Morgantown HDJ Review - Haught Diggity Dogs

Last year in a review of a new Charleston HDJ named Hot Diggity Dogs, we erroneously wrote that the phonetically similar HDJ in Morgantown called "Haught Diggity Dogz" was defunct. In our defense, we seem to have been partially correct, since according to the WV Secretary of State, the LLC that owned "Haught Diggity Dogz" was terminated in 2013.  But as a recent visit confirmed, there still a hot dog joint of the same name (albeit in Westover, not Morgantown) and they are selling very good hot dogs. We're not concerned with the legalities.

We are concerned with quality, though, and it seems that Haught Diggity Dogz shares this concern. But before we tell you about that, let's talk about a matter that has caused great controversy over on the Facebook Page recently.

Three kinds of "Chili," not "sauce."

We'd like to address this to all of those people who say that "nobody calls it chili" and insist that calling it chili is wrong and/or a southern WV thing. Please note the accompanying photo of Haught Diggity Dogz menu board. Here, just 10 miles from the Pennsylvania border, it is chili. It doesn't have beans in it and it is not eaten out of a bowl with a spoon. Now will you all please shut up?

Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about Haught's hot dog. It's good. It could be great with some very small adjustments.

First, the good things: The bun is awesomely soft. It didn't appear to be steamed, nor did it need to be. We'd love to know the brand of these buns so we could recommend them to other HDJs. It was slightly different in shape than the Heiner's product that is ubiquitous n the southern part of the state, and softer than any of those even at the HDJs in Huntington where they are sure to get the freshest ones.

The chili is fantastic. We got the medium and the flavor and spice was nearly perfect. Complex, meaty and just the right consistency. The slaw is good too, but had maybe a bit too much mayo and was served a bit too sparingly.

But the onions. Here's where we need some work. They were simply chopped too coarsely for a hot dog and there were too many of them. Most of them fell off the dog as soon as it was lifted from the tray.

Haught Diggity Dogz also gets a half-point deduction for not fully embracing WVHD culture, as exhibited by its failure to have a stated "everything" dog with all of the required elements. This is not unexpected this close to the northern border, but rules are rules.

We're going to give HDD a very respectable 4 Weenie score.