The Wing In Review – Whatta Wing!

As you know by now, your friends at Shandeh.com generally review wings from bars, restaurants or any establishment that serves booze. But while driving through Arlington last weekend, the Mrs. and I stumbled upon Whatta Wing! on Mass Ave and decided to give it a try. Whatta Wing is not exactly a restaurant but more of a takeout joint with a few seats and a flat screen TV. The inside looks like a sub-shop with the main decorations being their menu printed on the wall and a double-wide refrigerator filled with water and soft drinks. The vast majority of their business is obviously either take out or delivery.

Beyond wings, Whatta Wing’s menu consists mainly of anything that can be grilled, deep fried or put between two slices of bread. They have a few typical salads as well but I would assume those are just for show. I thought that Whatta Wing had to be a franchise but the guy behind the counter said that he opened the restaurant with just a wing recipe and a dream. Okay, I may have made up the “wing recipe and a dream” part. Nonetheless, a man who builds his business almost exclusively around Buffalo wings had better cook up some mighty good wings! So how do Whatta Wing wings stack up?

Whatta Wing serves six versions of Buffalo (Mild, Medium, Hot, Suicide, Honey, and Garlic) and 22 non-Buffalo wings including such exotic flavors as Mango-Habanero and Teradactal. I still don’t know what Teradactal wings are but since they’re not a variety of Buffalo, I really don’t care. I’ll leave those to Sasso.  Eight wings go for $6.95 and 16 are $12.95. Whatta Wing will also sell you 24, 32, 45, or even 100 if you can handle it. The Wife and I decided that 8 wings each would be plenty so I ordered Hot, while Pookie Bear… errr…I mean the Mrs. ordered Garlic Buffalo.

Whatta Wing wings are served in plastic trays lined with aluminum foil with a side of celery and a large cup of blue cheese dressing. The wings themselves were large and smothered with sauce. My Hot wings smelled of heat and vinegar, but mostly heat. I could see specs of what I can only assume was black pepper cooked into the wings along with bits of crushed red pepper mixed into the sauce. The Wife’s wings looked to be in a Medium sauce and further drenched with creamy garlic sauce.

My first bite was phenomenal. The wings were cooked to crispy perfection on the outside while remaining tender and juicy on the inside. The Hot wings had a great Buffalo flavor with an initial emphasis on vinegar which quickly gave way to heat. The combination of cayenne and crushed red pepper was a one-two punch to my lips and mouth while the black pepper gave the heat some serious hang time. Toward the end I got cocky and started double tipping my wings in the Hot sauce resulting in swollen lips and a dramatic increase in both brow sweat and water consumption. So overall, the wings and the sauce were a resounding success.

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Pros: Perfectly cooked, crispy yet juicy wings. Sauce was HOT and abundant – just the way Dizzle likes it!

Cons: Blue cheese sauce could have been chunkier and Wifey was unimpressed by the quality of the celery—but how much do we really care about the celery?  No booze?!?!

I would recommend Whatta Wing’s Buffalo wings to anyone looking for delicious Buffalo wings without the complications of socializing or alcohol consumption. Whatta Wing uses fresh (not frozen) chicken wings which I believe makes all the difference.  That’s what made them so crispy and yet so juicy.  And the sauce…bottom line, great wings, great sauce, very impressive.