The Tuesday Taste: Wingstop

Thought I heard a rumblin'

Calling to my name

Two hundred million guns

are loaded

Satan cries

"take aim"

Another Tuesday, another Taste! We took a week off here at TT headquarters mostly to recover from birthday celebrations (quite fun!) and personal issues (much less fun). Regardless, we're back again and ready to chomp into another commonly found food. 

This time it's chicken wings, and we're checking out a recent edition to the Toronto wing scene: Wingstop, an import from Garland, Texas that now boasts over 1500 locations. Their first ever Canadian outpost opened in late June right on the Northeast corner of Bloor Street West and Runnymede Road, taking up the old spot of a shuttered McDonalds that moved across the street.

I have to comment on some name confusion before we dive in. See, I've had Wingstop on my Tuesday list for a while now... and every time I've gone trying to look up their hours, I always end up typing in WingSpot instead, which is a totally different wing chain. This legitimately kept happening each time I Googled them... hell I even had to double check I had the right name for the title of this freaking review. Hey, I'm blaming how it's just a 't' and a 'p' switching places and not my unique brand of madness... probably. I'm sure someday soon I'll get to reviewing Wing 'Spot', and will probably type 'stop' when looking up their hours. Guaranteed. 

Also... is the name supposed to be 'Wing-stop' or 'Wings-top'? At first I assumed 'stop', as in "this is the place to stop for a good wing". Then I started thinking more about it (bad idea) and thought maybe what they mean is "our wings are top! As in top notch!" So many questions... 

 

It was a Saturday evening when I ventured down to this wing stop for wings that are top. Having arrived in the west end earlier in the day to watch the championship of my baseball league, I was aware of the Ukrainian Street Festival happening all along Bloor West. What I didn't anticipate was how much this festival would still be rocking at 9pm. It was a Saturday, I suppose... but this was as packed as Taste of the Danforth in the Beforetimes. There was a lineup to enter the nearby LCBO. Fortunately, the Runnymede Wingstop was not as hot a ticket as booze (few things are) and so I was able to grab my order and escape from the commotion to a friend's house not far away. 

Speaking of that order, lets take a look at what we have here. Wingstop has a decent special where you can get ten wings, dip and fries, with half the wings tossed in two separate different sauces. They have a modest number of intriguing options, and I do like places that let you choose your own adventure. I went for the 'Hot' flavour (a measuring stick for me when it comes to wings. If you can't get hot right, hard to wager on your chances) and a Mango Habanero concoction. With their flavour options they have a spice index (out of 5) listed on a board beside the counter, with Hot registering at a '3' while the Mango Habanero sneaks up to a '4'.    

Starting off with the fries... these are my kind of jam. They look a bit smushed in the header photo (they were in a comically oversized paper bag while I rode a bike for several minutes) but there is a constant light crispiness here that I endlessly enjoy when it comes to french fries. Plenty of fluffy potato flavour also, with some prominent skin taste as well (something I've personally never minded) while the seasoning has those thicker bits of salt. The only shortcoming is how once you clear the top of the portion, you get a lot of those tiny shards of fried potato that exist only as crispy slivers or entirely like potato skin (something I do mind). Still, these were surprisingly good quality fries. Might have to keep this in mind next time I'm near Runnymede station (which is a lot in the summertime). 

Praising french fries is all good and well, but this is a chicken wing place after all... it's in the darn name. I thought it smart to work my way up the heat scale, and so started by trying the 'hot' flavour. Maybe my spice tolerance has built up over the years since reviewing food (probably by a lot) but there just wasn't much to this flavour. A bit of a mix taste and texture-wise between Buffalo and the vinegariness of Frank's, with about the same level of heat. Some sting, I suppose, but nothing that sinks deeper into the senses. Very forgettable.

The wings themselves are fine, I suppose. The texture is tougher on the outside than preferable but nothing that'll make your jaw hurt after a couple. Tastes like chicken, not overly juicy, not overtly greasy either. As a wing, very average overall. The 'hot' sauce itself was more disappointing, as the lack of distinctive flavour pushed me towards utilizing the dip frequently (more on the dip later).       

