Where to find creative hot dogs

You'll find traditional hot dogs and Polish sausages, and you can go nuts with dogs like the Señor Gordo, which is deep-fried, wrapped in bacon and topped with jalapeno mustard, spicy pico de gallo and jalapeno.

The regular dogs are Boar’s Head, but the housemade sausages are where it’s at: The Tur-Dawgen is the juiciest turkey sausage imaginable, while the banh mi is a lemongrass and coriander chicken sausage with pickled daikon and carrot, sriracha mayo, jalapeno, cilantro and a spicy pickled duck egg. And yet the best part of all is the lobster-roll-style bun: The things are so buttery and golden, you may not notice the sausages they cradle.

The sausage food truck has a relatively new Loop storefront, where you can find links like the turkey confit sausage, roasted red pepper aioli, duck confit and dilly beans, and El Puerco, with Poblano cheese pork sausage, spicy pickled veggies, sour cream and salsa verde.

Doug Sohn’s influence looms large over Chicago, so it makes sense that Octavio Garcia and Juan Carlos Garcia, former Hot Doug’s cooks, took their knowledge and opened Hot “G” Dog in Uptown, basically reincarnating the original.  Down to the duck fat fries on weekends, “G” is the same. The line is shorter (to the door on a weekday), but it’s cash only and the Instagrams of your lunch are going to look exactly like your Hot Doug’s Instagrams. The Andouille is still “mighty hot!” and the duck sausage, with medallions of foie gras, truffle aioli and fleur de sel, faithfully recreates Sohn’s most famous sausage.

The Colombian street food restaurant offers Colombian hot dogs, which come topped with—get ready—cheese, pulled chicken, crushed potato chips, ketchup, mustard, honey, pineapple sauce and hard-boiled quail eggs.

In yet another Mexican spin on a hot dog, this self-proclaimed “Mexican steakhouse” wraps the dog in bacon and adds chili, ancho-mayo, pico de gallo and Chihuahua cheese ($8.99). It’s served with fries seasoned with chili and cheese powder.  But hurry, these dogs sell out fast and are only served until 3pm.

This subterranean Gold Coast sports bar takes hot dogs in a completely different direction: breakfast. Its Chicago-style breakfast burrito contains an all-beef hot dog, tomato, onion, shredded cheese and scrambled egg topped with chili and sour cream ($8.99). It's only served for brunch on Saturdays and Sundays.

The Evanston hot dog joint is best known for its Dippin' Dogs, which are perfect renditions of corn dogs, and you can also find a bacon dog, which is wrapped in bacon and deep fried. Add cheddar to take it to another level.