The Hintonburger on Wellington Street West has a penchant for using otherwise under-appreciated local references in its marketing. There is the way its sandwiches are named after obscure local streets (try the Armstrong Burger!), its practice of publicizing the much-reviled #2 bus as the best way to find the joint, and then of course the name of the restaurant itself. Why didn’t anyone think of that before?
But they may have topped themselves with their latest menu innovation, launched this last weekend. It’s a grilled chili dog of epic proportions; 12 inches long, it’s called, appropriately for a restaurant five minutes on foot from Bayview Station, the “O-Train”.
I popped in to order one this past Saturday, and after 5 minutes or so the behemoth pictured above was set in front of me. The first words out of my mouth were “can I get that cut it in half?”. The cook may have been expecting that; I had the strong sense that there was a knife hovering nearby. I managed to get through one half while sitting at the front window, then I took the other half home, cut it in half, and fed two kids with it.
So for 10 dollars it turned out to be good value; in fact, with the name of the treat still fresh in my mind, I was put in mind of an edible version of the OC Transpo family day pass.