The Wiener In Review: Hot Diggity

The Wiener In Review: Hot Dog Establishments Of Portland
------------------------------ Hot Diggity ----------------------------------

Entry 3: Certain foods lend themselves perfectly to what we’d normally consider non-food oriented activities, and, in this respect, the hot dog is one of the most malleable. The largest reason for this is the hot dog’s portability, like a sandwich, a snow cone, or a grape. (Formal request: Will someone invent more awesome, portable foods, please? Thank you.) The second largest reason that hot dogs are associated with non food-oriented activities is because hot dogs are awesome. They are the world’s greatest food, and if you don’t agree with me, you might as well get the hell off my blog spot. What other food inserts herself perfectly into backyard gardening, home repair, street juggling, county fairs, presidential rallies in the park, fire dancing, dog shows, car camping, blatantly inappropriate humor, Trace Atkins concerts, baby showers, all sports events, and late night trips to 7-11? Only the wiener.

This is why Hot Diggity scored crucial business points by setting up their portable construction-cart-esque hot dog house outside the Tigard Home Depot. Imagine your sweaty, strapping dad in his overalls. Now imagine him working on your leaky gutters. He realizes he doesn’t have a plumber’s snake—a definite necessity because you live under a grove of cedar trees, populated with over 300 different species of warring squirrels, the casualties of which pinball down through a thicket of branches before slumping dead in slew of needles and nuts, flowing toward the drain as it rains and eventually clogging your gutters which haven’t been cleaned since 1975—and so your dad yells he’s running over to Home Depot to “get some supplies.”

Beer is definitely a “supply,” and so is a new Skilsaw. These are dangerous essentials, especially when used together; plus, if your dad’s wife (A.K.A. your mom) finds out he bought a new saw, or if he can’t finish all the beer on the drive home, he may have a lecture waiting. No need to worry about these inconveniences while purchasing a hot dog, though. That thing will be halfway to the colon by the time Dad pulls into the driveway.

Need more convincing that hot dogs and Home Depot go together like hot dogs and John Kruk? Consider the similarities between a Home Depot and a sports stadium parking lot. It takes endurance to traverse the 5 miles from your car to the gate. Then, once you finally enter, you have to contend with intercoms, overpriced novelties, and swarms of tools. You need energy to stay focused. This is where the wiener comes in. (Formal request: Will someone please invent a Stadium Pal to take care of hot dog digestive inconveniences?)

I’ll try not to let my love of hardware and lumber compromise my objectivity in reviewing Hot Diggity. But, for the record, I fully support their location. I’m not saying I support Tigard. Pave that place, I say. Wait, it’s already COMPLETELY paved. Sod that place, then. Sod it, seed it, and ignore it. Perhaps in 500 years Tigard will look 50% less offensive. In the meantime, if you absolutely MUST acquire some screws to re-affix the florescent lamp to your cubicle, and you can’t take the company credit card all the way in to Portland, or all the way out to Burns, I suggest visiting the Home Depot off SW Sequoia Parkway in Tigard, across from the trillions of office buildings and faux-park goose habitats, and eating a hot dog at Hot Diggity.

......1.The Sausage. Plump and delicious. Roasted outside on their gas BBQ. Kosher, Polish, Smoked, or Spicy (and the spicy is nicey). No veggie option. Pretty damn good. 0.9 points.

......2. The Bun and Accessories. Hot Diggity uses those oversized Kaiser buns with the tiny little seeds. These guys are a crapshoot. They offer more real estate on which to pile accessories, but they go stale faster than their traditional, starchy, jet-puffed and smaller cousins. They have a crust on top, and are side-loading. If you toast them, get ready for serrated gums and a gooey stick-to-your-teeth, doughy center. Sometimes, however, they’re just right. Mine wasn’t, but it was probably because they had been sitting out all day. Hot Diggity provides Mexican Taco Cart-style containers of jalapeños, sauerkraut, onions, and relish. They have Dijon mustard and ketchup. The accessories don’t live up to the sausages, but everything’s pretty fresh, and the onions and relish haven’t melded together into maggoty brain stew. 0.4 points

3....3. The Cost. $2.75 plus a quarter for optional cheese. Finally! …a place humble enough to keep all wieners under 3 bucks. It is of paramount importance that you be able to pay for a hot dog with the forgotten, wrinkled dollar bills in your jacket pocket, or with change from your car ash tray. Paying with a debit card at a hot dog stand is grounds for a beating. A hot dog stand which charges enough to warrant debit card payment is grounds for a verblogal lashing… a punishment which is not near as effective as a physical beating, but—as I haven’t been in a fist fight since 8^th grade—much more practical and legal. Fortunately, Hot Diggity keeps it reasonable. 0.7 points.

...... 4. The Presentation. On a paper towel. Definitely not fancy. Practical though. And shit knows I appreciate practical. Why, just the other day, I debated writing a blog on how impractical high heels are. Seriously, high heels are the stupidest and most impractical things I can think of. MTV is a close second. Mark McGrath is a close third and all religion is fourth. Hot Diggity gets 0.9 points for presentation, even though there is little to no presentation. I can do this, because it’s my friggin blog.

..... 5. The ‘tude. Meh. The lady was really interested in her Dean Koontz book. She wasn’t much for conversation, and she didn’t treat my hot dog like a royal scepter. I forgive her, but she will not be knighted. 0.5 points.

In conclusion, Hot Diggity scores a big 3.5 out of 5 points! Good job, Mr. or Ms. Diggity! I like the name, I like the location, and I like Open Daily diligence. They serve a couple other things of little consequence: chicken teriyaki, breakfast burritos, blah blah blah. Across the street, I frequently check the status of my web servers, which are stored in a co-location: a geeky, temperature-controlled, hi-tech environment of racks and server cabinets. Periodically, I sneak across the street to the Home Depot for lunch, hoping the mustached construction-workers will overlook the transparency of my server-room skin. Maybe they’ll think I’m one of them.

(Informal request: For perhaps the best-ever blogged description of Home Depot, please visit the blog of Portland band, Menomena.)