Reyjavik – Hotdog, Hakarl

At our glorious party the other day I finally got the chance to wrap my face around the much-praised Big Apple Hotdogs, and I was wholly pleased. Big Apple know their dogs, but I really like that they have their own take on them. More please.

Having spent so much time thinking about hot dogs (I’d also consumed some at my friend’s house before the party, in the company of a sausage dog) it dragged up a beautiful food memory that I wanted to share.

I went to Reykjavik in Iceland a couple of summers ago, a brilliant place. It feels like it’s balanced on the edge of the world, subdued, sophisticated, sad, pretty. Kind of the Eva Green of modern cities. Anyway, I was pretty skint at the time and it’s no poor place for a pauper, so I tended to avoid the pricier tourist classics like whale steak and see what I could chow down on for a song.

The answer was everywhere – Icelanders are cuckoo for hotdogs. They are sold on almost every street corner, in roadside huts and garages, and even in newsagents and tobacconists. Man, are they good. They are more addictive than any other thing that’s been in my mouth. Different to the USA style hotdog, they typically consist of a thin pork and beef sausage, potato salad, raw onion, dried onion, mayonnaise and sweet mustard. I can’t describe how delicious they are, and you probably wouldn’t believe me if I did. But I still think about those hotdogs in quiet moments. 

Less successful on that trip was my attempt to eat Hakarl, which is putrefied Shark. I usually like strong flavours and don’t get squeamish over grizzly things, but this was, hands down, the worst thing I’ve eaten. It smells like extensively used urinal cakes and hatred. It tastes like when you get shampoo in your mouth by accident. The texture was like rotten apple and raw salmon in one. Yeah. Nasty Iceland! The hotdogs though.

9/10 – Dog

-10/10 – Ming piss death Shark

Geoff