Los Perros Locos 02-01-2013

Location: 201 Allen St.
Time: 1pm

Feelings: Across the street from another hot dog joint, Links, is a quite addictive Colombian hot dog shop, Los Perros Locos. The concept of Colombian style hot dogs is similar to the Japanese one you may find at Japadog-- hot dogs topped with whatever you can imagine. What makes more significantly Colombian style is the layer of sweet pineapple sauce with crushed chips on top. Colombian fast food places are popular in the vicinity of Jackson Heights (La Perrada De Chalo was highly recommended by a friend), but this invasion in Manhattan might trigger a Colombian hot dog trend.

The hot dogs are definitely loco here, and the menu includes many interesting items like Amerro-Perro ($7, beer+cocoa infused beef chili, Vermont cheddar, chipotle kraut, crushed fritos) and mac and cheese dog called El Nino Loco ($4.5, Kraft mac and cheese, fritos, ketchup). There are beef dog, veggie dog (+$1), chorizo dog (+$1.5) to choose from, and you can also build your own tasty super perros for $3 plus 75 cents per topping. If the dogs are not your thing, hamburguesas can be grilled to order as well as grilled corn, waffle fries and some interesting dessert like Cholado ($5, Frutas frescas,shaved ice, passiofruit, blackberry juice, condensed milk, whipped cream, toasted coconut).

There is also El Perro Perdido, which involves deep fried french toast, jam, ham and cheese, but I assume that is not a dessert. At this point, I feel like I'm just writing out their menu here, but I can't fail to mention that they also serve Colombian beer. Loco!

I remained simple and tried a veggie dog with pineapple sauce and chips. Mainly because I was a bit overwhelmed by their extensive menu and bright pink signs. The combination of the salty-sweet concoction was perfect, and everything tasted very fresh and well balanced. I will definitely go back to try...mostly everything.

They are staying open very late, until 4:30am on weekends to be exact, so I predict there will be many happily stuffed intoxicated people on Allen street.