Vinnie and I had the opportunity to go to Charlie's Pool Room in Alpha, NJ last weekend on our way to the Poconos to visit with my in-laws.
Please, please go here if you ever have a chance. Or make the chance, even! You can read my Yelp review if you want. I loved talking with John, the front of the house guy. We talked about hot dogs, bakery bread and the internet. He credits the internet and guys like Holly for saving the brothers' business. Meeting these 2 men was as much a part of the experience as eating the hotdogs. It is not a fancy place and there is only one table. But anything different would not be Charlie's Pool Room.
John told me as he handed me my bag of dogs, " Pull them straight out and when eating them, straight in." The key to their hotdogs is the secret sauce, passed down to them from their grandmother. I had a mealie: the Hungarian secret sauce, chopped raw onions and slices of hot pepper. The perfect proportions of sauce to dog and steamed bun combined with the knowingly placed onions and peppers added up to a most delicious bite, down to the last one. When I opened my pack of 2 mealies, I could not even take a picture before I started to eat one, as you can see in the picture.
