Sara Hohn – Food… Brooklyn & Beyond

Due to the grossness factor of noxious mutant chicken parts, I rarely eat chicken. Recently, however, the idea of hot buffalo wings with thick blue cheese sauce and cold beer sounded pretty irresistible. Brooklyn has some solid wing options in restaurants and bars, particularly Bonnie’s Grill, highly praised for their buffalo wings. But I wanted to try a place that specialized exclusively in chicken wings. I soon found myself at Wing Wagon, where I’d hoped to get messy with a mound of bona fide chicken wings.

Your choices in a chicken wing establishment are level of heat (mild to Chernobyl), wing form (the standard “flats and drums” or “fingers”), sides (hardly necessary), and the sauce (always blue cheese). Other wing joint offerings such assandwiches, salads and desserts should be avoided on principle. Wing Wagon is a small storefront with a takeout counter and a few tables. Like all wing restaurants, the walls are painted yellow. Sit in the front window and you can watch your non-wing-eating neighbors working out on the elliptical machines at the Crunch directly across the street.

I ordered ten of Wing Wagon’s “X Hot” wings, which were described as “hot with a little more sizzle,” and were the second hottest level of wings after “XXX Hot.” While the bony little wings were fairly hot, leaving a mild numbness on my lips for several minutes afterwards, the heat was not too challenging. Similar to the film Midnight Cowboy, the wings probably didn’t warrant an “X” rating. I was displeased with the use of Ken’s brand blue cheese salad dressing as the accompaniment. The oily dressing does little to cut the heat and grease of the wings. Served with the requisite celery and carrot sticks, the messy wings had an orange hue that seemed to make its way everywhere. I didn’t find the wings to be particularly meaty or juicy, but I did like the crunchy skin and could appreciate their dainty cocktail snack proportions.

Unsatisfied by my wings experience, a friend suggested Manhattan’s NYU wing standby, Pluck U. The Pluck U wings were noticeably different from Wing Wagon’s in their larger size and deep mahogany color. At Pluck U, I again ordered the second hottest level of wings, there known as “hot.” The “hot” wings built to an uncomfortably delicious heat plateau after only 3 wings. They were twice as meaty and juicy as Wing Wagon wings, and thus, I could only eat half as many. One of the best things about Pluck U was their blue cheese sauce which was chunky and thick. I could almost hear the cooling sizzle when I carefully dipped each wing into the little plastic tub of blue cheese.

Wing Wagon
351 Flatbush Avenue

Pluck U (various locations)
230 Thompson Street NYC