Phat Brats

Address: 320 Brunswick St, Fitzroy, VIC 3065,
You can also find them at The People’s Market!
Phone: 03 9419 5526
Website: www.phatbrats.com.au
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/phatbratsmelb/
Twitter: @phatbrats
Cuisine: Hot Dogs, Fast Food (Caters for Vegetarian & Gluten Free)

Foodie Partners: N/A – Although.. I did eat together with Matt (owner)

Disclaimer: Matt (owner), contacted me and said he would be able to fulfil my wishlist *points to side bar*, by inviting me as a guest to their ‘dog house’ Many thanks to Matt, Damian and the team at Phat Brats!

Please do note that Peach-Water.com will only provide honest reviews. Always :)

Although I don’t travel to Brunswick St, Fitzroy as often as I would like, I totally love that street. The night life there is awesome, the restaurants there are tendy (Little Creatures Dining Hall), Naked for Satan does awesome chocolate vodka, and there’s an awesome games bar (Mana Bar) along the street. But, now there’s another better reason to travel to Brunswick St – HOT DOGS!

Hot Dogs is probably the next ‘It thing’ happening in the Melbourne dining scene. I’m sure hot dogs will surely give anyone that feeling of nostalgia. I definitely do. I miss those days in primary school where I would skip to the canteen in my little pinafore uniform to get my favourite hot dog!  ♥ (Just a plain frank with tomato sauce). So when I heard about Phat Brats, I was so keen to try out Phat Brats.

Ummm…. well, I figured everyone is used to my blog format – Drinks, Food & Dessert. So, I can’t really skip on drinks for this entry – so… my drink at Phat Brats was… well.. water! haha
Oh, is there anyone out there who is sensitive to the taste of water? I am. I’m pretty picky with my water, as I can taste the difference in different bottled water! The  water they have here, are ‘Another bloody water’ – Check out the label, it’s cool to read!

So when I arrived at Phat Brats, I had a brief chat to one of the owners, Damian, who looks after the operations and food. He’s been in the food industry for quite sometime now. He told me how Matt and himself travelled around to find inspiration for their newest venture, and finally decided on hot dogs. Not long after, Matt (the other owner) arrived and we sat down for a discussion. Turns out that he is also a designer like myself. So we had quite a long discussion about branding, design and blogging – which was very interesting on its own. Matt looks after the branding and design of Phat Brats.

During our discussion, I was able to find out more about Phat Brats. Here are the facts:

1. The name Phat Brats, was originally Brats, but they felt it was lacking something. This was when Matt’s father (who is an accountant) came up with the name Phat.
2. Matt is a vegetarian. *shock horror* You’re all thinking how can a vegetarian open up a hot dog store? Well, Phat Brats caters for vegetarians! YAY! As Matt is against bad treatment of animals, all the produce within Phat Brats are sourced ethically, locally and naturally, where possible.

So, how was my Chilli Dog? Fantastic! The wagyu beef sausage was very tender and it definitely went well with the spicy ground beef, chilli sauce and PB Cheese Sauce! I strongly believe that it’s the combination of all the ingredients together that makes it the winner, especially the PB Cheese Sauce. Without the ground beef and spring onion, it would have lacked something.

You are all probably asking, what is PB cheese sauce? Well, PB Cheese sauce is a sauce made by Damian, and it’s made out of local cheddar cheese and bechamel sauce. It doesn’t have an overpowering cheese flavour, but rather a subtle yet distinctive flavour. The PB Cheese sauce is probably good enough to it on its own with a bread roll!

The chilli sauce? Perfect spicyness! Quite often when I go to joints opened by western people their definition of spicy is not spicy. But here, the level of spicyness is here is definitely spicy according to my standards. It’s not enough to make my face numb, but enough to kick my taste buds!

As for the other ingredients in the chilli dog; ground beef and spring onion, they definitely helped complete it. The ground beef heightened the texture of the chilli dog, whilst the spring onion added additional flavours. Whilst at first I thought it was quite strange to find spring onion in a hot dog, it actually went quite well with the other ingredients.

Also, big kudos to the staff for cutting my hot dog in half! I always find it extremely awkward eating a full bread roll, so having it cut in half definitely gets my extra ticks! Thank you! Nothings worse than having sauce dribbling down your chin and all over your clothes!
(WARNING: Probably not an ideal location for first date!)

From the above facts, I mentioned that Matt is in fact vegetarian. So without doubt the hot dog that Matt ate whilst chatting to me was a veggie dog.
I was told that both Matt and Damian went to an organic fruit stall down at Queen Vic Market to source ingredients for their veggie hot dogs, and with the help of one of the stall owners they eventually came up with the perfect veggie dog.
I was told by Damian that they don’t use synthetic casings for the dog, but rather moulded into a shape of a snag.

I think next time round when I go for another hot dog, I’ll definitely be giving the veggie dog a try!

The fries! WOAHHH WOAHH WOAHHHH. Ok, so a few weeks back, during lunch time I went out to Snag Stand down at Melbourne Central, and I thought I had the best fries ever, but it turns out that the fries here are better! Why? Because of the PB Cheese Sauce again! Also, the beer batter makes gives the fries a crunch! Unfortunately, I was pretty full from my chilli dog, so I didn’t end up finishing the fries, but they are definitely a must order if you go to Phat Brats though!

So were the hot dogs at Phat Brats worth Peach-Water’s travelling? Absolutely.
If you’re down at Brunswick St, Fitzroy, and want something fast and chow down with a beer? well this is for you! They are open til late on weekends :)

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