“How you feel about crispy dogs?” asked a friend from San Antonio. We were discussing regional variations of hot dogs, with my favorite being the bacon-wrapped Mexican hot dogs I enjoy at the Fiesta market by my mom’s house in Houston. His, however, was the aforementioned crispy dog, which is a cheese-stuffed hot dog wrapped in a corn tortilla and then fried.
“That sounds like a flauta,” I said. He agreed it was similar, but it also reminded him of a Tex-Mex corny dog. But no matter how you define it, what’s not to love about melted cheese, juicy sausage and a crunchy fried tortilla? Yep, ever since our conversation, I’ve had a serious craving for a crispy dog.
Though here’s the thing—if you want to order a crispy dog at a restaurant in Texas, you should go to San Antonio, as they seldom appear on menus anywhere else. While its origins are a bit murky, the beloved west side restaurant Malt House says it started selling them in 1949 and believes they were the first, though they soon became popular at other places around town such as MK Davis and Ray’s.
For more history, I called the Malt House and spoke to the manager, Ivan Gonzalez. He graciously shared with me several stories about the restaurant, which his father took over in 1990 when the founding owner Herb McEwen died. His belief was that McEwen started selling the crispy dog to appeal to his customers who wanted both American food and Mexican food, making this truly a Tex-Mex dish.
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