Over the recent Fourth of July weekend, I ate many hot dogs: grilled to a brown-black crisp, tossed in a toasted bun, topped with watery squeeze-bottle relish — all chowed down in seconds.
But at Café Fleuri, in the tony Langham Hotel, they’ve got different ideas about the proper preparation and degustation of the hallowed tube steak. Executive chef Mark Sapienza has recently added a Kobe-beef frank to the menu. It’s a gourmet dog whose heft is commensurate with the quality of meat with which it’s made.
Okay, this isn’t exactly Kobe beef, but Kobe-style — meaning it isn’t imported from Kobe, Japan, where ranchers are known to massage their cattle, wash their fur with sake, and feed them beer to fatten them up (prime cuts can cost as much as $300 per pound). This is Wagyu beef, from California: it’s the same breed as the cattle from Kobe, a breed that’s notable for its sinfully high ratio of marbled fat to muscle. Says Sapienza, “It’s just really, really high-end beef.”
You may remember hearing a couple years back about a Kobe-beef hamburger served at New York City’s DB Bistro Moderne: a sirloin steak, filled with foie gras, wine-braised short ribs, and black truffles. This frankfurter offers a lot less snobbery, but every bit as much flavor. It’s pretty much the perfect meal, splitting the difference between haute-cuisine and all-American comfort food.
Eight inches long, and weighing in at a hefty eight ounces, it’s a big dog, for sure. It’s also a good dog: its casing is crisp and taut, and the steamy beef inside is rich and savory. Not too salty, with just hint of sweetness, it’s moist and flaky — almost as flaky as the outside of its pillowy bun, which is toasted just so. It’s all topped with a succulent, sweet-and-sour green-tomato piccalilli relish (drawn directly from the recipe of a Langham chef’s Italian grandmother) and served alongside Boston baked beans.
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Kobe beef may originate from the same country as Kobayashi, the eating machine who scarfed down 53 3/4 franks in 12 minutes at the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Competition on Coney Island this past Independence Day, but even he would take his time with this beauty and stop at just one. Okay, maybe two or three.
Available for $19 at Café Fleuri, Langham Hotel, 250 Franklin Street, Boston | 617.956.8751