Pylsuvagninn á Akureyri

The Hot Dog Cart in Akureyri 

May contain traces of advertisement.*

During the last weeks "Pylsuvagninn á Akureyri", the hot dog cart in Akureyri, caught my attention on Instagram repeatedly. Even though I'm not really a fan of hot dogs, I was impressed by the creativity in the preparation of various hot dogs. I even took over their idea of a "Breakfast Hot Dog" with bacon and baked beans and prepared it myself. Furthermore hot dogs have become a kind of national food in Iceland. And finally our kids really love hot dogs. So it was a matter of course for us to visit "Pylsuvagninn", while we spent some days in Akureyri during our summer vacation in July.

We had contacted the operators of the hot dog cart in advance, and they had invited us to try their hot dogs. But not only these. We should taste the meat soup, the vegan hot dogs, the crepes, ... Of course, we were delighted and visited the hot dog cart together with our kids already on our first day in Akureyri.

Pylsuvagninn is run by Agnieszka and her family. She is a Polish woman living in Iceland for more than ten years. She runs this hot dog cart since four years.

Our lunch

All ingredients of their hot dogs are organic. This also applies to the vegan hot dogs. The smoked vegan sausages are made from seitan, i.e. wheat protein, water, herbs, sunflower oil and salt.

In the front you can see the vegan hot dog - with salad, cucumber, tomato and the vegan hot dog sausage with mustard and ketchup. At vegan sausages I often miss the crispness. But in a hot dog this does not matter at all. It tasted yummy indeed.

Right behind it you see another interesting hot dog - with a normal sausage, but with red onion and cold red cabbage. Child no. 2 was fully enthused. I also tried a bit and it was indeed really good.

Child no. 3 chose a hot dog with cheese and Pik-Nik potato sticks.

Besides the exciting lots of different hot dogs, Pylsuvagninn also offers "Kjötsúpa", Icelandic meat soup in traditional style with lamb, potatoes, carrots, turnips, pearl barley, ... Especially our youngst son, child no. 4, was a big fan of this soup.

By the way, the soup is served in bowls not from plastic or styrofoam, but from paper. Pylsuvagninn is engaged in the fight against plastic waste. They try to produce as less of it as possible. Considering all the microplastic in our nature, this is a good initiative, of course. Only the spoons for our soop had been made from plastic. But well, it's hard to replace everything in the first step.

For dessert we had crepe (served on a paper plate, of course). Crepes are not a typically Icelandic specialty. However, it was delicious! We had "pönnukaka með vanillu skyri, rjóma, oreo og súkkulaðisósu", i.e. a crepe with vanilla skyr, cream, Oreo cookies and chocolate sauce. I loved it, but my youngest son, too, and he claimed a big part for it for himself.

Once again: Our heartfelt thanks to Agnieszka and her family!

Overview:

The standard "hot dog with everything" (= pylsu með öllum), namely with sausage, onion, ketchup, cocktail sauce, remoulade and mustard, costs 450 ISK (approx. 3,60 €, 4.20 $). There are ten variations of hot dog with lamb sausages, e.g. with red cabbage, potato salad or potato sticks, for in average about 700 ISK (approx. 5.60 €, 6.50 $). And there are seven variations of vegan and vegetarian hot dogs, e.g. with egg or with tuna, for about 780 ISK in average (approx. 6.30 €, 7.30 $).

You can get the Kjötsúpa for 1000 ISK per portion (approx. 8.10 €, 9.30 $).

The crepes ("pönnukaka") cost 800 ISK each (approx. 6.50 €, 7.50 $). There are four sweet and one hearty variants. Sweet for example with Nutella and banana, with straberries, blueberry jam or apple-cinnamon. Hearty with cheese, sausage and ketchup.

* Legal note: 

Formally this article can be graded as advertisement, since we had been invited for the meal. Anyhow, we have chosen only restaurants, which we had heard good things about and which we estimated as interesting. Accordingly we're really delighted, and if we fall into words of praise, these are meant honestly.