The Unvegan » Buffalo Wild Wings

Big Wangs, Not Big Wings

The Unvegan — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 16:30:14 +0000

No wings here.

To expand my ever-growing knowledge of what kind of food the valley has to offer, I set off for Big Wangs one night after work. For a long time I thought that the place was actually called Big Wings, since everyone seemed to talk about their wings. Then when I was corrected, I assumed the place was called Big Wang’s, presumably under the assumption that it was owned by a large or tall Chinese man named Wang. Again, I was wrong and learned that it was actually called Big Wangs. No possession here, just plural, so I was a bit apprehensive before entering what I now expected to be a large sausage fest. Well, luckily it wasn’t one of those. Instead it was a semi-divey bar and restaurant that still managed to specialize in wings, which I’m sure continues to promote the general misunderstanding of the name of the place.

Well, you probably don’t care abut anything I just said. I know all you care about is the food. Well it is your lucky day, because I just happened to eat there. Nothing much on the menu mattered to me except for the wings, so I took a look at their varieties and sauces and settled on Big Wang, a set of 12 wings. I asked our lovely waitress if I could get two different sauces, which seemed like a great idea, to which she told me that I could not unless I ordered two sets of 6 wings. The illogic bothered me deeply, so I chose only one sauce, the Hot Buffalo and bleu cheese dressing for dipping..

After sipping down some beer for a while, our wings finally arrived. They looked hot, glistening and huge. But something seemed to be missing. Oh yeah, the actual wings. All of these were drummies, which I don’t mind, but I do like to mix things up and get some actual wings in there. The drummies were nice and meaty, which was great, for I was one hungry unvegan. The sauce was nice, but I couldn’t help but wonder if there were any better sauces on the menu since I wasn’t able to actually try them. Then I discovered that I had been given ranch dressing instead of bleu cheese. This was sacrilege for a seasoned wing eater like myself. I mean who would actually choose ranch over bleu cheese for wings? Fools, that’s who.

So to recap the meal, Big Wangs delivered some nice and meaty drummies with a pretty good sauce. Unfortunately, their sauce restrictions and failure to give me the bleu cheese I desired definitely harmed the experience. I’ll surely return to Big Wangs out of convenience, but it is definitely no Buffalo Wild Wings.

Battle of the Sauces: Black Swan vs. Buffalo Wild Wings

The Unvegan — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 19:25:15 +0000

Fight!

If history winds up the way I fully expect it to, the city of Buffalo, New York will only be remembered for one thing: Buffalo Wings. This isn’t exactly a bad thing for a city which would love to forget about the four consecutive Super Bowl losses, the freezing winters and the fact that they aren’t quite at Niagara Falls. And since, Buffalo Wings are one of the greatest culinary creations in history, it’s not exactly a bad thing to be remembered by.

In honor of Buffalo Wings, the Black Swan sauce company sent me out a free jar of their Wing Commander sauce to test out on some wings. Just as in any good experiment, I wanted to have a “control,” so I chose my all-time favorite buffalo sauce, Wild, from Buffalo Wild Wings.

Apparently Wing Commander is no longer just an awesome video game or a terrible Freddie Prinze Jr. movie. To quote the Black Swan website, “Wing Commander contains no dairy, buttery flavorings, eggs or artificial ingredients, yet its delicious taste is unparalleled in depth and excitement.”

On the other end of ring, we have Wild, which is no longer just a way to describe “things.” The Buffalo Wild Wings website takes a more simple approach in describing this sauce; “Big flavor, blisterin’ heat.”

Breaded and ready for business.

But these sauces would have to wait until I prepared the wings themselves. Not content to just eat the wing bits that restaurants serve up, I bought entire wings, which contain the drumstick, the wing part with two bones and the wing tip itself. I find it strange that I’ve never been a restaurant that serves up the entire wing. It’s like cutting a guy’s arm off from the elbow down and claiming you cut off the entire arm. You are wrong, because he still has an arm, just in stump form. The same goes for wings. I don’t want any stumpy chicken running around.

I am immediately hungry again after looking at this.

Once these were defrosted, I breaded each wing. This is a much simpler process than some might believe and only requires dipping in flour. Since the wings are already moist, the flour sticks to the wings like mistresses to Tiger Woods (current event joke!). I brought a big pot of Canola oil to a boil and started dropping wings in. Depending on the size of the wing, it took between 8 and 12 minutes to cook each through and ensure minimal salmonella.

Black Swan's Wing Commander fell a bit short.

Finally, with the wings thoroughly fried, it was time to toss them in sauce and put them on display for my adoring unvegan fans. As I don’t support the consumption of vegetables, I only provided bleu cheese. Guests were allowed to bring carrots or celery, but I would have nothing to do with them.

Upon eating, I found that the Wing Commander sauce was a little too vinegary for my taste and my friend, Aaron echoed my sentiment in proclaiming, “It’s no Admiral Delicious or

The Wild sauce was the big winner.

