‘Buffalo Wings’
There are few things in this world that go better together than football and wings. So when I was taken to Zipps Sports Grill in Scottsdale to watch Michigan play some football, I decided that wings were the only things fit to go in my mouth. Well, wings and fries. Zipps offered a few different wing flavors, and I ended up going with one that looked pretty interesting – Golden Spicy.
Pop quiz: What are the only five-letter sovereign nations that contain two Is? If you and five of your best trivia-playing friends can’t come up with India and Haiti, you probably don’t want to be at The Irish Times in Palms on Tuesday nights. You see, every Tuesday is Trivia Night and begins sometime between 9 and 9:30, but were it simply a bar with trivia it would not be worthy of meat-blogging. Fortunately that is not the case, because every Tuesday also means $5 buffalo wings. And while they have a full kitchen and a decent bar food selection, there is really no other option in my mind.
Not too long ago, a new bar/grill opened in Culver City called Rocco’s Tavern. If you are at all from my generation, the name Rocco evokes memories of one of the greatest Nicktoons ever: Rocko’s Modern Life. Okay, the name is spelled differently, which may explain why neither wallabies nor turtles were on the menu. Instead, the menu was chock-full of some typical bar food. With the Tigers game on the TVs surrounding the bar, I sat down, ordered a happy hour beer (2 for 1 from 3-7 everyday) and decided what to order.
As a man spoiled by Buffalo Wild Wings, it is often difficult to try out new wing places. But going to a place where 50% of the name is Wings and the other 50% is Hoagies seems like a recipe for success. So even if Hoagies and Wings isn’t the most creatively named restaurant, it certainly makes clear what you will be offered. To be fair, they do offer some burgers and sides, but other than that, the menu is pretty much limited to the name.
It’s hard to believe that in the year-plus of writing for my meat blog, I have managed to not step foot in Hooters. Yet, somehow, I have avoided that magical land of orange booty shorts and ummm owls. But fear not, because after a little birthday reminder attached to a free entree coupon, I went back to visit my old friend. I took with me one of my only friends who actually appreciates Hooters for what it has to offer.
When we walked into the Santa Monica location, we were greeted by friendly faces. Now to be honest, I didn’t actually find the women working there that impressive. They were definitely friendly and cute, but there are just so many beautiful women in LA that these just didn’t impress too much. This only helped me concentrate on the food to make sure my review was unbiased.
Finding a happy hour around town on a Sunday afternoon isn’t the easiest thing to do. You would think bars would be itching to get customers to come in for a post-Mass drink, but we had a to call a good four or five bars to find ourselves a nice happy hour with a combination of food and drinks. The bar we finally landed on was Q’s Billiard Club in West LA. Their happy hour involved $10 pitchers (of any beer) and half-off appetizers. It all sounded perfect for a fun little hockey-watching Sunday.
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.
Some bars are known for their food, some bars don’t have any food (losers) and some bars happen to have food, but aren’t exactly known for it. Capitol City, a semi-new sports bar in Hollywood is one of the latter. Nonetheless, there was a football game to be watched and it happened to fall during happy hour, so Capitol City became my dinner and drinks destination for the night.
First off, their happy hour is pretty badass by the looks. It includes some pretty decent beers, including Blue Moon for four bucks, which is as good as you’re gonna get in Hollywood. Drinks aside, they have some great-looking $5 appetizers, so after downing a couple Blue Moons, I decided to order their wings.
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.
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.