D-Town Coney Island is top dog with homesick Michiganders

I bet you think a Coney Island dog is something you’d find in New York City. Well, you’re off by a thousand miles.

A Coney Island — a grilled hot dog on a steamed bun topped with chili, a squiggle of mustard and chopped onions — is to a Detroiter what a cheesesteak is to a Philadelphian: the working guy’s taste of home sweet home. Filling, not fancy; hearty, not healthy; cheap and hunger-satiating.

D-Town Coney Island in Grand Prairie serves up nostalgia to transplanted Michiganders, including two types of Coney dogs, chili fries, Better Made potato chips and Faygo brand sodas — or “pop,” as they say in Michigan.

Brianna and John Grier — she’s from Flint, he’s from Detroit — opened the restaurant in an unlikely location in a Grand Prairie office building about a year ago. Word spread quickly among Michigan transplants and the modest restaurant has done well.

The Coney Islands ($2.75) couldn’t be more authentic, starting with the dogs, which are Koegel brand, a natural-casing dog that goes “snap” when you bite. Choose from two types of chili: Flint-style or “dry” chili, which is similar to seasoned taco meat, or Detroit-style or “wet” chili, which is gloppy and gravy-like. I lived in Michigan for years, and I only knew of the “wet” style, so that’s what I ordered, and it was exactly as I remembered.

We ate our Coney dogs with our hands, but there’s no shame in eating a Detroit-style Coney dog with a fork and knife. Chili fries and onion rings ($3.50 each) were hot and good, and we washed everything down with Michigan drinks — a Faygo Rock & Rye (cherry cream soda) for my dining partner and a Vernors for moi. Vernors is ginger ale on steroids: more ginger flavor and more carbonation. Faygo sodas are $1.60 and Vernors is $1.

A Vernors with vanilla ice cream was one of my childhood favorites and you can get that at D-Town, too. It’s called a Boston Cooler. What is it with Detroit stealing names from the East Coast for their food specialties?

D-Town has other items on the menu, like burgers and salads and so on, but it kinda seems like you’re missing the point if you don’t order the Coney Island.

This story was originally published July 18, 2016 at 3:53 PM with the headline "D-Town Coney Island is top dog with homesick Michiganders."