Live from Peoria, Illinois, it’s Saturday Night, starring this week’s host, Emo’s Ice Cream Shack with special guest star, Emo the creepy-ass clown and featuring The Ready For Prime Beef Player, Marty Wombacher. And now please welcome this week’s host from the corner of Prospect and War Memorial Drive, Emo’s Ice Cream Shack!
Here we are zooming up Prospect Road at a knee-buckling 19 miles per hour. I don’t know why, but 14 months ago my car stopped going over 20 mph in the Heights, it’s like it’s got a mind of it’s own! (Inside joke alert!)
I see Emo’s up ahead in the distance and for once I can’t blame the MBIP Camera for the fuzzy shots, I just about ran into a car while taking these and things got a little shaky for a minute or so! Let’s park before we become a footnote on the Peoria Police Scanner.
We’ve parked and here we are at Emo’s and there’s the infamous creepy Emo’s clown laughing at the world as they drive by this iconic Peoria ice cream and hot dog stand.
I was a little worried starting out tonight that they might be closed because it’s been raining off and on and there’s a severe thunderstorm warning in effect, but Emo’s proves they’re troopers and they are open!
As you can see, the rain has kept a lot of people away tonight and all the tables are empty out here. At least right now it’s just drizzling a little, so before we place our order, let’s take a few photos of the Emo’s clown and do a mood study of him from different angles. Here we go...
Well, that was not only fun, but educational too! Okay, enough of this balderdash, let’s get our special Hot Dog Memorial Day Weekend Saturday Night Dinner!
Even though it’s kind of a shitty night outside, there’s still a line of people here waiting for a Saturday night treat at Emo’s! People love Emo’s in the summertime!
There’s the menu for the ice cream and milkshakes and below that are the condiment buckets. As much as I hate to look at the ketchup bucket, I have to. I know from past experiences here, this is probably not going to be good, but just like a nasty traffic accident where lives are lost and limbs are sliced off willy-nilly, I have to look. Aaaaahhhh! They still have Hunt’s ketchup here! Ugh! Hunt’s is horrible and vile ketchup and you can read my thoughts about ketchup here, here and here. Let’s just pretend like we didn’t see that and keep moving along! It is a holiday weekend after all. Ecch!
Okay, we’re just about up to the ordering window!
And baboom, here we are at the ordering window and the pretty woman ready to take our order is Karen, who we met when we came here for our Saturday night dinner, last July! Great to see her again!
As Karen gets our order prepared, I took a few shots of the inside of Emo’s Shake Shack. There’s the menu, the fountain drinks and the soft-serve ice cream machine. In the bottom photo they’re busy putting the orders together.
Todd and Mandy were getting ready to enjoy a fresh banana split, until I stopped and bugged them to pose for the MBIP Camera and being good sports they posed for me! I love Todd and Mandy!
Duly noted!
My order is up and I got a shot of the back of the official Emo’s T-shirt, from this nice woman behind the counter!
It’s spitting rain and there’s lightening in the sky, so I don’t think sitting at one of these metal benches is such a good idea. I think under these conditions, we’ll take the food back to MBIP World Headquarters and have our dinner there and so it’s off we go, into the rainly and pitch black evening!
We’ve arrived safely at MBIP World Headquarters! Let’s get inside out of the rain!
Okay, here we are in the MBIP Taste-Testing Kitchen/Laboratory and it’s nice and dry in here!
Let’s take out the official MBIP Taste-Testing Plate and start our special Saturday Night Dinner Memorial Day Hot Dog Dinner!
And as we all know by now, Joan Jett watches out over all proceedings in here, although you may notice there’s more pictures and type around her in here now, we’ll look at that later, now it’s dinner time!
And for dinner I got four different kinds of hot dogs. I got these for a reason. I know that on Memorial Day (when this post is going up) that a lot of you are going to be eating hot dogs and I want all of you to be familiar with the rules regarding hot dogs. Yes, there are rules and we’ll go over them right now!
