What makes a hot dog great? The more of them I eat, the less I know. Perhaps my notion of the perfect hot dog is a bit warped--I did come of age watching those Hebrew National commercials starring Uncle Sam, and eating those mysterious New York dollar-hot-dogs (slender franks boiled/steamed, served on a mushy bun, with condiments judiciously applied by the vendor). And I still love them passionately: You eat one in three or four bites, about a block of walking time, and then there is something else about it--something about street life, movement, the moment, the meal--that is both fleet and hearty.

This is why I am undecided about Diggity Dog. It's a pleasant enough place on a quiet corner in the little shopping district between Wallingford and Green Lake that used to buzz on weekends with people high on coffee and cinnamon rolls from the Honey Bear Bakery. There's a wall full of pictures of customers' dogs, tacked up around a print of A Friend in Need (the very best variation on Dogs Playing Poker), and a section of the restaurant looks like it's happily been given over to kids, with games and toys and small-scale furniture.

And the dogs are all right, but they didn't thrill me. The classic kosher ($3.25) was nice and beefy, with a good texture (although not hot enough), but it just didn't give me the same charge that I usually get from a hot dog. Why on earth not? We're getting into ineffables here. If I say it lacked some sort of platonic hot-dog-ness, then I have probably gone over the edge. The bratwurst ($4.50), on the other hand, had no trace of herb or spice and was sort of glazed in tepid grease. I did eat every trace of my potato salad ($.75), which was deli-style creamy, with bright spots of red pepper.

Listen, I'll travel some distance for a good hot dog. At the mere suggestion of an errand anywhere near UW, I'll start planning the trip around a visit to Shultzy's. But then again, Shultzy's is a sausage place in love with the idea of the sausage, and Diggity Dog is a quiet neighborhood joint with a fairly good dog. These, as it turns out, are two different things.