WINGSTOP: SHOULD I HAVE STOPPED THERE?
Is the Wingstop chain all that’s it’s cracked up to be?
Music: play of colours 1x14 by Setuniman, Freesound.org
Hello, Secret Snackers!
Chicken wings.
The collective retreat from eating red meat over the last 30 years or so has made chicken wings the new take out comfort food.
Greasy.
Savory.
(Until now) relatively inexpensive.
Wonderful for gluttony.
We seem to love to buy them as much as we like to prepare them at home ourselves.
Which still holds true for burgers.
(Even if now a lot more people prefer turkey to ground beef or a plant-based substitute.)
Until recently I’ve been immune to both Wingstop and Buffalo Wild Wings.
Neither chain was anywhere near where I lived in Kansas City.
(Well, one was.
And believe me: I ain’t going to that part of town for chicken or anything else.)
But when a Wingstop opened where I grocery shop…
I JUST HAD TO TRY IT…WINGSTOP WINGS & FRIES
This week’s egg prices were like a mortgage payment.
$10 for 18 eggs is enough to consider buying my own damn chicken and coop sometime this year.
I also refuse to pay more than $20 per person for take out.
$15 for 10 wings and fries was enough to make me shake my head but not scare me off.
I don’t like boneless chicken, so it had to be “classic” (bone-in).
Chicken wings that are boneless might as well be called “nuggets.”
The bone is supposed to infuse the meat with savoriness.
And nuggets and “boneless” wrings are probably nothing more than chicken breasts.
Anyways, I ordered my two stand-bys when judging a restaurant’s wings.
Lemon pepper and barbecue.
My taste buds aren’t that adventurous.
I don’t like spicy and “exotic” flavors.
Awful and I’ve had better.
Their lemon pepper had this overwhelming smell that was the opposite of a positive aroma.
Pizza Hut has a little of that…smell, but more bearable.
And the Wingstop smell seeped into the taste.
I had to endure it for 5 wings.
The smoked barbecue wings were much better–probably any other flavor would have met that challenge.
It wasn’t that messy.
But the meat was much too tough.
And it reminded me of better competition.
The local Kansas City barbecue institution Jack Stack came immediately to mind.
And I would have been better served with store-bought french fries.
The Wingstop fries just tasted burned.
I should have sampled the fried corn instead.
Needless to say my initial taste test was not so positive.
I was expecting to be blown away, but the disappointment was higher than the sticker price.
Still, I’m willing to give them another shot.
Maybe I’ll have better results later this month.
Stay tuned.
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