Posted by Michael Stern on November 15, 2007
Founder Nick Tahou died in 1997 after more than fifty years running Rochester’s premier hot dog joint. His culinary legacy remains the amazing dish known as a garbage plate. It is up to each customer to choose the foundation of his or her garbage plate. It can be based on Texas hot wieners, hamburgers (with or without cheese), Italian sausage, or steak. The meatstuff of your choice is plated with piles of baked beans and home-fried potatoes, a scoop of cool macaroni salad, a dollop of spicy chili sauce, a squirt or two of mustard, and a sprinkle of chopped raw onions. It comes with plastic fork and knife, a bottle of Ketchup, some hot sauce, and white bread with butter.
It is a wild, ridiculous, and delicious mess! Especially noteworthy is the sauce, a fine-grained, Greek-accented brew that is also available on such lesser variants of frankfurter cookery as Nick Tahou's peppery pork hots and the basic garlic-packed Texas hots, as well as on grilled hamburgers.
Burgers are OK, but upper New York State is hot dog country. Nick Tahou’s are exemplary, if not epicurean. They are called Texas hots, and they are split and fried, which gives them a nice, chewy exterior and hash house raunch that boiled or even charcoal-grilled weenies do not offer.
As befits its menu, Nick Tahou is an unruly dog house, with chairs and tables scattered around and plenty of noise as customers call out for red hots and white hots with the works. Once upon a time Nick Tahou could satisfy that late night craving for a garbage plate. Alas, today's Nick Tahou closes at 8PM.
Overall: Worth driving from anyplace
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Reviewers "Must Eats" List
garbage plate
($6.00)
"Eat this quickly or all the fat will gel the ingredients together!"
Stephen Rushmore Jr.
"This is probably one of the greasiest cheeseburgers I have ever eaten. It is ladeled heavy with chili sauce."
Stephen Rushmore Jr.
"Jane prepares to enter Nick Tahou Hots circa. 1989."
Michael Stern
"Not every city has a single dish that attracts foodies from afar."
Michael Stern
"Grilled cheese makes the perfect garbage plate garnish."
Bruce Bilmes and Sue Boyle
