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The Dorito‑Topped Hot Dog That Saved Breakfast

The Dorito‑Topped Hot Dog That Saved Breakfast

Hot dogs in Iceland

We left the house by the glacier early—around 7 a.m. My husband and I had to get back to Reykjavik to catch a plane that afternoon. I expected, like in so many other places I’d travelled, that we would be able to find an open coffee shop or breakfast restaurant, even though it was Sunday. Years of living in Europe had taught me the spotty nature of Sunday-open business, but I hadn’t bargained on southern Iceland.

The towns that occasionally dot Highway 1 along the southern coast are fascinating, like a snapshot of a movie set for a quiet independent film. The weather was mild in May, but everything had a quiet feel to it, with perhaps one person visible walking through the towns. The whole island has fewer than 350,000 people, and so many of them live in the capital city. Only a few miles out of Reyjkavik, you start to see how big the island is, and how few and far-between the people are, as the modern city buildings give way to bumpy moss-covered terrain, insanely long views up to the glaciers and volcanoes, and occasional wisps of steam coming from vents in the ground.

We stopped at a natural hot spring, and swam the algae-lined pool for a little while, but then started getting hungry for breakfast. I figured it wouldn’t be far before we’d see a place that was open. As the minutes turned into an hour, I started using Google to search for the individual open spots along our route.

As we neared the town of Selfoss, one place popped up as open on Google: Pylsuvagninn. As near as I can figure, it translates to something like “Hot Dog Wagon.”

We were hungry, and I’d been told that Icelandic people ate a lot of hot dogs, so it seemed like an appropriate choice. The “all the way” hot dog in Iceland is a popular choice after a long night of drinking and dancing. An “all the way” hot dog, I learned, is topped with onions, ketchup, remoulade, a sweet mustard, and more onions—crispy fried ones.

The only other customers at Pylsuvagninn at 11 on a Sunday morning were teenagers, seeking greasy piles of onion rings and cans of soda, perhaps after partying. I looked below “hot dog all the way” on the menu and read “hot dog with garlic sauce, cheese, and Doritos.” I wasn’t hungover, but I ordered it anyway.

I ate my Dorito hot dog out on a picnic table by the river that runs through Selfoss, while the town quietly did whatever small-city Iceland does on Sunday mornings and the wind, ever-present, ruffled my hair. The hot dog was everything: greasy and garlicky and crunchy. Like so many other things in Iceland, it wasn’t what I expected or asked for, but it was wonderful nonetheless.

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