First Look: Ssong Hotdog and R&B Tea

Ssong Hotdog is a new Korean hot dog joint in Addison that shares space with an R&B Tea location – a two-fer. Ssong has about a dozen locations in the U.S. and more in Asia. The North Texas location opened at the end of June.

The hot dogs are served on a stick like a corn dog manner but come in many sizes, shapes and flavors of sausages and hot dogs. They are made fresh to order, battered and deep-fried at the counter. The menu includes fried cheese sticks served in the same manner, combos consisting of half cheddar cheese, half sausage, potato mozzarella and hot dog sticks, and spicy versus milder versions of most.

The sticked treats come unadorned, but there’s a self-service saucing station with ketchup and mustard, of course, as well as spicy sauces such as Sriracha and Parmesan cheese.

R&B Tea, which is a large franchise operation with locations across the globe, offers most of the cold and hot teas one has come to expect, including milk, bubble, boba and salted cheese tea. Their stormy teas are frozen smoothie concoctions that come in a wide variety of flavors such as taro, mango, dragonfruit, avocado and Oreo. They’re especially refreshing during the current heat wave. 

We ordered a fried mozzarella cheese stick and a couple of beverages. The mozzarella stick ($5.39) was coated with panko and lightly fried and was about the size of a large eggroll. It was warm but not mouth-burning hot, and was extremely gooey, stringy and cheesy in the best possible way. Eaten unadorned and sauceless, it was a nice snack.

The purple and white taro stormy was delicious, creamy and rich, not overly sweet. Having recently learned about cheese tea at Happy Lemon, we decided to try it here as well. The jasmine green tea with cheese hit the spot. As we also previously found out that ice and sugar can be custom-ordered with these types of drinks (think of it as two pumps versus seven), we went with 75% ice and 50% sugar – a winning combination. This time we declined the straw and sipped the tea as intended, getting the perfect combination of salty, cheesy cream and cold tea in each sip.

We slowly savored these refreshing beverages inside the inviting dining area, putting off as long as possible venturing back out into the 110-degree heat. We look forward to trying some of the other menu items such as the spicy sausage hotdog or potato mozzarella stick in the future – maybe after it cools down a bit in November or so.

5100 Belt Line Road, Suite 748, Addison. 11 a.m. – 10:30 p.m. Monday – Thursday; 11 a.m. – 11 p.m. Friday & Saturday; 11 a.m. – 10 p.m. Sunday.