You may have seen this hot dog joint featured on Travel Channel's show on hot dogs, or perhaps you've been to Kauai and found them at the Poipu Shopping Center where it's known as Puka Dog. The owner, who was originally from Switzerland, started the business with her then-husband in 2000. It was touristy, but popular.
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When they split up, she went on to rebrand the stores under her control in Oahu Hula Dog, but the concept remains the same–they don't toast the buns in an oven, but impale it on a ramrod straight steel pike that heats it from the inside out. The hole the pike leaves behind also happens to be the perfect size to slide in a wiener. Into that pocket also go relishes made with mango, papaya and all sorts of other Hawaiian flavors.
Now that Hula Dog has opened a store in Newport Beach (2233 W Balboa Blvd #109) (its fourth restaurant, but its first on the mainland) you no longer have to wonder what tourists from the continental US eat when they vacation in paradise and aren't in a luau.
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Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.
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