This is definitely one of the best "wing pilgrimages" you can make if you’re a buffalo wing fan, outside of going to the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, NY, home of the buffalo wing itself. Quaker Steak & Lube place has the tag line "Best Wings USA" and they do have some damn good wings. I won’t even try to explain the name – just look at the web site and read the section on "The Story."
I went to Quaker last August on a business trip, long before this blog was started, and wound up there on "All You Can Eat Wing Night" which gave me a chance to try a variety of wings. They were so good, I ordered some of their sauces online when I got home.
This trip put us at the restaurant a day later, so we were there on "bike night" which was an experience in itself, with hundreds and hundreds of bikes surrounding us. Without the the buffet set-up I had to actually choose a style of wing to try, which is tougher than you would think with 16 sauces ranked in order of Scoville Heat Units (SHU) from a very mild sauce all the way up to an "Atomic" sauce which is ranked at 150,000 Scoville units and requires a release form to be signed before they serve you. Being a relatively intelligent person, I didn’t go that far, but I did get their "Arizona Ranch" style wings, which were among my favorites last time.
The Arizona Ranch is a spicy ranch sauce, kind of a combination of buffalo wing sauce and ranch dressing, slightly creamy and lots of flavor. I also got a side of their "Suicide" sauce, rated at 30,000 SHU and described as "for real wing nuts." Since I have a blog and a domain name for wings, I figured I qualified!
The Arizona Ranch wings I got for dinner were quite good – they know how to cook their wings here. Crispy, tender, cooked all the way through. The flavor was good, but I would have liked a bit more sauce on them – the sauce is so good, I simply wish there was more.
The Suicide sauce was very hot as anticipated, but still with a lot of flavor. It was great to dip the wings in, but an entire serving of wings drenched in that sauce might be too much – the sauce is fairly thick and sticks heavily to the meat, so it would definitely be a BIG hit of heat.
My dining companion for the evening (my boss, just for the record) got a few wings, trying their new wasabi ginger spice dust and got a side of the Golden Garlic wing sauce, which may be my second favorite after the Arizona Ranch. The spice-dusted wings were good – crispy with no sauce and a nice pleasant flavor. I think that it would be great on some grilled chicken.
The wings here are as good as you can get, and you can’t beat the selection. I wish that there was more sauce on the wings I got, but the last time at the buffet there was plenty of sauce. I haven’t been to one of their chain stores – only to the original in Sharon, PA.
RATING: 5 out of 5 stars, based both on quality and principle!!