*** Update Mad Dogs has closed
During the beginning on December, I received an email from "Chong" posing a question to me. The question being, "do I take recommendations?" Of course the answer is, yes….. I don't think I'd still be around doing this food blogging thing without all the recommendations I receive. At the least, it always adds a sense of adventure to my visit. In his email, Chong recommended a place called Mad Dogs Cafe which is located on emerald Street in Pacific Beach, right as you head toward the ocean from Mission.
On a recent morning I decided to check them out. PB is less crowded this time of the year, and parking is less of a hassle as well. The place has a clean, fast-casual-cafe type of vibe, and the main items featured on the menu are gelato, coffee, and what Ching had recommended, the "Mad Dogs"……. so I guess the name wasn't referring to a specific Wrestler I recall from my youth!
Now Chong's description had rung some bells…….. you see, there's this phenomena back home in Hawaii called a Puka Dog, which I recall Tony Bourdain enjoyed on his No Reservations Hawaii episode(though it seems that not everyone enjoys them) . If only for curiosities sake, I was going to check this place out. A quick walk to the counter to check out the menu, and a "Mad Dog" was quickly defined: "a sausage and sauce nestled inside a freshly baked baguette".
Ok, choose one of nine sausages, and then whatever permutations of "sauce" you desired. Having only one stomach, it was really hard work trying to decide.
The really, really, nice young man manning the counter tried to be as helpful as possible….. Of course, lacking creativity I ordered a plain old Frankfurter with Mustard($3.99), as I thought it would give me a good idea of the ingredients and how things were put together. I also decided to order something else, which made the young man tell me, "this is kinda filling……" But he also helped me by recommending the Chorizo with Mad Dog Sauce ($4.50).
The Baguette in this case was pretty much like a "heat and eat" kinda product, soft with minimum crustiness….. very bready overall. One thing was also pretty obvious, the gentleman was right, this was kinda filling……
The center of the bread was punctured and sauce (or sauces) injected, followed by the sausage of choice. I believe Puka Dog toasts the interior, which would make for much more interesting texture contrast, especially in the case of the Hot Dog, which didn't have enough "snap" or flavor to keep me interested. That ended up being way too much bread….
The young man actually ended up saving the meal for me by recommending the Chorizo, as it had enough crunch and chewiness to stand up to the "dough". The sausage had some decent heat and flavor, and the exterior had been charred to a slight crispness that worked well.
I also enjoyed the Mad Dog Sauce which adds a bit of a creamy texture to the whole affair, along with a nice tangy-sweet-mildy spicy flavor. There seemed to be a bit off fruitiness to the sauce which I thought complimented the sausage well.
If the interior had been toasted like a Puka Dog, it wouldn't have gotten quite as soggy, quite as quickly. I'm thinking that sausages other than frankfurters are the way I'd go here in the future.
I'm glad that the young man had been so helpful. So I guess I take both recommendation from readers and the folks working in the various restaurants!
Mad Dogs Cafe
746 Emerald St
San Diego, CA 92109
Thanks again for the recommendation Chong!