#wing crawl

A birthday party should be about what YOU want to do.  And I wanted to eat wings. Not just a basket. A whole day of wings.

The route was chosen and we made our way through Park Slope / Gowanus on a beautiful spring day, just tearing those drummies and flats apart.  Trust when I say there was no meat left on them bones.

Every participant was asked to fill out a scorecard.  Some did so with laser-like focus while others shirked on their duties.  But it must be known that not a single scorecard was turned in without a healthy smear of grease, sauce or both.  So proud...

1:37pm - Bonnie’s Grill 

We began the day with the classic Buffalo wing done oh so right.  For a full review, check this out.  There was basket of hot and a basket of hotter (and a sad basket of dry wings for one weak-stomached individual in the crowd).  The hot had more burn to ‘em this time than last and the hotter had us in tears without making the wings unenjoyable.  Personally, the hotter are right at my threshold for hot wings.

CATEGORICAL ASSESSMENT (see “OVERALL SATISFACTION” ranking at the bottom of this post for qualitative ranking)

Flavor: Hot Moistness: 3.8 Crispness: 3.7 Sauciness: 3.6 Spicyspice: 3.9 Words used to describe: Tearful, Hungshow, Tasty, Spicy ears, Creeper, Sweet n’ hot 

Flavor: Hotter Moistness: 3.8 Crispness: 3.8 Sauciness: 3.2 Spicyspice: 4.5 Words used to describe: As hot as you’d want it, Fire, Burning, Fuzzy

Flavor: Dry Moistness: 2 Crispness: 4.5 Sauciness: 0 Spicyspice: 0 Words used to describe: Sad

3:20pm - Wang’s @ Mission Dolores

The Korean fried chicken spot we chose for stop #2 is mostly a takeout spot so we got ‘em to go and went to a great beer bar on 4th Ave called Mission Dolores.

These were big, whole wings too.  We decided that 1 wing equals 2 wings here since they’ve got the tips and all.  There’s regular Korean and then Korean Spice.  Seemed like the only difference was some chili flakes so people generally didn’t differentiate on their scorecards.  Great crispiness with a light coating of a sweet soy sauce.  I’m looking forward to tackling a whole order of these in the spring sunshine some time in the near future. 

Flavor: Korean Moistness: 3.3 Crispness: 4.2 Sauciness: 2.2 Spicyspice: 1.5 Words used to describe: Finally, sweet n’ dandy, happy!, warm!, better, tribe!, more please 

4:52pm - Dinosaur BBQ

Onward we marched, gaining more people and losing a couple between stops.  Dinosaur BBQ has never been my favorite for the BBQ staples: brisket, ribs, etc.  However, they certainly do know what they’re doing when it comes to wings.  

If I had to guess, these meaty suckers are smoked for a few hours then brushed with sauce and finished on some kind of grill.  They’re saucy and smokey.  The restaurant wasn’t really sure what to make of our large boisterous group and we hit a couple of snags between getting seated and ordering and whatnot but it all turned out.  

We tried three different wings at Dino BBQ: Flavor: Wango Tango Moistness: 4.3 Crispness: 2 Sauciness: 3.7 Spicyspice: 2.4 Words used to describe: Saucy, ROARRR, Happy, Chewy

Flavor: Hoisin Sesame Moistness: 4 Crispness: 2.7 Sauciness: 4.3 Spicyspice: 1.5 Words used to describe: Sweet, Underwhelmed 

Flavor: Chipotle Garlic Moistness: 3.5 Crispness: 3.2 Sauciness: 3.8 Spicyspice: 3.2 Words used to describe: Teeth, #Selfies

And so the question must be posed.  After a long day of twisting and pulling wings and trying to avoid the inevitable sauce stains, which wing was crowned the victor?  Here’s the rankings, folks! OVERALL SATISFACTION 1st Place: Dinosaur BBQ’s Chipotle Garlic 2nd Place: Bonnie’s Grill Hot 3rd Place: Wang’s Korean And the person who ate the most wings all day? ME! Although with a grand total of twenty wings consumed, I didn’t feel like that was an especially crazy feat to accomplish over a 4 hour period.

Thanks to all who helped get it together and attended!  Not sure what kind of crawl we’ll head out on next year but this was a good one.  WANGS OUT!!!