Hotdog & Beyond: An Upgraded Hotdog Diner (Restaurant Closed)

‘Hot Dog and Beyond’, is a new eatery specialized in serving frankfurters. The new concept, located at LeMall Dbayeh, offers a large variety of dogs and burgers accompanied with fries and salads. This restaurant is an upgraded version of the casual hotdog sandwiches we are used to eating. Yes, its a bit more sophisticated yet keeping a casual and relaxed feel. I loved the place and believe it can soon compete against the big diners in town.

Recently, echoes about HD&B has been spreading. Some say its good, while others insist that its average. As usual, I decided to make my own opinion about the place. The architecture design of the place is very pleasant and welcoming encouraging you to want to sit down and discover more about the concept. Every single detail in this restaurant is handled with professionalism, starting with their welcoming waiters, to their nicely printed menus, their metallic food trays, to the thyme peanuts buckets offered before making your order...and much more...

Architectural details:

• Wooden black chairs and red leather benches
• Natural brown wooden tables
• Red pendant lamps dangling from the industrial black ceiling
• A general red ambiance
• A "Live Dogs" neon sign
• HD&B lighting and logos decorating the walls
• An open kitchen and bar
• Concrete gray flooring
• Red metallic buckets placed on all tables, used as ashtrays or for throwing the peanuts shells

Choose from one of the 19 different frankfurters:

• Southern slow dog
• Chicago hotdog
• Acapulco hotdog
• Hot Colorado hotdog
• BBQ hotdog
• Broadway hotdog
• Vegan hotdog
• Mexican hotdog
• Pizza hotdog
• Mushroom Swiss hotdog
• Kebab hotdog
• Hollywood hotdog
• New York hotdog
• Bacon Mexican hotdog
• Chili cheese hotdog
• Bacon cheese hotdog
• Con Carne hotdog
• Original hotdog
• HD&B hotdog (The signature specialty)

Or maybe fancy a burger:

• HD&B burger (The signature specialty)
• Cheeseburger
• Mozzarella burger
• Swiss mushroom burger
• Gruyere cheese burger
• Spicy burger
• American burger
• BBQ burger
• Chicken burger
• Mexican fajita burger

We ordered one from each category:

• Swiss Mushroom Burger: grilled beef patty, fresh mushrooms, lettuce, Swiss cheese, caramelized onions & Swiss sauce
• HD&B: fried hotdog, red pepper, mushrooms, onions, 4cheese & pesto mayo sauce

My honest opinion about the food:

• I was expecting to feel my teeth dig into something crunchy. I was expecting to experience that crunch of the chips known to be a major ingredient of all hotdogs. It didn't happen.
• Be aware, the special HD&B has the hotdog cut in pieces making it feel like "soujok". If you want to experience a full length hotdog in one piece, ask for another variety. On another hand it's full of taste: a success.
• The bread is perfect: delicious, soft and tender.
• We weren't asked about the burger meat. I would have surely preferred it less cooked even though the final taste was good. For a hotdog restaurant, the burger they prepare can compete with the neighbors.
• The Swiss Mushroom sauce was quite good, mouthwatering and well seasoned. It's much better than the specialised burger diner across the highway.
• Today's trend imposes to have two choices of meat: the normal 150g and the thick special 220g. Roadster, Crepaway and even Classic Burger propose it. I recommend HD&B does so also.

• Very slow service even though the place was not crowded
• The desserts need to be revised urgently: The brownie is hard as a rock and lacks taste. It would have been much better served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream next to it. The caramel cheese cake is not crunchy and over sweet. Desserts are unfortunately a mess. Betty Crocker has awesome brownies and I think you can use them (nobody will know).
• You are forced to drink Pepsi since they don't propose Coke.

The main and important missing item:

APPETIZERS! Where are the appetizers? A diner without appetizers? Wouldn't it be great to start your journey with some mozzarella sticks or chicken strips, before diving into the hotdog considering that the service is very slow and we were waiting eating peanuts? Do the math and calculate the additional revenues you could make if you proposed appetizers: We were two persons and ordered one burger and one hotdog followed by one dessert each. If appetizers were proposed we would have added to the bill two additional dishes! It makes sense, right?

Hotdog & Beyond is one of those places I fell in love with, even though it still needs a bit of organization to be perfect and able to compete with the big diners around. I can see it happening if they just attend to a few details mentioned. Its surely is a place to try. I wish the owners the best of luck in their next plans.