[dropcap size=big]'I[/dropcap]n Guasave, Sinaloa, when you’re eating hot dogs in the street, they greet you with a cup of beans.” And so will Carolina Castro at Los Dogis, L.A.’s first ever Sinaloa-style hot dog stand in Boyle Heights.
Those hot dogs will also be wrapped with bacon, might have some crushed cheddar-flavored Ruffles, will be topped with salsa Mexicana (what many other states call pico de gallo salsa), avocado, grilled onions, and a chile toreado — a jalapeño that has been seared and meant to be eaten in big bites.
[dropcap size=big]T[/dropcap]his next-level Mexican way of consuming a mundane hot dog left a lifelong impression on Castro since she got to visit Guasave 18 years ago. She told her best friend and now business partner of Los Dogis, Cecilia Maya, about it too, and she was intrigued. The two have been friends since they were teenagers growing up in the Wyvernwood apartment complex just a block away from the unassuming hot dog stand in front of a Bank of America ATM.
While they both went on with their lives — Castro working full-time as a server at places like La Fonda, Mariscos 4 Vientos, and now at Tropicana Bakery in Downey and Maya working in the steel industry — they never stopped thinking about those Sinaloan hot dogs. When they couldn’t find that Sinaloa sazón anywhere in L.A.’s diverse hot dog’s universe, they decided to go DIY and make it themselves. “We just said ‘Fuck it, let’s go get a cart.’”