Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

I'm trapped in Albany.

I'm trapped in Albany, alone.

I'm trapped in Albany, alone, with an expense account that allows me to eat dinner for free.

So while I don't normally do food or restaurant reviews (unless I'm forcing my family to eat something disgusting for my amusement), I couldn't resist doing at least one column on a small diner that was recommended to me during my stay here. Not only was my experience *that* memorable, but it fulfils the "horrible things that happen to me" requirement that you all seem to demand in your entertainment. So I figured that this was a tale that had to be told.

A dear friend of mine who once lived in this area and who knows of my love for all things Chili and/or "Cheese Dog" recommended a small eatery that specializes in just that: Hotdogs. She printed me out a map and before I knew it, I was on my way to "Gus's Hot Dogs" in Watervliet. (Town Motto: "Yeah, it's probably misspelled, you wanna make somethin' of it tough guy?")

Gus's Hot Dogs is a tiny, hole-in-the-wall diner.

Please note however, that this is not me using a phrase or a common colloquialism, it is literally a HOLE in the wall that they just occasionally huck hot dogs out of, which oddly enough is fine with me.

Because this is MY kind of place.

It is through this dark dank portal that customers like me step into the actual restaurant in order to get themselves a HDOQO. (Hot Dog of Questionable Origin) And by "customer" I really mean "people that they absolutely frigging HATE". This is quickly made evident by the fact that all of the wait staff and the one lone customer dining in one of the two available booths all give me the hairy eyeball.

Apparently they're not used to people coming INSIDE, as most customers go to the front of the eatery and order their food from the counter windows that are usually reserved for getting ice cream from places with names like "Yummy in my Tummy". So my little dining faux pas was an instant black mark and I could hear the cook all but working up a good lather of spit for whatever food I dare order.

The truth is...

I saw the window.

And I knew deep down inside that I was probably supposed to go to it and yell my food through the prison slots like the normal everyday customer. I realized that going inside was probably a death sentence, but I did it any way - and with good reason:

A) I wanted a souvenir like a t-shirt or a mug or a cute little "I ate at Gus's and didn't instantly die from an ill-tempered tape worm related incident" novelty bear to mark this momentous occasion. And..

3) The counter was WAY higher off of the ground then you'd normally see, and I didn't want to stand on my little hobbit tip-toes. Which honestly doesn't make me taller so much as it strengthens and draws more attention to the glaring fact that I'm REALLY short.

So climbing up over the curb with some help from the other members of the Lollipop Guild, I went IN. Rules BE DAMNED.

And man did I get the stink eye something fierce.

I'm guessing it was because I looked a tad bit out of place. I was still in slacks and a button up shirt, and even though this was absolutely my kinda place to get some grub, to them I had to be dressed kind of fancy. I mean my shirt had a "collar" and actual "buttons" and was lacking any type of suspicious blood stain.

So I leaned against the countertop and offered my cheeriest smile and tried to set them all at ease. In return, they looked at me and my fancy "store bought" clothing with a mixture of fear and loathing that they probably only reserve for terrorists and Health Inspectors. (Which as I type this in hindsight, in my grey dress shirt, ID badge from work, and clipboard that I carried like a frigging retard, is EXACTLY what I probably looked like - so they had every reason to hate me, and/or spit in my food.)

Warily one of the diner's employees approached and looked me over with suspicioun. I removed my now sopping wet and food stained arm from the countertop and tried to reassure him with a smile as he nodded mutely in anticipation of my order.

"I came all the way from SYRACUSE for these hot dogs!" I laughed like a true wiener (HA!) as I tried to show him that I was just a friendly customer and not someone that they should beat to death with a table leg and turn into reasonably priced stew.

They didn't give a damn where I was from. I was a damn dirty outsider, and I was wasting valuable time that they could be spending not washing their hands or following any sort of health code. Taking the stony silence as my cue, I looked around to see if they had some sort of menu, but I didn't see one.

