We first spotted NYC Healthy Bites on 14th St near Union Square one weekend, but didn’t have a chance to try them until Choice Streets. At Choice Streets, we only had a sample taste of their food, but last week we had a chance to visit them for lunch.
For a while, they were uptown by Columbia University for lunch, but have recently been coming downtown to West 4th St by NYU.
All the hot dogs and sausages are organic. The hot dogs are made by Applegate Farms and the sausages are made by Al Fresco. They had a special of any 2 style hot dogs for $7.75, so I ordered a Diablo Dog and a Sweet Dog.
You have a few choices to make before lunch is served. There are two types of hot dogs (beef & chicken), two types of sausages (spicy jalapeño chicken and sweet Italian chicken), and a vegan sausage (Italian with basil & sun-dried tomato). The buns are either classic or whole wheat. Then there are 7 different styles to choose from on the menu.
I started with a beef Diablo Dog on a classic bun with cheese. This had chopped red onions, tomatoes and a spicy cilantro sauce.
The beef hot dog was garlicky and beefy, much more so than a regular street hot dog, although it was the same size. The cilantro sauce was actually pretty spicy, with the raw red onions adding a little more bite and the chopped tomatoes cooling things off a little, but only a little. Guess that’s why they call it a diabl0 (devil) dog.
The shredded cheddar and jack cheese looked nice, but were kind of buried by the cilantro sauce. Overall the Diablo Dog dog was decent, but next time I would probably get a German Dog with sauerkraut, onions, paprika and spicy brown mustard.
For the Sweet Dog I got a chicken hot dog on a whole wheat bun. It was topped with grilled caramelized onions and sweet pickle relish mayo sauce.
Biting into the hot dog, my first reaction was about the sauce. It was basically Russian dressing with a fancy name. I like Russian dressing on salad or a Reuben sandwich, but it was never my condiment of choice on a hot dog.
The onions were good and the whole wheat bun was a nice change of pace, but the chicken dog was curiously bland. I took a bite of the dog without any toppings to be sure, and I was right – this was a boring hot dog.
While I wouldn’t recommend the chicken hot dog, the beef dog was tasty. The sausages looked interesting too.
You can find NYC Healthy Bites on twitter here or on our Mobile Munchies twitter feed. They seem to be either by Columbia or NYU most days, so check twitter to find them. We have no idea where they will be once school’s out.
