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Growing My Wing Palette at Wingstop

November 16th, 2009 Tweet Facebook Digg Stumble Reddit Comment (2)
A little bone, a little no bone.

A little bone, a little no bone.

Not too many places in the world are endorsed by a star as big as Troy Aikman, well at least not too many buffalo wings places.  Wingstop, however, has Aikman, which is why the last time I was hungry for wings, I decided to listen to the Hall of Famer and check it out.

The closest Wingstop to me is in Lawndale, so I took the drive to the little strip mall and was tempted to just hop into Chuck E. Cheese and abandon the wings.  Luckily, my friend put me back on the right path.

The interior was done up in a sort aviation-esque theme, which I think alluded to the fact that wings are both on chickens and airplanes.  I saw that they had a pretty cool-looking combo, which included 10 wings (with or without bones), fries and a drink for under 10 bucks.

A boatload of fries.

A boatload of fries.

The choices of sauces weren’t nearly as robust as Buffalo Wild Wings, but still offered a decent variety.  At the top of the heat scale was a flavor called Atomic.  I asked the woman at the counter if I should get it, and she suggested that I might want to start a bit lower on the scale.  Instead, I ordered the two next hottest, Cajun and and Original Hot.  For the Cajun wings, I ordered with bones, but with the Original Hot, I decided to test out their boneless.  The woman at the counter was also nice enough to hook me up with a side of atomic sauce to see if I might like it in the future.

It actually took a long time to prepare the wings, but about 20 minutes later, I was finally walking out of the place with my food.  The bag was steaming, which only increased my excitement at trying out some new wings.  When I opened up my bag, I was pretty impressed at the amount of fries I was given, then I was also impressed by the size of the boneless wings.  The definitely didn’t skimp out and give me tiny little chunks of chicken to pass off as wings.

Atomic and peppery.

Atomic and peppery.

Both flavors I got were pretty good.  Neither were terribly hot, but then I tried out some of the Atomic sauce.  This sauce had a really dark coloration and had flecks of hot peppers in it.  It was quite spicy, but not as painful as the name would suggest.  My real issue with it was that it didn’t have a lot of flavor.  It seemed like they concentrated on heat more than flavor.  If they can come out with a flavorful sauce with the heat level of Atomic, they could be on to something huge.  Until then, the Wild sauce at Buffalo Wild Wings, still remains my favorite buffalo wing sauce.  Wingstop did a good job with their boneless wings and the sauces tasted good, but they didn’t amaze me nearly as much as they amazed Troy Aikman.


2 Responses to “Growing My Wing Palette at Wingstop”

  1. Danny Cohen says:

    I am constantly amazed by your ability to write a post in which you describe a solo trip when in reality it was undertaken by at least two people.

  2. The Unvegan says:

    Thank you, it is a gift. Glad you could join me on my trip to Wingstop.

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Unvegan Top 20 for 2011

‘Tis the season for “Best of the Year” lists, so I thought I would join the party and put in my top 20 new restaurants from 2011.  By the way, this means the restaurants were new to me, not new to LA.  Please note that I am only including meals in the Los Angeles area.  As much as I loved the food on my travels, you can check any of those places out pretty quickly by clicking here.  So, without further caveat, here’s the best that 2011 had to offer for the unvegan:

20.  Cobras and Matadors

This tapas place in Mid-City is everything tapas should be.  From bacon-wrapped dates to a variety of cheeses, there is really something for anyone looking for a delicious meal.  Just beware, while tapas can be kept to a moderate price, when you throw a big group in with small plates, there are bound to be some people who don’t get their money’s worth.  But keep the group small and Cobras and Matadors will send you home full and happy.

19.  Steingarten

Dishing out delicious sausages, including a few of the exotic variety, Steingarten also offers up a pretty stellar beer selection.  If you’ve ever wanted to eat alligator in sausage form, Steingarten won’t disappoint, but they also serve a wider range of foods, including some pretty delicious burgers.  Their sausage execution, though, could use a bit of improvement, which pushed another sausage joint further up on the list. Continue Reading»