"Soooo...is there like a menu?" I asked with a friendly "people will notice me missing" smile as I looked around. I was hoping for chili-fries or Cajun bites, or some other exotic dish that incorporated the name "Gus" in its description. After a long, uncomfortable moment of silence, he stepped out of the way and nodded to the old refrigerator behind him where someone had painstakingly drawn the menu on with a Sharpie Marker.

It was at that *exact* moment that I decided to just get the mini hotdogs that my friend had described to me, before someone got badly hurt. (That someone being ME.) So I pretended to look over the menu on the refrigerator before nodding knowingly and turning back to my graceful host.

"I'll have six mini chili cheese dogs with onions and mustard please." I said with a polite smile as he turned back towards the grill and fetched my order. He slapped the dogs on a plate, covered it with a paper bag and handed it to me. (Six mini dogs, in mini buns are about the size of 3 regular hotdogs with all the fixins'.)

"Fi-doll tense." He told me in what could only be described as a "can kill you and disappear because he's not even legally IN this country" accent.

....

Holy HELL.

ALL of that food, (it was heaped on the plate) for FIVE dollars and TEN CENTS?!? I'd have MORE than enough left over for one of the BIG bottles of Pepto!

Paying the man and finding myself insuddenly amazing spirits because of themoney savingcheapness of my dinner, I looked around for a display or some sort of indication that they sold the "Gus's Hot Dogs" t-shirts that they all seemed to be wearing. I wanted, no, I NEEDED to feel this uniform of discounted goodness next to my skin.

But....I didn't see any for sale.

"Hey, where can I buy one of those shirts?" I said with another friendly grin that went largely hated by the populace. He stared at me blankly and looked around before repeating the word "shirt" in that "I have NO frigging CLUE what you are saying" accent of his.

So I went more basic.

"I..buy..shirt?" I said, pointing to my wallet and then his shirt.

BINGO! THAT got through. His eyes lit up in understanding and he KNEW what I wanted. We were on the same page! We had overcome the language barrier and we were communicating like brothers. He knew without SPEAKING what I wanted!

I wanted to buy the shirt that he was wearing.

Because he started to peel it off.

...

....

I decided that I should go. Quickly. Picking up my bag of "food poisoning to go", I stepped out through the doorway to the twilight zone and headed back to my car before he expected me to drop some dollars into his man-hammock. Driving back to my hotel, I went inside, pulled out the stack of mini-dogs from the now translucent grease stained bag, and before commonsense or some unconscious defense mechanism that all animals are born with could stop me...

I bit into my first ever "Gus's Hot Dog" from Watervliet.

I should have gotten more than six.

They were abso-frigging-lutely DELCIOUS. They were BEYOND delicious. They transcended deliciousness by leaps and bounds. In fact, they were SCRUMPTIOUS. Hell, they were SCRUM-DIDDILY-UMPTIOUS!

How in the HELL were they only 5 dollars and 10 cents?!? This food was freaking PHENOMINAL! I wanted to marry them! I wanted to have their babies! I wanted to then EAT those babies and relish in their astonishing deliciousness!

Without (much) exaggeration, Gus's Hot Dogs in Watervliet is EASILY one of the best Hotdog joints that I have *ever* been to. The food was simply amazing, fresh, and masterfully prepared in spite of the fact that the entire diner looked like it was in danger of being condemned or possibly carried off by rats. Sure the atmosphere sucked, the wait staff all carried switchblades behind their ears instead of pencils, and they carved your order into their wrist...

...but holy hell - the food was AMAZING.

So if you are EVER butt lost in Albany and end up in Watervliet, I HIGHLY recommend that you give Gus's a try. (Not that you'll ever go there or find it as it isn't a national chain, and not everyone is as open minded as I am when it comes to eating food served through a slot in a dirty wall.)

Just don't dress like a Health Inspector.

They HATE that.

-Coyote

( **Update** There was no fall out or consequence from eating afterwards. I didn't die, get sick, or pull a Jeff Daniels from Dumb and Dumber in the bathroom. The only thing that food gave me was an insane craving for MORE. )