Rule number one: Once you’re over twelve-years-old you can’t put ketchup on a hot dog. Ketchup is for French fries, onion rings and other fried sides that you may or may not have ordered with your hot dog and that is that! And that ketchup should always be Heinz, not Hunt’s and if you’re eating Crown Ketchup then you’re out at the Peoria Airport and I have pity on your soul! So that’s rule number one: Ketchup does not belong on a hot dog! So what does belong on a hot dog? Well, scroll down and I’ll tell you!
What belongs on top of a hot dog are the toppings I got for these four hot dogs from Emo’s. And here’s what’s topping them from the bottom of the plate upwards: Cheese, Mustard, Chili (beanless, of course) and Chili and Cheese. That’s it, onions can be put on top of all of these too, but that’s about it. It’s pretty simple and that’s the way a hot dog should be dressed: Simple yet delicious.
One type of hot dog I would like to address today that should never be eaten is the “Chicago Dog.” I think the “Chicago Dog” is an abomination and such a vile bastardized version of a hot dog and it makes me sick just writing about it, but we’ve come this far, so let’s get it over with. According to Vienna Beef, here’s a link on how to build a REAL Chicago Dog. The first three ingredients are mustard, relish and onions. I can live with those, even though I don’t care for relish, but I can let that go—hey, I can be as open-minded as the next guy. But the following ingredients do not belong on a hot dog no way and no how: Tomatoes, a pickle, peppers and celery salt. Adding these idiotic garnishes to a hot dog are often referred to as: “Dragging it through the garden.” See the last line of this stupid-ass Bon Apetit article to read about it, if you must, but if you don’t want to bother, you can just take my word for it.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my hot dog, “dragged though a fucking garden!” What’s in a garden besides the plants growing there? Well, there’s dirt and there’s insects. Personally, I don’t necessarily want dirt and insects on my hot dog as they drag the fucking thing through the goddamned garden! I mean dirt is dirt and insects are gross! And those insects are probably having sex all over that fucking garden! Who wants to even think about that much less eat the remains of insect sexual intercourse on top of a hot dog? I hate to admit this, but I’d rather eat Hunt’s ketchup! So if you want to eat a hot dog that’s topped with shit that only belongs on a salad along with dirt and remnants from filthy and gross insect sex, then by all means go ahead and order that fucking, grosstastic Chicago Dog! Knock yourself right the fuck out. Me, I’m going to enjoy them the way they should be...
Topped with cheese, mustard, chili (beanless of course) and chili-cheese! These were great Memorial Day holiday hot dogs from Emo’s and thanks to all of them for the great service and hospitality as always!
Oh and here’s the collage that I said I’d show you more of earlier on in this post. I’m hoping to have this all done in a few more months, but here’s the progress I’ve made so far and I’m really happy with it! Have a great Memorial Day and cheers and thanks to all the Veterans from the Armed Services to whom this holiday is really all about! No matter what your beliefs are as far as war and politics, we should all give thanks to those who had the courage to do service and put their lives on the line for this country. Happy Memorial Day, to all of them and to you and we’ll see you all tomorrow!
Emo’s Ice Cream Shack
3618 Prospect Road
Peoria
Related Posts: Saturday Night @ PVII Restaurant, Kuchie’s On The Water and Alexander’s Steakhouse.
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick,
Take a ride on the West Coast kick,
Holiday road,
Holiday road...
Surprise link...click on it, I dare you!
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Bonus Photo From Last Saturday Night!
Last Saturday Night started the new MBIP food tour: “A Year In The Life Of A Sandwich,” and my friend Matt Buedel joined me for a wonderful and out-of-this-world sandwich at Jim’s Steakhouse and you can read all about that tomorrow! After dinner we got invited over to our friends, Amber and Joe’s house and it turns out they’ve formed an Acapella singing group called, The Jim Jones Sextuplets Plus Reggie, The Flying Wonder Dog! Here’s a photo of the group...
From left: Brent, Danielle, Adam, Amber, Joe and Ryan. At the bottom of the photo is Reggie, The Flying Wonder Dog flashing his bedeviled eyeballs! They sang their latest song for us and it’s called, “Killing Him Softly With Jim’s Song (And A Little Poisoned Kool-Aid Thrown In For Good Measure)” and it was beautiful! Thanks for having us over and we’ll be looking for you all on the Billboard Hot 100 soon!