experience to Ann Arbor.
HW: During our discussion two things happened: 1) I granted that Chicago does hot dogs better than New York even though I still believe the best deal in late night anywhere is Grey's Papaya on 72nd and Broadway. Those guys know what is up. 2) We saw Denard Robinson get his incredibly over ticketed SUV get put on a tow truck and then taken off said truck when it became apparent that, yes, he was Denard Robinson. Wish that worked for me when I tell the NYPD meter maids that, "I am a former basketball player at Haverford College and a member of the University of Michigan B-League Intramural Champions of 2009." Just doesn't work. Anyway, I am happy with any place that has waffle fries. And these were pretty good - crispy, a little too salty, but all together quite good. Dipping waffle fries in anything is transcendent. Waffle fries are a dip net.
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