Since this summer, there have been a lot of photos and videos taken of me eating. This is something I asked for. And while I haven’t yet recorded or broadcasted myself eating anything in real time, I think I have been toeing the mukbang line.

A mukbang is a livestream video of someone eating and talking with their viewers. Mukbangs became popular in South Korea in the 2010’s and a short time after in the United States. Studies done by the Seoul University revealed that watching or creating these broadcasts could help reduce feelings of isolation related to eating alone. It creates a collective experience between the “mukbanger” and those watching. The “have a meal with me” videos can also be considered educational if the motive of the video is to present the viewer with knowledge of a new restaurant or regional cuisine.

Sometimes, I’d like to consider this entire hot dog project of mine one, big, extended mukbang. While you’re not getting a ton of videos of me eating (be grateful), there are photos, supporting writing AND most importantly – a continuous dialogue between me and all of you on the hot dogs. I’ve already expressed my gratitude in having this experiment not be entirely a parasocial one, so thank you again.

Mukbangs have received some denunciation from nutritionists for encouraging unhealthy eating habits (overeating, food waste etc.), but here’s to hoping my fulgent face wrapped around a dog has brought nothing other than joy to all who have seen it. I'll admit, I have not had the healthiest eating habits and a sporting a hot dog-forward diet for the past - oh, 5 months? - is not normal, but those who know me know I would never waste food if I could help it. If anything, to me the large quantities of food depicted in mukbangs promote the concept of sharing food.

Those of you who know me well know that that is one of my love-languages and I believe that if mukbangs are fostering connection – so be it! We live in a time where we are constantly connected via our screens, but all that screen time can leave us feeling lonelier; more isolated. Breaking bread; feelings over a favorite platter requited, are a couple small ways to combat that sense of isolation - even if it can only happen virtually.

This is something I think about more around this time of year. As someone who is not a huge fan of the holiday season, I have always appreciated how food is symbolic of a particular celebration. Certain dishes denote our traditions, maybe our cultural identity and when we share that food with others, we express our gratitude and appreciation for those people. At least, that’s how I see it.

So, on the evening of August 22nd, I expressed my gratitude and appreciation for my best friend Adrienne and her girlfriend Laura with 7 Korean corndogs and 6 donuts. When I first announced my hot dog journey back in July, Adrienne responded saying that she had been dying “for centuries” to try “those Korean street dogs or whatever.” We both had a good laugh about “street dogs,” but then to make sure I was clear, Adrienne actually sent me a mukbang TikTok of someone eating 5 of what looked like corndogs. They were arranged neatly in a line, with sauces aligned perpendicularly and in gradient order. Our tasting was not going to be as visually pleasing.

Our friend Anthony had recommended Mochi Ring Donut for our tasting. I was curious to see how this Korean dog would be different from a standard corn dog, of which I am a big fan. The week prior to our meeting, I had had a corn dog while camping at Knoebel’s. Their corn dogs there are dipped in their proprietary cornmeal batter blend right in front of your eyes before getting shoved in hot, bubbling oil. This preparation is preferred to the reheating of pre-made and frozen corndogs, but I wouldn’t discriminate if someone offered me a State Fair brand classic. I had also ordered a fried cheese curd on a stick for adventure’s sake. The combination of the salty cheese, or dog and the cakey, slight sweetness of the cornbread coating is transcendent and so summer. At one point, I made sure to bite both the corndog and the cheese curd together just to see what THAT would be like. I had no idea that I was already enacting what awaited me with the Koreans.

*This is not another international face off, because I’m getting tired of those, but I do want to draw the distinction between the batters. Read on*

We went with Anthony’s suggestion - Mochi Ring Donut’s Philly location is at 21st and Chestnut. Because they close at 8 and because I wouldn’t make it to Adrienne until ~8:30, I placed my order on Doordash and scheduled for the delivery to arrive before I got there. Adrienne and I had a hell of a time trying to figure out what to order. We wanted to make sure we got a good intersection of all the options, of which there are 30 if my factor multiplication is correct.

In ordering, you start with:

A). The base. Either a whole hot dog, ½ hot dog ½ mozzarella, or whole mozzarella. 3 different options.

B). Then, you move to the batter. After batter dipped, the dogs can be rolled in, rice, chopped potato (throwback to last week’s Italian dog), crushed ramen, hot Cheeto or blue Taki dust before being deep fried. 5 different options there.

C). Then, after being fried, one has the option for their corndog to be or not to be (lol) dusted with sugar. With or without sugar = 2 more options.

So, A x B x C= 30 options. Oh! I’m forgetting the sauces.

D). There are 3 different sauces offered – ketchup (NO), mustard or honey mustard. This takes our options up to 90 (A x B x C x D) OR more if you consider combining the sauces but I can’t wrap my brain around that right now.

We couldn’t wrap our brains around the order for a while either. We discussed via WhatsApp from 8:57am until I finally placed the order at 10:20am. Here is what we ordered:

A). We all wanted a ½ & ½ ramen dog with sugar. That seemed like the one that was really gonna do it all, ya know? Capture the whole essence. So, 3 of those.

B). 2 ½ and ½ potato dogs *without sugar*. Adrienne and Laura ordered these, for some reason the potato wasn’t calling to me. This was before I had the Italian dog. After reviewing with Adrienne more recently, we feel that if we were to do a Mochi, Korean corndog night again, we’d skip the ½ cheese altogether and just do full dog here.

C). 1 original rice WHOLE dog. If I’ve learned anything from this hot dog quest– it’s that every experiment needs a control every. time.

D). 1 hot Cheetos ½ dog & ½ cheese - again, for adventure’s sake.