Sergeant Scrumptious.” The Wild sauce, however, won over everyone pretty quickly. John was ready to make the drive up to Burbank to visit the Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant.

A lot of people are fans of vinegar in Buffalo Wings, which is good, because vinegar is necessary in every wing sauce. Unfortunately, Wing Commander took the vinegar to the extreme, which overwhelmed the rest of the flavor. It was a good try, Black Swan, but it looks like the control won out in this test.

Growing My Wing Palette at Wingstop

The Unvegan — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:20:42 +0000

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.

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.

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.

Buffalo Wild Wings Reaches LA

The Unvegan — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:19:15 +0000

Apparently Burbank is worth a visit.

Well, sort of. It’s in Burbank, which sure as hell beats the next closest one in Chino Hills. Either way, it’s good to know that it’s now easier to drive to Buffalo Wild Wings than to fly back home to Detroit for my Bdubs.

I wasn’t able to make it to the grand opening, where the first 100 people in line got free wings for a year. That would have been nice, but I also have a job I had to be at on that Monday morning. Instead, I settled for a visit the next week. This Buffalo Wild Wings is part of a sort of outdoor mall/downtown area in Burbank, with tons of people walking around and tons of shops for them to spend their hard-earned money. The money I had would be going for some wings. And beer.

The basic layout of the place is essentially the same everywhere, and I knew from my college years that the bar area was first-come, first served. I found a spot surprisingly easily, considering the line at the front, and waited for my buddies to join me. I started with a tall Shock Top beer, and then ordered twelve wings with my two favorite sauces in the world: Wild and Spicy Garlic. These sauces are the real reason to go to Buffalo Wild Wings. The wings themselves and the meat on them are really sub par, but once that sauce hits them, they turn into magical winged delights. A little bleu cheese dip doesn’t hurt, either.

These sauces are making me thirsty.

When my wings came, it was also time for a new beer, this time a Michelob Amber Bock, which is my favorite beer for chowing down on wings. I started eating and they were just how I remembered. The Wild sauce is about as spicy you can get while maintaining the actual flavor. The Spicy Garlic is more of your ordinary level of buffalo spiciness, but with a hint of garlic. Since garlic makes everyone better, this is always a great choice.

Lies!

Ultimately, this newest incarnation of Buffalo Wild Wings stayed true to my memories. The sauces maintained their great flavor on the way out to LA and the atmosphere did the same. The only downside was when I ordered my first Amber Bock and was brought a Widmer Hefeweizen. I love me some Hef beers, this just wasn’t the beer I ordered. The waiter took it back when I told him and brought me out my real order. I figured I was in the clear until I got the receipt. Rather than removing the beer from the bill, he comped it and said I didn’t like it. That’s just a lie. I like it plenty, I just didn’t order it. Luckily, this petty grievance was the only problem I had.

Since the new Bdubs is all the way out in Burbank, I probably won’t have a lot of opportunity to go, but it feels great knowing it is there in case of a buffalo wing emergency.

Going Wild at Buffalo Wild Wings

The Unvegan — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:03:40 +0000

Spicy Garlic on the left and Wild on the right.

A huge franchise that LA is completely lacking in is Buffalo Wild Wings, which I affectionately call Bdubs. Sure, there is one all the way out in Chino Hills, but fighting traffic to get there makes it seem easier to fly back to Michigan to get my fill of Bdubs.

I got my recent fix from the restaurant in Novi, Michigan and although I didn’t eat them at the restaurant, I’ve always enjoyed the general ambience of the place, with sports all over the place, but not too loud that you can’t concentrate.

Anyway, I ordered twelve wings with my two favorites sauces, Wild and Spicy Garlic. These are the real reason I like Bdubs. Wild is a regular buffalo sauce, but about as hot as you can get without losing flavor. It’s the second-hottest on their scale, just short of Blazing, which I feel is unenjoyable due to the blistering heat. To accompany my Wild, I also like to get Spicy Garlic, which is a milder buffalo sauce with a hint of garlic. They are good as a buffer whenever the Wild gets to be too much.

In truth, the wings at Bdubs are a little disappointing in size. The sauce more than makes up for this and also they way the meat itself tastes is great. There is nothing worse than biting into a wing and getting a mouthful of wing fat. This never happens at Bdubs, where the wings are nice and crispy, if not incredibly meaty.

A lot of the time, people like to get carrots and celery with their wings to cool down their mouths. To me, this is a terrible idea. If I need to cool down my mouth, I’ll get some beer or some potato wedges (with cheese!). There is really no need for vegetables to be anywhere near my wings.

Buffalo Wild Wings is always a reliable bet for wings and their sauces are unbeatable. If only they would open a restaurant in LA so I wouldn’t have to fly all the way back to Michigan to get my share.