Food review: Glazed chicken wings

Restaurant: Gordon Biersch (San Francisco)
Food description: Chicken wings fried then tossed with ginger, sweet chili, and sesame seeds
Food rating: 6.5 out of 10
Times ordered: 2

Wings again you say? Yup, good ones are really hard to come by, but you have to keep trying! After the wings arrived, I realized I'd ordered them before. I guess they weren't all that memorable the first time, thus the 6.5 rating! I can only eat crispy chicken skin, otherwise I'll remove it. Picky, I know, but worth mentioning. The skin was definitely far from crispy, so I picked it off, just like most of the other wings I've reviewed. With only a small amount of glaze left on the chicken meat and nothing to really dip it in, the flavor was a little lacking. Of course, had they cooked it properly, I wouldn't be saying this at all. The glaze itself, though generic, was still tasty. It wasn't overwhelmingly sweet or gingery but was way too greasy. If you've got a sweet sauce with not much vinegar, too much oil and sugar together can get a little sickening (though I haven't seen many places figure out a solution to this). So overall, these wings were simply ok, and I probably wouldn't order them again. For truly spectacular honey wings, check out these at San Tung.

Food review: Thai chicken wings

Restaurant: Thai House Express (Larkin St., San Francisco)
Food description: Thai chicken wings deep fried with dipping sauce
Food rating: 4 out of 10
Times ordered: 1

I'm always up for trying wings at different places, but I would not order the wings from Thai House Express again. They were not my style at all-no breading, no crispiness, and no sauce (aside from the dipping sauce which I didn't like). The skin was really thick and fatty and I had to pick all of it off. Once I got to the meat, it didn't really have any flavor and overall it didn't really seem like they put any effort into this dish at all. At least there's other things on the menu worth trying, such as the tom kha gai soup or the Thai House beef. Stick with what you know here...

Food review: Buffalo wings

Restaurant: Burgermeister (Church St, San Francisco)
Food description: Tangy spicy buffalo-style chicken wings
Food rating: 5 out of 10
Times ordered: 10+

I have to admit, these wings are not very good at all. I think I've even gotten food poisoning from them once. Why have I ordered them so many times, you ask? Well being from the east coast, a girl's gotta have her buffalo wings regularly, and these were the closest I could find (near my house at least). I've come to the conclusion that San Francisco doesn't have a clue what real buffalo wings are supposed to be. This puts me in desparate situations where I have to settle for mediocrity and eat wings at Burgermeister cuz at least they've got the sauce kinda close. What I hate about their wings is that they taste old, they're way over-fried and dried out, and some wings don't look like wings at all. But on Mondays they're half price (like $3 for a dozen), so it ends up being 3 bucks well spent.

Food review: Smoky mountain wings

Restaurant: Memphis Minnies (San Francisco)
Food description: Tangy smoked bbq wings
Food rating: 5.5 out of 10
Times ordered: 1

So I've been on an endless quest to find the best wings known to man, and figured I'd give the barbeque experts at Memphis Minnies a shot. Trust me, I've eaten a LOT of wings in my lifetime and these didn't come close to being my favorite. These wings couldn't decide whether they wanted to be sweet, spicy, or tangy, and quite frankly neither could I. The flavors kept pulling me in every direction, and at the end of the day, it wasn't all that enjoyable. The chicken itself was fresh and juicy, but there wasn't much flavor to it-all the flavor was on the outside skin. And since the chicken wasn't smoked the way that I'd hoped, I ended up doing what I do to all wings with soggy skin: picking it off. Very unfortunate indeed. Not to mention they were completely drenched with sauce. So all in all, I'd say nay to having these wings again.