#c grades

627 South Broadway Street, Boulder, CO

http://www.mountainsunpub.com/

Southern ­­­Sun is a beloved brewery here in Boulder­. It is pretty popular on the weekends, it takes forever to get a table. So for this review I decided to go during lunch time, thinking it would be better. Well, I was able to get a table quickly, but it still took a thousand years for me to get my order taken. However, I’ll try not to let service interfere with wing criticism. They offer two favors: BBQ and Hot Sauce. I ordered a half dozen of the Hot Sauce.

The wings were breaded, which helped with a crunch factor. The flavor on the other hand was pretty generic and not very exciting. The heat is near unnoticeable. They did give me a fair amount of veggies and the wings were quite good with Ranch dressing. Shame the wings weren’t that great on their own. Considering the price factor and Southern Sun's other faults, I’d say pass of these. They are in no way terrible, but they aren’t really worthwhile either. For some reason, they only take cash. So plan accordingly.

Brass Tacks:

Price: $6.75 for six, $12 for 12.

Flavor: 3

Heat: 2

Grade: C (73)

I’m sure most of you are familiar with the Colonel and his chicken cooking chain, Kentucky Fried Chicken. I am most certain that throughout my life, no matter where I have been, there has been a KFC within a 20 mile radius. Not sure if that is comforting or not, but today I set out to give the Colonel his fair shake in my quest of winging. At different times, when they feel like it, KFC will have some new wing flavor to try out. This was no such time, all they had was Honey BBQ and the regular Hot Wing. I should tell you that the Honey BBQ variety is what began my love of the wing. I was 7 or 8 years old and living in Texas when I first had one and frankly it was love at first bite. However, I am trying to be critical here so I’ll try to shove my bias aside.

I first tried the plain old hot wings. Let’s just say, they live up to the name. The wings are breaded, which means they are crunchy. I have sort of a love/hate relationship with breading on wings. It can be done right, but I guess I’m more of a purest and like them naked. Other than that, the chicken is just fine. There is a very faint spice in the plain ones, but nothing really amazing. They are alright. The Honey BBQ wings are just the Plain wings one sauced out. The sauce is quite thick and, to me, very delicious. There must be a mild form of crack in the sauce because I can’t get enough of it. It is spicier than the Plain obviously, but not by a lot. A vast improvement. Not bad for fast food, I guess. 

Brass Tacks:

Price: I got 10 for $6, but I think the prices ranges from place to place and time to time.

Flavor: 3 for Plain, 8 for Honey BQQ

Heat: 1 for Plain, 3 for Honey BBQ

Grade: C(75) for Plain, B(86) for Honey BBQ

Boulder, CO

http://www.beaujos.com/

Pizza places, for some reason, often have wings. I guess this is because pizza and buffalo wings are popular sports food. It isn’t unusual to watch the game with a delivery pizza and an order of wings. This food phenomenon made me decided that I should try out a pizza place’s wings. The weather got all crappy last night here in Boulder, so I walked to Beau Jo’s, it being the closest place that wasn’t a national chain. Beau Jo’s is famous for their “Colorado Style Pizza.” Which means big-ass crust. Man vs. Food’s Adam Richman even came out to take a gander at the huge pizzas. They have this big hilarious “official” history on their website. Something about a fur trapper and a turtle. Anyway, I had been there a few times and I will say that their pizza is pretty damn amazing. But this isn’t a pizza blog, it’s a wing blog.

They offer just straight up buffalo wings. They only have the one flavor, which is a pretty typical amongst pizza places. I got the small order, which came out to eight wings. They came out on a pile of tortilla chips and a good amount of veggies. I like it when I get stuff like that. The chicken was fairly crunchy, which I generally don’t get from a pizza place. That was nice. They were sauced well and the chicken itself was pretty good. The sauce itself wasn’t very exciting. It was a fairly typical buffalo sauce, but not as buttery as usual. In a sense they are archetypal, but in another they are boring. Good for a pizza place, I'd say. The wings tasted pretty good in ranch, for what that is worth.

Brass Tacks:

Price: $6.99 for 8, but price varies from place to place. I believe the large order is the better deal with 16 wings. They do have happy hour specials.

Flavor: 6

Heat: 2

Grade: C+ (79)

Boulder, CO

http://www.bouldercafeonpearl.com/

Wild Fire Chicken Wings

The Boulder Café has been around for 19 years or so. They are located on Pearl Street, over where the street performers do their thing. It has a slightly up-scale café atmosphere. Truth be told, I was a little surprised they even had wings. They only have one flavor, “Wild Fire;” which needless to say, pretty much sealed the deal for me. Also their happy hour deals are pretty awesome, so there was no reason to pass up these wings.

I’ll talk about the good things first. The chicken was a good size, not huge but noticeably large. If the wing is of the jumbo variety, they are often not cooked as well as they could be. I don’t mean cooked in an unhealthy manner, just soggy, for lack of a better word. No real crunch basically. These were cooked well, despite their size. That's about it for the good stuff. The sauce, while having different taste than the average wing, was just not that exciting. There was kind of a minestrone taste to it, at least to me. My girlfriend tried one and said that I was crazy. I am pretty sure there was a tomato type taste. Which didn't really go all that well with the Gorgonzola dressing. In addition, the wings weren’t sauced well either. I asked for extra, and that helped, but I shouldn’t have to do that. As for heat, the term “Wild Fire” for them apparently means a tiny flame that can be easily put out. They aren’t very hot. After a while, a good five wings or so, my lips (not my tongue) started to burn a little. This burn wasn’t really anything to write home about. Interestingly though, they are gluten free for those of you who dig that. I realize these wings aren’t the Boulder Café’s specialty, but I think they could use some improvement. I recommend the Café, but try something else other than the wings.

Brass Tacks:

Price: $7.99 for 6 wings, $11.99 for 12. However, there is a 3 to close happy our during the winter so the wings are half off. Nice deal there.

Flavor: 4 ~Unusual flavor, not bad really, but not really exciting either.

Heat: 2

Grade: C (75)

www.harpossportsgrill.com

Boulder, CO

For this first posting, I decided to go somewhere within walking distance. I had been to Harpo’s before. I went there to get training for my job, so it seemed a good candidate. Harpo’s has a nice sports bar atmosphere and as it was lunchtime, the place wasn’t too crowded. Looking at the menu, Harpo’s offers these favors:

Traditional Buffalo style

Wicked Hot Tangy BBQ,

 BBQ Chipotle

 Jamaican Jerk Spice Rubbed

 Teriyaki, Spicyaki

 Sweet and Spicy Plum

 Rasberry Chipotle

 Sweet Caribbean

I felt like the best choice for this blog was the traditional, but that BBQ Chipotle was pretty tempting. I just ordered the half dozen, which at $6.59 is a moderate price, I suppose. However a little over a dollar a wing seems a bit steep. Perhaps I’m just cheap. The dozen is a better deal at $9.59. Harpo’s also offers 50 cent wings every Wednesday from 5-11 PM. The chicken itself was fine, and it was cooked nice and crunchy, just the way I like it. An un-crunchy wing is lame and sad, as far as I am concerned. The sauce wasn’t bad but it was kind of boring. It was adequately sauced, just the flavor wasn’t very exciting. All this said I was poised to give it a C, but the fact that there were other vegetables than just celery, put it up to the C+ range.

Brass tacks for those of you too lazy to read:

Price:  $6.59 for six

Flavor: 3

Heat: 2

Grade: C+ (78)