I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. I believe in pleasure because I have physical senses, and I believe in guilt because I’m Catholic. I’ve long felt, though, that if one is going to seek enjoyment, it should be unabashed.
I don’t love Barnaby’s. It’s a fixed point in our dining universe though, a habitable planet to which we return semi-regularly safe in the knowledge that the food will be consistently pretty good. I’ve never had a great meal there, but I’ve never had an awful one, either – and that goes a long way in the dining life of a man whose goal is sometimes as simple as feed the kids something that won’t make me depressed.
That said, there are a few standouts here that I hold in higher esteem, that I actually look forward to once the decision has been made. Most of them inhabit the breakfast menu, clearly the superior meal in Barnaby’s-Land. Their corned beef hash, for example, is consistently some of the best in the city.
That’s not what we’re here to talk about today, though. Nobody feels guilty about liking corned beef hash. We’re here to talk about the kids’ menu.
Ordinarily, I encourage my kids not to eat from the kids’ menu. Pandering to the low expectations that many have for children as eaters, kids’ menus are typically filled with lazy options devoid of thought, challenge and nutrition and tend to be a wasteland of crappy grilled cheese and meats of vague provenance pressed into the shapes of extinct animals. To be sure, there are times where these menus are a godsend, a sure thing for a picky kid when you’re at the point of breaking and the last thing on your mind is cajoling a tiny tyrant into trying a bite of arugula. I throw no shade.
Still, I want my kids to know that they do not exist in some special caste, unable and unworthy of enjoying the more challenging and, arguably, rewarding fare offered to those over the arbitrary age limit on the kids’ menu. Except when it comes to corn dogs.
Golden and deeply crunchy on the outside, tender and sweet on the inside, the batter on a good corndog plays foil to the simple, salty hotdog. That interplay of textures and flavors is absolutely critical. Too much moisture on the inside and the dough seems slimy and undercooked. Too long in the fryer and the coating becomes desiccated, cracking and splitting as it toughens. You want enough of the flavor of sweet corn to balance out the salty meat. Barnaby’s kids’ menu corndog does this admirably. It’s also gigantic.
My kid likes to slather hers in a proprietary blend of mustard and ketchup. She is misguided. The ketchup skews the flavor balance toward sweet (in my opinion, never belonging on a hot dog of any sort), and the application methodology means that the back half of the crust suffers. For me, a simple dunk in mustard with every bite.
I’ve made a habit of insisting on the first bite of each kids’ corndog, before they can ruin it. Even better, my eldest has agreed to a little sleight of hand, ordering the corndog for herself and then swapping it for my order (placed under her covert direction). I’m pretty sure the Barnaby’s folks are hip to us, and also that they wouldn’t balk at bringing me my own corndog, but the kid seems to enjoy the charade.