Updated: 4th July 2012; This restaurant had closed according to Urbanspoon.com.

Ed broke the news about a new street cart in Richmond (link here) about a month ago. As I read his post, I can’t help but think that this is a copy cat of Japadog.

I did a few half-hearted attempt to look for Grazy-Dog. It was more to see what they have, not really wanting to try them. I thought it was tucked between the rows of warehouse businesses north of the Superstore on No 3 Road. I drove around the area on three different occasions and each time I could not locate them. I soon forgot about them.

A couple of days ago, we got an email from Gerri telling us about how much she likes Grazy-Dog and said we should go try it.

Today I went to look for Grazy-Dog again. I am on “forced-leave” for the rest of the year because I still have some vacation days left and I need to use them up. Suanne abandoned me to do her stuff. I hate to eat alone and so I managed to convince Nanzaro to come along with me.

This time we got the location and opening hours before we went. We found out that Grazy-Dog opens from noon till 8PM and that they were in the side of the building between PJ’s Pets and the Superstore. We went and waited at that spot for sometime and was puzzled why the van was not there at noon.

We did not realize that they had moved. It is now located in front of No 3 Road. It is definitely a much better location as they are going to be more visible from the busy No 3 Road. I later found out that they had moved to this new location just 1 week ago.

Talking about visibility, you can’t miss them. The van, named G-Wagon, is painted in neon pink.

Grazy-Dog has a big name behind them. The Gyoza King Group behind some of the popular Japanese restaurants in town including:

• Gyoza King in Vancouver
• Nanchuu in Richmond (post here)
• G-Men Ramen in Richmond (post here)
• Chicco Cafe in Vancouver (post here)
• Gyo-O in Richmond

Actually I have doubts over what the words “Gyozaking produced” means. The reason is because Gyoza King’s website has no mention about Grazy-Dog. I mean, does Gyoza King actually owns this street cart?

It took us a while for us to understand the menu. Click on the menu to show it larger.

Basically, you select the type of sausage from a choice of three:

• All Beef Sausage ($4.50)
• Bavarian Sausage ($5)
• Bratwurst Sausage ($6)

The prices above will include a choice of seven styles of toppings (the image on the right).

On top of these hot dogs, there is one that has the works called the GrazyDog Style. This one is the most expensive and is $3 in addition to the type of sausage selected.

There is a couple of sausage-less dogs that they call Creative Dog ($6 each).

The G-Wagon is quite cramped and has barely enough room for two persons to work. Moreover, I felt the ceiling of the van is really low and I can imagine them having a backache working all day in the van.

Anyway, lest you think this is fast food, it is not as fast as you think it is. It took slightly less than 10 minutes for them to make our sausages. It seems like they had to sear some of the ingredients with a handheld blow torch during the assembly.

Nanzaro and I decided that we should go for the $9 top of the line Bratwurst with the GrazyDog style toppings. I asked them to let me take a picture of the grilled bratwurst because it looked so good.

Oh gosh. This thing is big. It is so big and overflowing with stuff that they had to … serve this on a styrofoam container. Nanzaro and I was debating how to eat this until they overheard us and told us that is what the fork is for!

Frankly the best way to eat this is to ask them to cut it up into two or three pieces. It’s easier that way. Trust me!

There are so much stuff in this that we don’t even know what it is in it. I just know that it tasted great.

We were told that this is something like a combination of the Mentaiko Mayo Dog, the Teri Tama Dog and Cheese.

I have no idea what is Mentaiko but I did a bit of googling and found that it is roe of pollock.

I guess Teri Tama came from the words Teriyaki and Tamago (Japanese omelet).

There are seaweed. There are onions. But it is the sauce that makes this so amazing. This is a very filling hot dog.

The bratwurst was lovely and soft.

The GrazyDog rests on top of a bed of lettuce. Nanzaro is allergic to green colored food and left it all to me. I have no problem with that because the sauce seasons this very well.

We did not even have to touch the condiments. What was on the GrazyDog is already more than enough. Anyway, the condiments are nothing special. It is just the typical ones you find in any hot dog stands.

I had earlier wanted to eat small. I planned to have just half a hot dog here and then proceed to Dinesty to try the Deep Fried Stinky Tofu. I had sleepless nights thinking about the stinky tofu because I was defeated by the stinky tofu in Boiling Point. LOL!

“Let’s get another one, dad” Nanzaro said. Obviously he likes the sausage dog here … and obviously he wants to avoid trying stinky tofu.

So we got another one. We decided to get something totally different … different sausage and different toppings. For sausage it was easy to decide. Since we had bratwurst, we asked for the Bavarian sausage. The topping was a toss between the Glico Curry Dog or the Osaka Dog. We ended up with the Glico Curry Dog.

This is smaller and more manageable and so this one came with a wrapper and you eat it the conventional way.

This is $5. As expected, the curry is mildly spicy. After all, you know what Japanese curry is like right?

We both agree that this is a poor cousin to the GrazyDog we had earlier. The Bavarian sausage is saltier than the bratwurst and the curry, no kick at all.

We had barely stepped into winter today and it is quite a mild day. It was not too chilly and one can only expect that it will only get colder. This is hardly a great time for a new fledging food cart trying to put the word out that they are there.

Moving to No 3 Road is a good move as it gives Grazy-Dog more visibility but I think not many people will relish eating out in the cold. I chatted with the two people who manages this place and they told me what they wanted to do is to hold on until spring when they expect business to pick up.

I want to see them succeed and hope that by this post, it will also help people to be aware of them too and give their food a try.

Grazy-Dog took up three parking spots in front of the businesses in this block. I am amazed how they managed to do that and that they even got power connected from one of the businesses.

However, I think there is a great spot that the Richmond City Hall should consider designating as a food cart area. It is under the Canada Line tracks right in front of Lansdowne Mall. That spot is perfect as it is spacious, have a bit of shade under the overhead tracks and there are also some seats too. I am talking about this location here:

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