If you've watched any food TV in the last couple of years, you've probably heard about Vancouver's Japadogs. You also may have heard of them if you listen to commentary tracks on Psych DVD's.

Japadog is a Japanese hot dog cart or food truck or street vendor of some sort in Canada's Cheaper Hollywood, and they offer a wide variety of what Anthony Bourdain should probably stop referring to as "meat in tube form", topped with various Japanese condiments. Their signature dog is the Terimayo, which is a beef hot dog, teriyaki sauce, Japanese mayonnaise, and shredded seaweed.

I've been looking for an excuse to try and make these at home for MONTHS, and a Japanese media get-together at the house was a perfect opportunity. I had hot dogs. I had buns. I just needed the toppings.

The teriyaki sauce ended up being Kikkoman, but a fancy-looking bottle of Kikkoman I found at my nearby Asian market. "Extensive" research failed to turn up the exact nature of the shredded seaweed used in Vancouver, so I guessed/went with what was easy and grabbed some sheets of sushi nori. But they had no Japanese mayo.

Having done "extensive" research in this area as well, I'd found recipes from people in similar straits who thought they'd figured out how to duplicate it. But the recipes were either too simple to possibly be right (just some extra rice vinegar and sugar), or too complex for me to pull off (Yuzu and dashi powder, neither of which the local market had either).

So instead, I made a pilgrimage to United Noodle, because if United Noodle doesn't have it, then you'd fucking well better learn to live without it. And behold, there were bottles of Kewpie brand Japanese mayonnaise in the world's creepiest squeeze bottle. This thing is made out of plastic about 1/5 the thickness of Western squeeze bottles. It's JUST sturdy enough to stand upright, but the slightest touch makes you feel like you're holding a water balloon. A water balloon full of mayonnaise. It is discongoddamnedcerting.

As for the assembled Terimayo dogs, the only feasible word to describe them is evil. It is a cascading mountain of salt with a thin stream of savory creamy mayo running down it. Salty hot dog. Salty teriyaki. Weird mayo. Salty, oceanic nori. One bite and you feel a disturbance in the Force, as if thousands of doctors had cried out at once, and were suddenly silenced. Silenced by deliciousness.

Terimayo dogs are NOT an everyday food. Health concerns aside, they are odd. Glad-I-Tried-It odd, yes. I'm-Gonna-Have-Another odd, also true. But at the same time, there's an element of I-Don't-Want-That-Again-Just-Yet-Maybe-Next-Month to them. They are best enjoyed when your orbits happen to cross near each other, rather than fueling up the rocket for regular trips. But, you know, I have leftovers of all the ingredients...

By the way, what you're seeing in the rest of the picture is some Szechuan-style grilled green beans, some stir-fried baby bok, and some yakitori chicken thigh chunks that would have gone better if I could have kept properly hot charcoal during the entire cooking process. Just so you know.