2 a.m. Eats: Underdogs
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
Underdogs | 132 S. 17th St., 215-665-8080, underdogsphilly.com.
All chefs must feel some pangs of existential despair at the daily rigors of creating works of culinary architecture only to see them demolished by brutish teeth and blunt-force tongues. As the after-after-party crowd trips down the stairs into Underdogs, the Sisyphean absurdity of this exercise is in full display.
In the kitchen, hot dogs and sausages are split and seared, arranged in buns, adorned with an inventive array of transformative toppings and given alluring monikers. The My Thai dog is decorated with a creamy peanut sauce and green papaya slaw. A smoky kielbasa is outfitted with sautéed onions and spicy golden mustard, and cheekily dubbed the Warsaw Packed.
Meanwhile, the brightly lit dining area looks like a triage for shipwreck victims: Bodies are slumped over tables and splayed across chairs, fashionable hairstyles have become spiky sea anemones, words are spoken loudly and without purpose.
Inspired by LCD Soundsystem coming through the house speakers, one man asserts that he has “high-fived James Murphy a thousand times at this point.” Nearby, a woman uses a lap for a pillow and a hoodie for a sleep mask. Both people brighten when their orders arrive. These are consumed quickly and quietly.
We, the eaters, show no signs that these complicated delicacies — complicated for hot dogs, anyway — might be worthy of a moment’s contemplation before casting them into the gullet gallows of gastric acids and Midori sours. And that’s our right, surely.
A woman in white who could barely keep her eyes open as she ate now uses friends as crutches to get through the door and up the outside stairs. Halfway to the sidewalk, everybody pauses. She looks down. One friend rubs her back. Another gathers her hair into a ponytail. The after-after-after-party has begun.
