Lunchtime on a hot summer’s day and two small boys are very silently perched on a bench near Fort Tilden Beach.
They’re still; their eyes a little glazed. Finally, one breaks the stupor to very slowly say, “These are soooo good.”
The source of their trance is at their elbows — two almost empty cups of thick, cold milkshakes and the carcass of lunch. At this point, sous chef and I have just gotten off a sunny bus ride all the way to the end of the Q22 line at Rockaway Beach, all in search of this mythical Breezy Dog food truck we’d been reading about.
From the look of the fog these boys were in, lunch was starting to seem worth the ride …
Even though we’d read as much as we could on the whereabouts of this truck, we still weren’t entirely clear where to go once the bus stopped in Breezy Point, New York.
Just around the corner from the bus stop, however, we spied a white truck …
… with a short line of people. (It was late on a Monday, after all — no summer hordes on a weekday.)
This was definitely it.
The menu is pretty straightforward — you have a range of hot dogs from $2.50 to $4.25 or various wraps, tacos, knishes and more.
Besides the hot dogs, the big thing here is the milkshakes — 100 flavors, I kid you not.
We get a Breezy dog ($3.50) — beef hot dog, topped with melted cheese and chili. The bun is soft, the hot dog is basic but the overall combination of meat, sweet roll, just a thin layer of chili and a river of runny cheese is delicious, hitting the spot immediately.
It’s more of a head-scratcher trying to decide on what shake to try. I’m completely flummoxed, so the sous chef says, “Nutella!”
No dice, alas — they’re out today.
A chocolate-Twix shake sounds just a bit too decadent so chocolate-strawberry it is. And a mind-blowing one at that — just enough chocolate to taste but not so much that it overwhelms the strawberry. The few bits of fresh strawberry we find on our tongues are a pleasant surprise.
The boy was right — this is “soooo good.” As they wrap up, they offer sound advice on beach adventuring, too — ignore the signs, go past the barricade and at least get a glimpse of the tip of Fort Tilden beach, which is still closed following 2012’s Hurricane Sandy. “They don’t really check you,” one very seriously volunteers.
We watch as they take their last sips, toddle over to their bikes and slowly meander off into the afternoon. A perfect summer day indeed.
Breezy Dogs & Shakes, 168 State Road, Breezy Point, N.Y.; https://www.facebook.com/pages/Breezy-Dogs-and-Shakes/253892841379818