The Hair of the Polish Dog at Bacus Bros Hot Dogs in Tempe is a Hangover Breakfast in a Bun

The Guilty Pleasure: The Hair of the Polish Dog
Where to Get It: Bacus Bros Hot Dogs & Beer
Price: $8.50
What it Really Costs: Your ability to consume anything but light beer for a few days. This baby is loaded with so many calories, you'll want to cut corners somewhere. 

According to traditional drinking lore, one of the best ways to ease the pain of a hangover is the hair of the dog — in other words, to soften your impending hangover by pummeling your poor liver with even more alcohol.

Sure, a Bloody Mary after a long night of drinking may offer some relief in the short run. But there's another way to distract yourself from your pain: drunk food, that marvelous genre of greasy fare that's designed to temporarily subdue drinking-related headaches and fatigue with high amounts of salt and fat. 

If you're in the need for some solid drunk food options in Tempe, we suggest a visit to Bacus Bros Hot Dogs & Beer. The fast-casual hot dog restaurant and bar, which opened in February, took over the spot formerly occupied by Silver Mine Subs on the corner of Mill and Fourth Street in downtown Tempe.

The Bacus Bros menu offers eight specialty hot dogs, along with a signature beef-and-cabbage bierock, which is kind of like an Eastern European take on the calzone. And if you happen to ascribe to the hair-of-the-dog philosophy, Bacus Bros Hot Dogs is well-stocked in the beer department. There are six beers on tap, plus more than 20 other brews available by the bottle or can. 

If you're sticking to the drunk food theme, we suggest you chase a night of late-night partying with the Hair of the Polish Dog, a massive polish sausage served on your choice of homemade bun — options include regular white, stadium, or pretzel. If you're eating the Hair of the Polish Dog, there's a good chance you've already thrown caution to the wind, and you probably aren't counting calories. If that's the case, we suggest the pretzel bun, which is unabashedly carby and thick and roughly the size of a small catcher's mitt. 

All hot dogs and sausages are prepared on the grill in front of you, so you can whet your appetite with the tantalizing smell of polish sausage wafting over the open kitchen. Once cooked, the sausage is nestled into the bun, then topped with a veritable breakfast buffet: large, buttery curds of scrambled eggs and a generous serving of hot, crispy bacon bits, plus onions, green peppers, and a couple of fistfuls of shredded cheese. The oversize dog is finished off with lashings of spicy mustard. 

The Hair of the Polish Dog is big enough for two, but it's so tasty that you may not want to share. The sausage has a nice snap to it, and the scrambled egg and salty nubs of bacon work surprisingly well with the mustard and loads of cheese. You will feel no pain while eating this guilty pleasure. And a further piece of good news: Bacus Bros Hot Dogs & Beer is open until 3 a.m. on Thursdays through Saturday, which means you won't have to wait until the sun comes up to eat the Hair of the Polish Dog.