Hot Dog

Today for lunch I had the desire to get out and walk a bit but it was miserable outside. So I skyway'd it and decided that I would try the Bulldog in lowertown St. Paul.

They need more seating and perhaps to hire a host or hostess and maybe a waiter that actually understands how to wait tables. Aside from that, it's a fun place and they had the best chicago style hot dog I've eaten in Minnesota.

I'm picky about something being called chicago style...to qualify it must have:

• a snappy dog (Vienna Beef preferable)


• neon green relish


• a dill pickle spear


• some sort of mustard (this one came with yellow but I swapped it for a zesty brown)


• tomatos


• onions


• celery salt


• poppy seeded bun


• sport peppers (which I never order because they would kill whatever germanic white-bread taste bud I have left)

And for me I like the fact that they don't serve it with ketchup but that you can add it if you'd like. There's a whole camp of people who think that is sacriligious but honestly I'm a ketchup hot dog gal from way back...

I think the first hot dog I remember ordering was at Yankee Doodle dandy. They had the best dogs. Portillo's is my current favorite place when I head home (although I don't think they do the neon green relish, they have every other aspect.) There are street vendors near the museum complex in Chicago or on this really rather ordinary street corner in New York that also have the mystery of the hot dog figured out. I also rather enjoy a hot dog from a vendor while basking in the sunny confines of wrigley field.

Last year we went to a Twins game and people were raving about domedogs and how great they were...they couldn't hold a candle to a wrigley dog...and maybe they are exactly the same borderline iffy hot dog and it's the fresh air and sunshine sprinkled in but to me they just aren't the same.