HOT DOG!

Craig Bechtle and his family arrived in Las Vegas from Jacksonville, Fla., one morning last week and by lunchtime were at Chicago Hot Dogs, 1078 N. Rancho Drive. Bechtle has a points-of-interest program for his global positioning system; he entered "hot dogs" and the GPS did the rest.

But why would they come to Las Vegas and seek out a hot dog place?

"I grew up eating this stuff," the Chicago native said as he sat at a table with his wife, Dena, and teenagers Colin, Tyler and Ellen. "We needed to get some lunch. It's not your normal fast food. It just has a unique taste."

There is, for example, the "snap" from the natural casing, the wide variety of traditional toppings and the poppy-seed bun.

"Nathan's pales in comparison," Bechtle said.

Bob Giammarino would beg to differ. Giammarino, owner of Bob's Eastside Deli at 2900 E. Patrick Lane, is a native New Yorker and knows how much New Yorkers love their hot dogs -- their New York hot dogs.

Giammarino stocks products from Thumann's Inc. in Carlstadt, N.J. (in the New York metro area) and special-orders cases of Thumann's hot dogs -- as well as Sabrett, another New York brand -- for those who crave the flavors of a hometown dog. If you're from "back East," Giammarino said, there's no substitute.

"It's got that street-vendor flavor," he said. "Us New Yorkers call them 'dirty waters,' " for the grease-laden water, sometimes accumulated over several days, that filled the carts' tanks. Urban legend held, he said, that it was the grease that gave the dogs their distinctive flavor -- although changing health codes now require the tanks to be cleaned each day.

With July being National Hot Dog Month -- and the Fourth of July one of the country's top days for hot dog consumption -- it's a good time to note: We sure do love our hot dogs, especially the regional favorites.

Requests to the Review-Journal's Taste of the Town column for various types of regional hot dogs -- Zweigle's Meats of Rochester, N.Y.; Hofmann of Syracuse, N.Y.; Caspers of Northern California; Maple Leaf of Toronto -- became so numerous a few years ago that editors declared a moratorium.

Chicago fans seem to be particularly loyal. Kurtis Kallal, operator of Chicago Hot Dogs, estimates that 75 percent of his customers are Chicago natives, and that 60 percent of them come in for the hot dogs (he also imports Italian beef from Chicago, and serves gyros and sliders, and plans to start serving Chicago-style pizza). Las Vegas also is home to Chicago Tasty Dogs, 9711 S. Eastern Ave., and Hot Dog Heaven, 87 E. Lake Mead Parkway in Henderson.

But other regions manage to make their mark here. Pink's, the Hollywood, Calif., haven known for its celebrity clientele and killer chili dogs (and a wide variety of others, including the hybrid Brooklyn Pastrami-Swiss Cheese Dog) has a branch at Planet Hollywood Resort, 3667 Las Vegas Blvd. South.

Residents of other regions also stick with their dogs, although these products have yet to show up in Las Vegas. Consider Toledo, Ohio. Remember Cpl. Klinger of TV's "M*A*S*H," and his Tony Packo's? One of the Hungarian food company's signature items is the Packo's Chili Hot Dog, and Toledo native Jamie Farr, who played the wacky soldier, reportedly wrote in the reference to Packo's himself. (According to the company, the writers inserted references to Packo's into five more episodes).

In a current exhibit, the American Museum of Natural History in New York also recognizes the Fenway Frank, Dodger Dog, New York Deli Dog (not to be confused with the New York Street Cart Dog) and -- a perennial R-J reader favorite, but unfortunately not available in Las Vegas -- the Rochester White Hot (from Zweigle's), among others.

As for Giammarino, he'll stick with his New York Street Cart Dog, even if times have changed -- to the dog's detriment, he maintains.

Cooking the hot dogs in the greasy water wasn't the only secret, he said. There also were the special sauces made in the vendors' homes, especially the tomato onions, which he said are onions sauteed with a little tomato sauce and a little black pepper; put a lid on them and let them steam.

"I'm giving away the secret," Giammarino said with a laugh.

Which doesn't matter so much since updated health codes now require commercially prepared condiments along with the regularly cleaned carts.

Giammarino spreads the New York Street Cart Hot Dog gospel in Las Vegas. He has, for example, converted his three sons-in-law, who, he was horrified to find, had learned to grill their dogs.

"Get those things off the grill!" he remembers telling them. "I finally had to educate them. You want to grill them, get Ball Park. You can't ruin those."

On the grill, Giammarino said, hot dogs tend to split and burn. His dog of choice is a pork-and-beef mix, and the juices drip onto the heat and cause flareups. If they're boiled, he said, some of the fat is removed and the natural casing just seems to get snappier.

"Now they understand," he said.

Not that Chicago native Frank LaFranco would buy it. LaFranco and his wife, Kathy, who live in Huntington Beach, Calif., were at Chicago Hot Dogs last week.

Kathy LaFranco said her husband discovered the tiny spot when he frequented an electronics place that used to be in the adjacent plaza. On his first visit, she said, he thought, "This isn't going to be the real thing. But it is."

"Whenever we come to Vegas, we come here once or twice," she said. "We came in yesterday afternoon and came and got hot dogs. We're back today.

"We drive 300 miles for a hot dog."

"I don't come to Vegas for the hotels," Frank LaFranco said. "I come to Vegas for the Chicago hot dogs."

Giammarino may differ from LaFranco on the provenance, but they do seem to agree on one thing.

"It's a tube steak," Giammarino said. "It's the filet mignon of round meat."

Contact reporter Heidi Knapp Rinella at hrinella@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0474.