1749 Milwaukee AvenueOur last day in Chicago for the US Figure Skating National Solo Dance finals was an early one. Not because L was competing but because she wanted to get to the rink to watch her friends skate.
We got up around 7:30. J and L wanted to go to the rink but we didn’t have to check out of the hotel until noon. I was going to take full advantage of that.
I went back to the hotel and went back to sleep for a few hours. I got up around 11:00, checked out then headed over to the Glenview Community Ice Center to watch another 9 hours of figure skating.
L was asking about lunch when I got there. She didn’t want anything I would have gotten, but she wanted a smoothie. There was a Tropical Smoothie not to far away that I had already made several runs to over the three days we were there.
I was leaving anyway so I asked J if she was hungry. I had been wanting to stop at a Korean Corn Dog placed we passed every time we went back to our hotel. It wasn’t far from the rink or the smoothie place. I didn’t want a huge lunch so I thought this was a good time to try it.
Kong Dog is a small chain of Korean Corn Dog places that opened it’s first restaurant on the corner of Milwaukee Avenue and West Lake Street in the northern Chicago suburb of Glenview. This was originally a restaurant named Eggsum Holycow but they went viral on TikTok for their corn dog creations and have since renamed and expanded to 22 stores in Illinois, Indiana, Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.
Kong Dog is set up like a typical fast food restaurant. There’s a an order counter at the front of the store with the menu hanging behind it. It lists off their corn dog creations and it also has some chicken wing options that aren’t available if you’re ordering online through one of the delivery services. They also have self service kiosks in a couple of different places but since I was the only one in the store right after it opened at 11 AM, I just ordered from the counter.
Korean Corn Dogs are similar to American corn dogs, but not really. The idea is the same but you have more than just a hot dog to choose from. Kong Dog has beef hot dogs, mozzarella cheese sticks, a combination of a beef hot dog and a mozzarella stick, chicken sausage, and a plant based sausage. Once you make that choice, the corn dog is dipped in batter then fried. When it comes out, it’s coated with a variety of toppings that run the gamut from sweet to savory to spicy.
I put in an order for the Original Kong Dog for J and the Sweet Chili Doritos Kong Dog for myself. The cost was a little over $14.
I took a seat in the dining room to wait. The place has the mix of a fast food vibe with that of a hipper fast casual restaurant. There are TV monitors throughout the space but they’re not showing sports. It’s a lot of music video type of stuff
It only took a few minutes for my number to be called. I grabbed the bag with the two boxes and headed outside. I ended up eating mine in the parking lot and bringing J’s back to the rink for her to eat.
The Sweet Chili Doritos Kong Dog is covered in a sweet chili sauce then rolled in crushed Sweet Chili Doritos. The sweet chili sauce was a little to on the ketchup-y side for me. It was a delicious corn dog that I ate in about three bites, so I kind of wished I had ordered a second one. There is so much I wanted to try but I wanted to keep my lunch on the lighter side because I was planning on sitting at the bar at the ice rink and watching the Western Michigan football game in a few hours and that was going to be my lunch/dinner for the day.
J had no idea what this place was when I said I was going to grab something so she kept it simple and ordered the Original Kong Dog. This one is on the sweet end of things. The corn dog is rolled in cinnamon sugar when it comes out of the fryer. I think when I got back to the rink she realized what Kong Dog was and got a little more excited about it…maybe? I don’t know. She did say her Kong Dog was delicious. She leans more towards the sweet when sweet and savory are both options so this worked out well for her.
Kong Dog is a fun place…especially if you’re not an adventurous eater. There were a lot of Korean and Asian places in this area. A few of the other families from our club were really excited for this but we’re not big, adventerous eaters. I go to Chicago for the Italian beef and the pizza, but I really wanted to stop at this place as soon as I saw it. It’s something different for me. I’ve always liked corn dogs despite my distaste for hot dogs…I know, it’s weird. These are really good corn dogs.