Rick S.
Yelp
Having lived a good chunk of my life in Chicago, I'm fairly knowledgeable about several of the major food specialties of the Windy City: pizza (thin crust or deep-dish), Italian beef sandwiches, and the famous Chicago hot dog. Finding an authentic version of the dog outside of Illinois has proven to be a challenge. Portillo's has begun expanding into Texas with the first location to open in Dallas soon, but even Portillo's is sort of middle-of-the-road when it comes to flavor.
That's why I was excited to find Wiseguys in Round Rock and decided to give them a try. The storefront is located in a strip mall across from the Greenlawn H-E-B easily accessed from SH45. The restaurant's interior features what I would call a sports bar motif with lots of Chicago sports memorabilia and photos of celebrities. There's even a Gene's and Jude's t-shirt hanging on the wall-my favorite place for a dog in Chicago and named the #1 hot dog in America by Rachel Ray a few years ago.
The menu here features many items other than a Chicago hot dog, including Italian beef sandwiches, which is another favorite, as well as burgers, cheesesteak sandwiches, wraps, and other offerings. This visit was devoted to the dog however, and we ordered the combo-sandwich, fries, and drink.
The food came out fresh and hot and upon initial inspection, featured all of the standard and correct ingredients: a Vienna beef wiener with yellow mustard (mine was missing but everyone else had theirs), bright green sweet relish, onions, sport peppers, dill pickle spear, tomato slices, and celery salt, all atop a poppy seed bun. It was looking promising but when I bit into the sandwich, I discovered the bun was dry and crusty. Generally, the better hot dog purveyors steam the buns so they stay soft and moist and keep the sandwich warm. I noted another review reporting the same issue so this does not appear to be an isolated incident. Flavor-wise the profile was spot-on but the bun spoiled the rest. Fries were typical frozen potatoes and nothing special-I sure wish that I could get fresh cut fries as they really compliment the hot dog.
Overall, Wiseguys loses a star for the crusty bun and missing mustard on my dog. I will review again as I want to try the Italian beef, which looked pretty good on another diner's table. I think the food here is decent but could be better.