Chili Cheese Dog Goodness

For those of you who know me well, you know that (a) my teenage years were spent eating out at lots of fast food restaurants and (b) I love chili cheese dogs. Upon returning back to NoVa for a lovely vacation, I knew I needed to drag any of my lucky friends for a ritual trip to Vienna Inn, home of the what I'm convinced is the best chili cheese dog ever.

While, for the most part, my palate has matured and beyond my high school diet of Taco Bell, McDonald's, Panera, and Starbucks, something about heading down memory lane and stuffing myself with greasy food makes me smile.

Luckily, Katy, Phil, and Dan were willing to accommodate my cravings and we set off on a wet afternoon for loaded chili cheese dogs.

Ordering 2 each, the beauties quickly appeared at our table on their requisite plastic trays (reminiscent of a cafeteria or a Roy Rodgers), steaming hot, oozing melted cheese, meaty chili, and mustard onto their white paper wrappers below. Heaven.

Forcing ourselves to wait for them to cool, we finally all chowed down, and in the end, the only thing left on the trays were wrappers and piles of used napkins. The dogs were delicious - a slight snap upon biting into the dogs, with a mouthful of meaty chili (not spicy), spicy mustard (perhaps Goulden's mustard?), chopped fresh onions, melty cheese, and the white bread bun to mop it all up. Yes, I did use my fingers to pick up stray chili and onions. But, they were amazingly good and filling (2 is more than sufficient) and left us all in a happy state, knowing that not only were they culinary delights but also super cheap, with a total meal of 8 loaded dogs, onion rings, and 4 cokes, plus tip, equaling less than $30.

3 out of 3 JAMs.

(Note - Vienna Inn is not a fancy joint, and has minimal wait staff and serve-yourself drinks, but hopefully you're looking for an atmosphere to match a menu highlight of chili cheese dogs!)