You totally did think I was going to say “goose.”
Also: I don’t want to hear any of your shit.
Yes, we are in coastal Carolina. Yes, there has been the eating of barbeque, there will be the eating of seafood and there has been much pizza. Yes, I should be stuffing my gullet with ‘cue and crab ’til the she-crabs come home. However: I am at the BEACH, goddammit. And just because I’m in North Carolina does not mean I am immune to the siren song of a chili dog and some really good frozen custard. Oh, and french fries. I love a damn french fry.
Hence exhibit A: Not ONLY are there chili dogs, not ONLY are there dubious “better” (Than?) burgers, there are “beach fries,” which may or may not be different and/or better than regular fries and the WORLDS [sic] BEST ICE CREAM. Yes, my friends, the World’s Best Ice Cream is right here in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.
The building looks kinda like a Dairy Queen, but with a steeple. Like there’s a god of soft-serve frozen custard and this is the sanctuary we have built him, 20 cubits wide by 40 cubits long by 15 cubits high.
I assume the master frozen custard recipe is kept in an ark inside the sanctuary, languidly guarded from the Nazis who would use it to further their own power play day and night by half-alert teenagers from Virginia spending their summer at the beach.
Yes, I am going to hell, but at least I had a really good chili dog first.
Exhibit B: Chili cheese dog. Note than some among us who are not myself eat this with a side of mustard. Interesting
I’m not sure how this was physically done, and I was THERE.
The chili dogs and french fries, while very good, were not exemplars of their breed. Really, they were just precursors to the milkshakes and were eaten so we wouldn’t feel like total gluttons who ate nothing but ice cream for lunch. (Although now that I reflect, FUCK THAT. I am on a motherfucking VACATION and I WILL eat ice cream for lunch if I so choose.)
Anyway:
The cup to the rear contains a chocolate malted that had so much malt powder that it verged near – nay, brazenly charged across – the line between “tasty” and “medicinal.” At least for me, because I don’t like malt. Brian, however, was in malt heaven. I’m pretty sure he wants to go back for another one this very second.
In front was my COCONUT CREAM PIE MILKSHAKE. And this is how I know that the recipes they guard must have come from the hand of a higher power because oh my fucking god did this kick ass. Thick and creamy, vanilla-y and coconuty, with toasted coconut all throughout…maybe we should go back right now.
Dang, y’alls.
Tomorrow: The Barbecue Cometh.
Thursday Night Smackdown 
Damn you, Michelle. Yes, I am damning you. I’m from NC and rarely got out to the Outer Banks. I love it out there, yet know very little about it. And now I want a vacation, dammit. Pizza, chili dogs, hand cut fries, seafood, bbq galore.
That mustard pile is really, REALLY terrifying.
Woah there, Nelly. What is a frozen custard? Is it a milkshake? Is this a regional thing? Like a frappe with a drawl? Or is it actually frozen custard and if so, how long a flight is it to Kill Devil Hills?
Oh, I’m sorry. That does not qualify as a SIDE of mustard! It is a BEHEMOTH of mustard! A LEVIATHAN of mustard! So much mustard! Ahhhhh!
However, I would eat the shit outta that coconut cream pie milkshake. Like, for reals, yo.
So bad yet so good. Lol. Glad you’re enjoying your vacation!
Oh deary me.
I live in NC Piedmont, and I find so many things to be critical of in the above pictures that I hardly know where to start, regarding chili dogs in particular.
But I will chuck all that for now (though if you get to Raleigh go to the Roast Grill for a real chili dog).
I simply cannot let the phrase “world’s best ice cream” whiz past my head without conjuring upon Toscanini’s ice cream in Cambridge, MA ((http://www.tosci.com/)). Though I am a north carolina farm boy, born and bred, redneck to the bone, there is a piece of my heart permanently located in Cambridge, not the least because of Tosci’s and Mary Chung’s.
cheese sauce? cheese SAUCE on a chili dog? omg, ugh. (ok I’ll stop now)
“Yes, I am going to hell,…”
Heaven for the climate. Hell for the company.
See ya there!
emily, seriously, wait until you see the bbq i’m going to post later today. and the sandwich later this week with the tuna salad made from freshly caught and smoked tuna from the place that also has the best hush puppies, and the other place with the “world’s best ice cream” and the…
linda, yes, it is. although i have been instructed to clarify that the mustard pit was for the french fries, not the hot dog.
susan, frozen custard is a particularly rich and creamy kind of soft-serve ice cream. what you are seeing are milkshakes made from said custard.
kay, you WOULD. just like i’m going to do to the next one i get.
lucrezia, so true. thanks!
fuzzy, re: the cheese sauce, i do agree. however, it was still good, and i would still eat another one. (and i’m from jersey, home of the texas weiner.) for me, the main shortcoming was lack of onions, but i let these things go because VACATIOOOOON.
re: ice cream, toscanini’s is an archetype of the form. i also loved the place around the corner – herrell’s? – because their chocolate pudding ice cream was the bomb and they make THE BEST hot fudge.
other kay, cheers! i’ll bring the cheese dip, you bring the beer.
Ok, I seriously might have to go find a chili dog here in Brooklyn/Manhattan stat. Weirdest. Craving. Ever.
re: Boston area ice cream, Toscanini’s didn’t pay their sales tax for years, got in lots of trouble and then asked their customers, who already paid said tax, to make donations so they could pay the government and stay open. Shady, shady business… and the people paid, so they’re still around. Not shady ice cream that’s a must try next time you’re in Cambridge, Christina’s in Inman Square. Totally worth the trek.
re: your lunch, I want those fries right now. Or the physical equivalent but with the fair fry perfect texture and taste.
You had to go all the way to the Carolinas for a chili dog and fries? You’re in Jersey! You are pretty close to boardwalk fries. Of course I haven’t been to the Jersey Shore for any length of time since…oh…maybe 1990, so for all I know, it’s all so crappy now that it wouldn’t be worth a short trip.
There is nothing wrong with ice cream for dinner. I do that all the time on vacation (and sometimes when I’m not on vacation). I think that coconut shake is a perfect meal.
I also think the World’s Best Ice Cream is the Bellvale Creamery in Warwick, NY, but everyone knows that. I’m not sure my opinion could be swayed away from that belief.
YES to Herrell’s ice cream! I spent many happy hours in their store in Northampton, MA while I was in college and they totally do have the best hot fudge I’ve ever had. They sell it on the innernet too, FYI. I dream about a hot fudge sundae with Burnt Butter ‘n Sugar ice cream and almonds. . . Sigh. As you were.
It’s a good thing I wasn’t there, because I would seriously fight you to the ground for that coconut shake.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with eating only ice cream as a meal on vacation. I would know.
Plus, I’m in total agreement about Herrell’s hot fudge – the best ever.
OK, Karen@MIgnardise, so next time you are down in MA you’ll pick up some hot fudge from Herrell’s for the rest of us? Then we’ll make sundaes and have them for dinner (you know, before next week when the snow flies!).
I think there is a consensus Michelle: Ice cream (and its derivatives) can be either a dessert or entree course. I would add that it isn’t all bad as an appetizer either.
I live in Chesapeake, VA and traveled down specifically to shop next door to this place (for some really cool ceramic lanterns for the backyard). We ate Kill Devils as well. We had cheeseburgers, fries and milkshakes. omg- the shakes were shake-a-licious.