Wings Reviewed: Buffalo Wings

Genre: Place That Serves Wings

Overview: I’ve only been to Twin Oak pizza once before this visit and it wasn’t a great experience. The pizza was good, but the wait was long and when we were seated, we were surrounded by families with lots of loud children. Not the restaurant’s fault, but still, a trying experience.

This time, things were much better. We went on a Sunday night and got seated at a high table in the bar area, a good choice for a child-free environment (which was needed, because there were still plenty of children there). We had good service and a good time with our group of 6.

I had never had the wings at Twin Oak before and was a combination of impressed and confused by their options. They offer two varities of wings. Here they are, as described on the menu (that links a .pdf… so probably don’t click it.):
Chicken Wings (8 pc) wood-fired and tossed in your choice of sauce $7
Smoked Wings (8 pc) hickory smoked and served with your choice of sauce $10
Sauces Limit 2 per order • +$1 each additional sauce: BBQ • Honey Chipotle • Buffalo • Jerk Sauce • Bleu Cheese• Mango Salsa • Pineapple Pow • Honey Mustard • Ranch

My natural inclination is towards wings tossed in sauce, rather than served with it, BUT the “Smoked Wings” had a red leaf next to it, which I think indicates a specialty item… oh the choices. I went with the Chicken Wings tossed in Buffalo sauce. I asked for 4 tossed in 1 type of sauce and 4 in another, but was told that wasn’t an option even though the menu says “Sauces limit 2 per order”. Whatever.

Prices are listed in the wing descriptions above. There’s also a Wing Wednesday deal, where you can get as many wings as you can eat for $10… that deal seems crazy, but I’m pretty sure that’s what the sign said. The beer selection was local-craft focused but only offered 1 IPA, and cost the standard $5/pint. There was also a buffalo chicken pizza on the menu that we ordered and that was pretty good, but this isn’t a pizza blog.

Wings: Buffalo

BAD • FAIR • GOOD • GREAT • BEST

Wood-fired wings… apparently I’m for them. The second wings reviewed on this site back in July 2013 were Epic Pizza’s, and these might not be quite as good, but they are definitely good enough to be in the “Great” ballpark.

These wings were probably slightly smaller than average, a win in my book, and were extremely well cooked. The meat was tender and came easily off the bone. The outsides were a bit crispy, and charred in some spots, presumably by the fire that cooked them.

They also had great seasoning to them on the outside, featuring strong notes of black pepper. You can probably see the black pepper in the picture. There’s a lot of it.

Whatever else was in the seasoning, it was pretty spicy and also delicious. The seasoning was of a spiciness level that kind of overwhelmed the buffalo sauce. In fact, I have very little to say about the sauce. There was a sufficient amount of it, and it had a pretty acidic quality to it, but in a good way. I’ll be curious to try other sauces and see what those add to the wings. The sauce on these wings seemed pretty mild, but between the sauce and the spices, these might be pushing the envelope for those who have a spice aversion.

I’d happily make these wings a part of my order in, even though Twin Oaks is a pizza place. If you were on a date, an order of wings and 1 pizza would be enough to fill both of you.

Visited at 5:30pm, 01/26/2014, 1201 Strassner Dr, 63144