Burger King’s new hot dog is a Whopper of a marketing disaster — and a culinary calamity, too.
Rolled out with Apple-like hoopla, it barely holds its own against your average dirty-water dog from a street stand.
I’ve enjoyed every breed of Big Apple hot dog — from Coney Island to Pelham Bay Park to the Halal guy near the Hudson Yards No. 7 station who recently sold me the best I’ve ever had — and I’ll say without hiccupping: Burger King’s are the worst embarrassment in the name of cylindrical meat matter since Anthony Weiner tweeted his wiener.
Burger King rolled out its new product last week at 12,000 US outlets — after an earlier attempt to bolster sales with “healthier” choices flopped.
It took Burger King 62 years to launch a hot dog — enough time, you’d think, to come up with a decent one. But, like most ooze-slathered fast-food products served on buns, Burger King’s feeble ’furters are all about mouth feel. That’s wonderful only for eaters who confuse a tongue-bath with taste.
Nobody should compare any fast-food hot dog with the “luxury” mutations popping up around town pumped up with exotic meat blends and foie gras.
But in a town where beloved Nathan’s and Sabrett are synonymous with the unadorned article, we expect our hot dogs not to roll over dead with all paws in the air.
Burger King’s “classic” ($2.49 at 327 W. 42nd St., 310 calories) is a too-dry, half-inch thick, Oscar Mayer affair tasting about 50 percent of the 100 percent beef it’s cracked up to be.
The “flame-grilled,” moisture-deprived dog’s insipid quality can’t be masked by messy squiggles of industrial-grade mustard, ketchup, near-liquid green relish and chopped onions.
Scored lengthwise to capture the condiments’ congealed ooze, it’s edible — but a joke compared to real New York classic dogs, like the ones at Katz’s or Papaya King.
As for natural casing, Burger King’s limp dogs offered so little outer texture, they might as well have been skinless.
While their ersatz “classic” is at least tolerable, the chili/cheese dog ($2.89, 330 calories), composed of the same 100 percent beef, is 100 percent mutt.
The watery chili’s a blur of flavorless beans. Grated, orange-hued “cheddar” closely resembled wood chips and tasted little better. Put this mongrel on a leash.
Amazingly, Burger King’s doomed dog stampeded competing national chains like Checkers into crash programs to crank out their own upstart sausages.
Put ’em back in your pants, guys.