Yocco's the Hot Dog King in Allentown, Pennsylvania

It's a Dog Eat Dog World in the Lehigh Valley

I heard about Yocco's Hot Dog for years and years but just now tried their food out. I've been inundated with their slogan, "Everybody goes to Yocco's! Yocco's is the place to go!” on TV. Their logo can be discussed for hours. A hot dog king holding a fork with another hot dog on it. In the famous words of the Church Lady, "Could it be Satan?" (See picture #1) Of course, the Hatfield Meat Company’s logo is a pig. Do cannibals use a human as their logo? Hmm, things to ponder!

I had one of their plain hot dogs, of course served with their secret sauce on top, one of their burgers with the same sauce as their hot dogs and an order of fries. Cost: $4.82.

I'll start out with their hot dogs. Yocco's is the self-proclaimed "Hot Dog King" but what I got was a "Hot Dog Jack", a few steps below a King. The hot dogs themselves weren't anything special but the sauce was the a bit better.

Yocco's uses your standard Hatfield pork and beef franks. They don't use hot dog rollers which would give that roasted taste that I find crucial to a good fast food style hot dog. Instead they season their dogs with dry seasoning and then cook them on a flat, smooth grill and rotated by spatula. (See picture #3) We've done this at my home for years. While it's good here at home, I'd expect more from a restaurant. It created a slightly burned flavor with some harder skin where it got burned a tad too much. The dog was just "okay".

The roll was a plain, untoasted, unsteamed bread without character.

On to the sauce. This is the key factor in kicking their dogs up from mediocre to good but still not great. The sauce is dark brown (looks horrid but it's not bad!). I tasted a heavy onion flavor, a little brown mustard taste with hints of some kind of chili powder. I could detect the grainy texture of the dry spices. It's not the greatest, most complicated sauce but it served its purpose here adequately.

The finished product isn't pretty but taste it anyway. (See picture #2)