E). And a ½ dozen donuts and green tea for me. Thankfully, I ordered the tea with only 30% sugar (yea, I could have ordered 0% but lay off me) and thankful that I taught at the gym before this went down.

I’m scrolling through that hour plus of back and forth of messages now to put me back in our headspace. We didn’t order any whole mozz because it was going to be too much cheese. I agreed because, I had just had that big, fat fried cheese at Knoebels and felt like I couldn’t do another one this lifetime, but hey would you look at that we ended up having ~4 whole cheeses anyway based on our ordering.

Once I got to Adrienne’s the dogs were already there. Packed in 2 large paper bags, each dog came in its own little cardboard house. We took all of the boxes out of the bags and cracked them open so we could take an audit of the order we had placed almost 12 hours prior. We made some cocktails (a theme is emerging), did a quick three Musketeers cheers of our dogs, clanking them in the center of the table as if they were epees and got to work.

I tried the (original) rice, whole hot dog first. Just as with the Chicago dog – there was a lot of texture to break through. Initially, you get the crunch of the toasted rice in the dough surrounding the dog, then the light airiness of the dough itself, and finally the wiener. I was really struck by the dough. As I mentioned earlier, the batter, texture and taste between what we can consider the “American” corndog, and the Korean corndog is much different.

This difference can be chalked up to the batter ingredients. While American corndogs use corn meal, which leaves us with something like a sausage enveloped in a deep-fried corn muffin, the batter on the Korean dogs is made (in most cases) from mochi, or rice flour. If you’ve had mochi ice cream, you know that the texture is lighter, chewier and as Adrienne described, “fluffier” than what we might be used to when it comes to dough. This was the same texture as what was around the dog.

I liked it at first, because it was unique from any of the dogs I had previously tried and didn’t leave you with that heavy feeling in your stomach like a corndog does (assuming you stop at 1). However, as I carried on, I started to get pissed at just how much air there was between the dough and the dog. I feel like the cornmeal batter really hugs the wiener, and the result is more cohesive; there is a marriage between corn and dog. With the mochi batter, the dog and the dough aren’t really one. As soon as I took a bite, they would separate and start sliding around the stick; dogs divorciados. I had to pinch the dough to the dog before taking my subsequent bites which angered me! I tried to use the eating of 3 more of these corndogs to sublimate that fury.

*All of this talk of wrapped, dipped and covered dogs is making me think that I’ve missed a category in my research up to this point – aside from corndogs, there are also pretzels dogs, pigs in a blanket - what other kinds of swathed sausages have I missed and need to try? Let me know.

The next one I had was my favorite, the ½ dog ½ mozzarella ramen dog with sugar. Wow. All of the issues I just mentioned were still evident, but the crunch of the ramen helped me to forget about my slippy dog. The sugar also complimented the crunch and the saltiness of the sausage and the cheese (fresh, farmery) really well. 3.5 squirts.

My rating isn’t higher because – the cheese and the dog were also separated! You would bite and get dog, dog, dog – break, then – cheese, cheese, cheese. It was impossible to get a bite of everything at once, which I thought was silly. Is one meant to be a palate cleanser to the other? When they say ½ and ½ - they really mean it that way.

Geez, I’m forgetting to mention the sauces again! All of the sauce we selected came on the side, which is good. I don’t typically like ordering take out, because I feel like no matter what – everything arrives sog-o. If these dogs arrived pre-sauced, we would have totally lost that magical crunch.

We all ordered either mustard (regular, yellow) or honey mustard. I don’t remember there being any ketchup on the table because these people are my friends. The yellow mustard was just your standard Heinz packets, the honey mustard however – I’m not sure whose that was but it was phenomenal. It came unmarked, in little plastic cups. Let me tell you – we flattened those cups out trying to get every last drop of it. It was quite delectable and opened my mind to the use of sweeter mustards on hot dogs (calling back to the French hot dog sauce last week).

Lastly, I tried the Hot Cheeto dog. By this time, Adrienne and Laura were calling it quits. In fact, I think Laura passed off half of her potato dog to me. They each had each ordered 2 and me 3. The cheeto tasted exactly as I expected - nothing mind-blowing. If you decide to order these for yourself in the future, I recommend sticking with Ramen, Potato or Rice. Everything else is gratuitous – but makes for good potential mukbang fodder if you’re considering. Adrienne and Laura both watched (and filmed) as I took down the last dog of the night.

We took a breath, a couple sips of green tea, a few belches and trips to the restroom before opening the box of donuts. Did you think we were going to not eat them? I asked to be surprised, and it was fun for each of us to have the donuts and try to guess the flavors as we did. Some were obvious (green was matcha) and some – not as much (I don’t really need to eat a black sesame donut ever again).

As we were eating them, we recognized that the dough was exactly the same as what was used on the hotdogs! This makes sense, but I was still surprised to make the connection in the moment. I felt personally that the mochi flour worked better as pastry than as a dog covering. The fluffiness made eating 6 donuts after 3 hot dogs feel nearly guiltless! All that deep fried dough did get to my head after we were finished though. Have you ever been just – so full that you weren’t sure what to do with yourself? You become a little panicky? No? That’s good. I wish I could say the same.

For your safety, don’t eat more than 2 of these Korean corndogs at a time. And obviously I recommend trying the donut but split with a friend. What me, Adrienne and Laura did that night was not a *proper* mukbang, but it did emulate the most important element of the trend – and that’s the social aspect of dining. If you’re going to eat enough mochi flour to make yourself sick, why do it alone?

In closing – if you want to eat hot dogs with me, I am having my annual party this year on January 4th. It will be (Mar)’tinis and weenies themed! Hit me up if you want more information and bring a friend so we can “mukbang” but do it face to face.