The STL Wing Review has visited Buffalo Wild Wings for a review once before and I’ve been a customer there perhaps upwards of 50 times. As much as I knock them for expensive macro beer, inconsistent food and bad service (and I do still knock them for these things!), there’s certainly something be said for an absurd number of wing sauces and an even more absurd number of television screens.

It’s also a spot that will accommodate large groups in that they don’t bitch too much about splitting checks, and there is often space available. For these reasons and several others, I got together with a group of high school friends last night at the Kirkwood, MO Buffalo Wild Wings to catch up and to christen a new Wing Club, which will convene monthly at various wing-serving establishments around St. Louis. (Administrative note: I am neither the leader nor organizer of this Wing Club.)

Our visit happened to fall on a Thursday and every Thursday is a Boneless Thursday at BWWs. This weekly deal has two big perks: Boneless wings are 65¢/piece (up from 60¢ on my last visit, but still a deal), and you can order as few as 4 wings in any given sauce or rub.

I took this opportunity to order my boneless wings in 3 previously unreviewed sauces: Smoldering Santa Fe, a limited time “Sauce Lab” offering, Thai Curry and Hot. This was my first time trying the Smoldering Santa Fe, but I have had the other two sauces many times before.

Before we dive into the sauce reviews, I should note that I learned something new last night. At any BWW, you can order your wings (I kid you not) “Extra Wet” to get more sauce on them. Say the words “extra wet” and not only will the server know what you are talking about, and presumably not laugh at you, but your cardboard wing boat will have a sticker that says “extra wet” on it! And your wings will have an adequate amount of sauce on them. And it won’t even cost you anything extra.

Unfortunately, I learned about “extra wet” much too late into the evening, and my wings were served to me in a state I’d describe as “barely wet”. Under saucing is a problem regularly at BWW, but it seems to be particularly frequent on “special” days like Boneless Thursdays. In the future, all my orders will be extra wet.

One more thing, in case you haven’t read the STLWingReview.com About page, here’s how I feel about boneless wings:

I consider boneless “wings” to be a friendly relative of the bone-in traditional wing and you may see them reviewed here from time to time.

I know boneless wings aren’t “wings”, but I hold no bias against them. In fact, at Buffalo Wild Wings, I’d say that I prefer their boneless wings to the traditional.

Alright, we’re almost 500 words in here. Let’s dive into these under sauced boneless wings.

First, the limited-time-only “Smoldering Santa Fe”. I didn’t take a picture of the menu and I can’t find the wings mentioned on their website, but a Facebook post describes the sauce as such:

“It’s sweet. It’s smoky. It’s a slow-burning inferno.”

It certainly isn’t that last one. I don’t remember anything about this sauce. It left no impression on me, even as I was eating it. By about my second wing, I had the thought “I’m not going to remember anything about these when I’m writing my review tomorrow” and sure enough, I don’t. It’s like a forget-me-now in food form.

Moving up the heat scale and the memorability scale is the Thai Curry. This is a pretty recent (by pretty recent, I mean “since I graduated from College in 2010″) addition to the menu, and it has become one of my favorites. I would say “if you like curry, you’ll love these wings”, but my wife loves curry and she says these are too salty. I can she where she’s coming from, but I have a high salt tolerance. So, if you love curry and have a high salt tolerance, you’ll probably love these wings.

And finally, the Hot sauce. BWW’s Hot Sauce is pretty serious about its use of the word “hot”, especially compared to regular bar “hot buffalo” wings. This sauce has a good peppery kick to it and definitely lingers on the tongue for quite a bit. For me, if I eat a few of these quickly, it almost gets to a face-sweating level. I really like this sauce as well, but if I’m feeling adventurous in the heat department, I’d probably jump up to the Mango Habaneros.

I don’t recommend going to Buffalo Wild Wings regularly. In any city of any reasonable size, there are better local options. But when you do inevitably end up there anyway, there are actually a lot of sauces worth trying. In the future I’ll make sure all my orders are “extra wet”, and even though we had great service this time, I’d still recommend getting them to go, unless you’ve got a lot of time to kill or a sports game you’d like to watch.