East Aurora definitely has its fair share of bars, after all, what else can you do in the middle of the Western New York winter aside from drinking? One of these is Riley Street Station, which is about as close as I can get to my office and drink. In two near back-to-back visits, I was given the rare chance to judge a restaurant on more than one order that I could claim solely for myself.
On the first trip, I encountered the Hickory Smokebox Burger, perfectly fit for an unvegan with toppings of cheddar, sliced ham, bacon and BBQ sauce. I ordered without the lettuce, tomato and onions on top as well as without the pickle on the side that Riley Street Station was nice enough to list on the menu. I also went with medium-rare and the regular side of fries. This was all a good choice, as my burger was quite tasty. The burger was cooked right and the toppings were simply good. I had no complaints, but still changed things up on my next visit.
This was also probably due to being 2-for-1 wing night on my next trip. I ordered 20 wings, with half Garlic Parmesan and the other half Bacon Maple. You may wonder where regular hot wings were, but the waiter had informed me that they simply used Frank’s Red Hot sauce and as much as I like that sauce I know exactly how it tastes and don’t need it at a restaurant. Plus, the Garlic Parmesan had hot sauce in it anyway, to go with garlic, basil and the parm. To be honest, these were kind of weird. The flavors just didn’t seem to work together and instead were kind of conflicting.
The Bacon Maple also had a little hot sauce in them according to the menu, but it wasn’t really noticeable. What was noticeable, though, was the big chunks of bacon that made the wings hard to eat, but mighty tasty. Yet, as I plowed through all ten of these, the sweetness from the maple syrup was a little bit taxing. I felt like a little more hot sauce would have gone a long way, but then again it could have caused more conflict like with the Garlic Parmesan wings.
After these visits, I felt like the burgers were definitely the way to go with Riley Street Station. Fortunately, there are many more wing flavors to try if I find myself there on wing night again, but otherwise I know where the better execution lies.
