Chowing down at the Galloping Hill Inn

The Galloping Hill Inn in Union is a classic, founded in the '20's at a confluence of roads aptly called Five Points. It's the quintessential hot dog and beer kind of place, and when I was a kid, it looked like something you'd find on some rural road -- whitewashed exterior with ordering windows on both the street- and parking lot sides of the building, and a porch with picnic benches. The ordering process is not for the hesitant: customers crowd the broad (8-10 foot wide) window to shout out their orders as the counter guys randomly call "next." Often chaotic, but efficient. There's also a small dining room with waitress service. I can't really offer any commentary on it since I've never actually checked it out.

Like most road joints, atmosphere is half the experience at Galloping Hill. For years, the place was clad in whitewashed clapboard, eliciting the feel of a stand on a backwater thoroughfare. Sadly, they appear to be going for a diner look now, with enamel walls, chrome accents and faux-pressed tin ceilings above the porches. They've also totally enclosed the back-side counter area to create a quasi-interior seating area with benches and a dining counter for the walk-up clientele. That's a welcome addition in my book, as it gives you a quick option for those cold winter Galloping Hill visits.

Fortunately, the quality of my standard order hasn't changed a bit: a 'complete' hot dog (kraut and mustard) and cheese fries with a generous amount of the tasty yellow stuff. Yum. This is a classic tube steak -- nice snap when you bite into it, no gimmicks, though in my opinion, the roll is better suited to a cheesesteak or chicken parm than to a hot dog. Everything always tastes fresh, and given the traffic the place gets, nothing sits for long, anyway.

Five Points is a very busy intersection, so you can't really blame the Galloping Hill guys for moving the transactional part of the business to the back of the building for safety. When my sister and I first started going there in the mid-eighties, we'd eat our meals on the street-side porch and count the near-miss accidents. While we never actually saw a collision, we heard one once, first the screech of tires and crash of car against car, then the very loud string of obscenities expelled by one of the drivers. Jersey road food ambiance -- can't beat it.

Frank the Ripper: satisfying the hot dog jones at Rutt's Hut

The random post-flood driving and detours created a felix culpa:  a visit to Clifton's own Rutt's Hut, the home of the ripper.

What's a ripper, you may ask? Well, let's start with a tasty frankfurter, raw.  Toss it (gently, mind you) into a vat of boiling vegetable oil.  Allow it to marinate until the skin cracks. Then fish it out and place on a bun. That's a ripper.

When you get to the Hut, you're immediately confronted with a choice: sit or stand. Those who like to eat standing up, from a counter in a weirdly non-hygenic-looking white-tiled fast food joint, will go to the counter portion, which has a satisfyingly unattractive view of Route 21 below. Service is fast and courteous, cash only. That's where Ivan and I opted to go. (Standing helps the digestion.)

Those who like to sit while they dine will go to the dark paneled interior dining room, replete with an old man bar that probably still reeks of cheap cigars. Last I was inside, the tables were sticky, and estimating the waitresses' ages would require carbon dating, which would rationalize the slowness of the service. In its own way, though, the dining room is an experience which must be had, if for no other reason than to be entertained by the characters at the bar and the random signs posted on the walls. Rumor has long had it that Babe Ruth would stop at Rutt's occasionally, and one could easily imagine him at the bar for a couple of dogs, a couple of snorts and a beer chaser.

While still a mass-production outfit, Rutt's will take requests for variation on the rippers -- everything from the 'in and out' (lightly ripped) to the 'cremator' (left in the oil until, well, cremated).  They also offer a decent selection of other fast food items, though I really don't know why you'd go there for a tuna salad sandwich.  I guess they have to have something to rationalize the visit for people who get dragged there by rabid hot dog aficionados.

For our visit, we chose the hot dog, lightly ripped (for me, big shock), the hamburger with gravy (for Ivan) and a plate of onion rings (shared). The dog was just as good as I remembered it to be, and while the o-rings were maybe a little more well done than I usually go for, these irregularly-shaped treats were a tasty diversion from the uniformity of the average fast food version.  Ivan mentioned that the gravy was a good addition to the burger, something I'd never have considered using as a topping. Reminds me:  the Hut's hot dog relish is well known and treasured in hot dog maven circles.  They even sell it in pint and quart sizes for you to take home.

Chowing down at Toby's Cup

One of the highlights of the serendipitous Phillipsburg trip was a visit to one of Route 22's quintessential road food establishments: Toby's Cup. It's long been on my list of destinations, but for whatever reason, it took till now (and, I guess, the participation of a road trip partner) to get there.

This is one of those places where it's not so much about the food itself as the experience. In fact, it's the kind of eating establishments that separate the cool people from the snobs on sites like Yelp and Urban Spoon. If you're deriding the place for how disgusting it is, you just don't get it.

The Cup, eastern exposure, as seen from the parking lot.

I wasn't fully prepared for the maneuver you have to take if you're going to get into Toby's tiny parking lot, but having learned how to drive on 22 in Union County, I knew what must be done. On the second pass, I rapidly decelerated from highway speed to about five miles an hour to make the sharp right turn, and be ready to grab the spot closest to the road, all without starting a chain collision behind you. Basically, without experience knowing where the place is, you're going to have to do the second pass, anyway: the whole shack is probably less than 100 square feet in size. Blink and you'll miss it.

Upon our visit, there were already five or six people standing in the cramped customer standing area, waiting for their orders to be called. As Ivan noted, you'd need to go outside to change your mind. Fortunately, we were the only ones who hadn't put in an order, so the counterman took our requests pretty quickly from behind a plywood countertop that also held Tootsie Rolls (2 cents per) and Tastykake fruit pies. There's not a whole lot on the menu; hot dogs, hamburgers, cheese steaks, and, interestingly, a variety of shake options. Soda comes in cans, and chips are available instead of fries. Fair enough.

As we waited for our order, the crowd thinned out and we were able to take a look at the stuff posted on the wall next to the counter window. If you wanted your hair cut, or an old train set, or your driveway plowed in the Lopatcong area, this apparently was the place to find your source.

It didn't take long until we had our bag of food and were back out to the car to eat. The dog wasn't bad -- they fry them in oil much like Rutt's Hut, and that's not especially my favorite way of having them, but it was okay and the skin gave a nice snap when I bit into it. Ivan's hamburger was reminiscent of what I used to get at my grade school cafeteria: vaguely gray meat with a taste you can't quite put your finger on, except to say that it definitely isn't 100 percent beef. Nothing a little ketchup and mustard can't remedy. And, of course, you can't put a price on the experience of reliving your childhood through meat of questionable origin.

Would I go back again?  Yes, if I was in the area. I'd opt for a second dog (at 75 cents a pop, they're a bargain anyway) and check out one of those shakes. Plus, I want to see how many people could possibly fit into that phone booth they call a counter area.