Bobbie Jo's Pizza

The Curly Dog was a well-konwn Edinburgh drive-in featuring an unusual sandwich also called the Curly Dog. The great screwy sandwich became an Indiana legend and garnered national publicity as well. Alas, the restaurant is long gone and so, I thought, was the Curly Dog sandwich, until a Google search revealed that Bobbie Jo's Diner in Edinburgh sells their version of the famous pile-up.

A half-hour drive landed me at Bobbie Jo's, which looks like most diners you see in small towns. I only glanced at the menu before ordering a Curly Dog for $3.50 - no fries or onion rings so I'd have room for a second C.D. if their version was as good as I remembered.

First, a description of the original Curly Dog (as best I can recall): the sandwich came on a toasted double-decker sesame seed bun. On the bottom bun was coney sauce. Above that, a foot-long hot dog that had been scored on one side and deep-fried, resulting in the foot-long dog curling into a coiled shape, making it fit nicely on the bun. On top of the dog disc came the next piece of the bun, which was topped by a cold slice of American processed cheese, a crisp lettuce leaf and, get ready ... tartar sauce (!!), then the top bun. Bizarre, but delicious. The big appeal was the toasty double-decker bun and the way the middle slice seperated the warm coney sauce and curled up hot dog from the cold cheese, lettuce and tartar sauce. What a wonderful mix of tastes, textures and temperatures!

Bobbie Jo's version comes on a regular toasted bun without sesame seeds. All the other ingredients were there, but the order is a bit different. The coney sauce comes on top of the hot dog, and the cheese and tartar sauce come next. The stacking order means that the cheese melts on the sandwich and the tartar sauce is warmed a bit as well, wrecking the hot/cold dynamic of the original.

Is the new Curly Dog good? Oh yes! Is it as good as the original? Nope. They need to buy some double-decker buns and use that center slice of bread to seperate the hot parts from the cold. Still, congratulations to the fine folks ar Bobbie Jo's for keeping the legend alive. I did order that second sandwich, by the way.

This place is pretty cool. Nice little diner with nice staff. But they have this dish called the curly dog. It's a footlong hot dog cut and deep fried and then put on a bun with chili sauce and a secret sauce with cheese and lettuce on a grilled bun. It was superb!  Order the onion rings with it. Fun dish fun place