Give the Dog a Bone

When I'm not working (and when I'm not bitching about working too much), here's what I do. I come up with names for dishes that I envision serving in my fantasy restaurant. My fantasy restaurant is going to be a small place, with space inside to sit and eat and a large tin-roofed, covered area outside for dining alfresco. I'll serve food that people can eat in or take home. My place will be a very large, very strange hot-dog stand. Maybe I'll call my place something like Dog Chow or Dog Food.

One of the dishes I'll serve will be an over-sized hot dog on an oversized bun, stuffed to overflowing with mustard and sauerkraut. I'll call it the Alpha Dog.

The hot dog that's wrapped in a very large tortilla that's folded over itself so that it looks wrinkled (and is stuffed with Chinese cabbage, Chinese mustard, and other such delectables), will be called the Shar-pei.

The kiddie-sized version of the hot dog, which will be an under-sized weiner in an under-sized bun, will be called the...Puppy Dog.

The Police Dog will be advertised on the menu as being a "regular hot dog with a donut chaser (sorry, officer, just kidding). " The Deputy Dog will be the same.

My hot dog that's made with rice, bamboo shoots, nori, and rice wine will be the Akita Dog.

The hot dog with the 100% chicken weiner will be the Bird Dog.

The regular hot dog with vodka-mustard will be called Hair of the Dog.

The vegetarian version, made with tofu or paneer, will be called the Not Dog.

The Sheep Dog will be made from a lamb-based weiner served on pita bread with yogurt sauce and spices.

The hot dog served on a bun that's laced with jalapenos and habanero peppers will be either the Rabid Dog or the Snarling Dog.

My down home dog, topped with black-eyed peas and collard greens will either be called the Snoop Dog or the Soul Dog.

As I said, my place will be either for eat-in or to take out. So, when people enter, they'll see a sign that will direct them to one side for eat in (Sit & Stay) or the other side for take out (Fetch).

If I build a second level to my outdoor eating area, I'll invite people upstairs to have a Dog on a Hot Tin Roof.

Wednesday's will be specials, because we'll sell 3 hot dogs for the price of two; I'll call Wednesdays Three Dog Night.

If my place gets busy enough so that I have to give people numbers that we'll call when their order is ready, I won't give them receipts with numbers, I'll give them Dog Tags.

Outside, if he health department permits, I'll let people bring their own dogs on certain days of the week (Dog Days). We'll even have something special for the real dogs on those days, maybe an odd mixture of leftovers, Iams, Purina, etc. we'll call Dog's Breakfast.

We may have a section of the restaurant where people can sit back with their meal, relax, and read a book. We'll call it the Dog Ear section.

Oh, we'll have a Chicago Dog and a Corn Dog and a Kansas City Dog and a NYC Dog and a Coney Dog, of course, but we'll pride ourselves on being a wildly diverse, oddly perverse, totally crazy place. It will be fun. More fun than I have today in this Dog Eat Dog world I'm living in.

I'm still working on how to work in Bitch, Barking Dog, Bulldog, Dog Bite, Dog Meat, Dog Collar, and a hundred other words and phrases.

Do not steal this idea, please, lest I let Lassie the Dangerous Dog loose on you, turning you into Dog Meat.

You may think I'm not serious about this. Believe it or not, I'd love to make this happen. And maybe I will.