This was the third time that I had the "Honey Hot wings" at Boston Beer Works. They are not wings – though you can get them as such – but delicious little of chunks of white chicken meat lightly battered, fried and then tossed with their very original glaze.
The chicken pieces themselves represent what I think may be the perfect boneless wings. All-white meat, in whole pieces, not a ground processed meat, in a light batter that I would say involves cornstarch and/or egg whites. It is not unlike tempura.
The sauce is an Asian-influenced concoction with tons of flavor but relatively light on the heat. If you’re looking for a serious burning taste, this isn’t your top choice, but there is just enough spice to keep it interesting. What it lacks in heat it makes up for in flavor: the sauce has flavors of soy, honey, and a slight hint of Chinese five spice. It is served with plenty of celery and a great chunky blue cheese dressing.
RATING: 5 out of 5 stars
On a related "spicy chicken" note – for my entree at Boston Beer Works I went for their "Up State New Yorker Chicken Sandwich," a thinly veiled reference to Buffalo. Unlike most buffalo chicken sandwiches, Beer Works’ sandwich starts off with a whole chicken breast pounded thin and grilled. Considering the thinness of the chicken, I applaud the chefs for not over-cooking the meat.
The chicken is then served with their traditional buffalo wing sauce and crumbled blue cheese. The buffalo sauce really isn’t that traditional: there is definitely some chipotle or other smoked pepper sauce in there since it had a distinct smokey flavor. Nice amount of heat and flavor – I’ll have to try the wings in that sometime if I can pull myself away from the Honey Hot variety!
My only complaint about the sauce is that there simply wasn’t enough of it for my taste. The pungency of the blue cheese – which was obviously of a good quality – overwhelmed both the flavor and the spiciness of the sauce. This was quickly remedied however, by a request for more sauce and all was well.
RATING: 3 out of 5 stars (with the potential for being 4 or even 5 if they had served it with more sauce)