My objective expectations had shifted to modest upon moving onto the Mango Habanero flavour (the ones on the left, for the record), which are a notch higher on their spice scale don't forget. This time, however, the flavour actually had some prominence to it. A nice mix of different sweetness: a bright hint of mango with the more grounded hot pepper taste. The sauce had a bit of syrup stickiness to it, reminding of Honey Garlic, except with a more persistent element of sweet... and then later heat (incidental rhyme!). 

Speaking of said heat, it is actually a presence here. Never overwhelming, but a nice slow builder that eases in once the sweetness has faded. Like a headline act performing a different style of music than the opener, but both make perfect sense on the bill (yeah I've worked a lot of concerts this summer). I quite liked this... it's a very good sauce with subtle dimensions that would be a killer hit on a superior chicken wing than the average-ness we have here. 

A quick note on the dip you see in the photo. Wingstop offer three options and between ranch, blue cheese and some kind of "cheese sauce" I had to go for the wildcard. Well... as a shameless lover of the amazing Pizza Nova garlic parmesan dip... I gotta say this Wingstop cheese dip might've been the best thing they offered. More soupy than creamy, but this had a real nice mix of parm sting, slight salt-pepper and some subtle richness that meshed well with (especially) their 'hot' wings. Imagine a liquidy caesar dressing without the garlic or specific saltiness of anchovies and more cheesiness to it... that sounds pretty weird but anyhow! This dip was quite enjoyable.  

Overall! Wingstop! Recommendation? Yeah.... not really. The wings themselves just aren't anything special. I've tried way, way worse this year... but as wings these are fairly ordinary and I think, at this price, there are plenty of places already in Toronto you can find something of this level or slightly better (not to mention far superior). The items that stood out the most to me were the fries (legit good) and the side cheese dip. Those are definite positives, but they don't call themselves "Cheesedipstop" or "Friestop", as though exclaiming their fries are truly the top. Had to do that bit one more time!    

 

Burnt Ends --  It's been a ghost town here the past couple weeks. Hurts me to say I haven't been writing anything lately, but haven't been writing anything. 

 

Village Pizza People -- Obviously unaware of the whole story, but was saddened to hear of the sudden recent closing of a pizza spot I'd quite liked. That's even them as the lead photo of this latter part of the first Pizza Quest I did. Damn... at this rate my list of 105 will have 1/4 of them closed by the time I try enough new places to update it. Hopefully not! 

 

Empires That Rise And Fall -- On a Blue Jays off day (currently locked in a tight battle for Wildcard positioning... if you're not into baseball don't ask, it's weird and complicated)... my dad penned this historical baseball piece that draws a poetic symmetry between an ancient empire at its greatest height (described in a famous Romantic era poem by Percy Shelley) and the fall of the New York Yankees in the mid-1960s. 

While the Yankees haven't exactly been starved for success in the past half-century or so, their dominance of the league from the early 1920s up to 1964 is simply absurd. Similar to the kind of stuff that happens in Dynasty Mode in a baseball video game and you've created all your own players. Seriously, from 1947-1964, 18 seasons, the New York Yankees appeared in the World Series fifteen times and won ten of them. One of those rare years they didn't make the playoffs (1954) they went 103-51. Insanity.   

Anyhow this re-telling of their mid-60s collapse (heh heh) is a great and informative read, though one that relishes the results rather than the circumstances of how it fell apart. Even if you're not a baseball fan, you won't lose the plot via excessive lingo.  

Tuesday Tune -- I worked the John Fogerty show this past Sunday here in Toronto, and was quite impressed the old fella still has a lot of his (vocal) pipes intact. Dude is 77 and the power of his voice is diminished somewhat, but he still can hit some of those wailing notes he did in his late 60s/early 70s heyday. It was a darn good concert anyhow, and so I had to make the song of the week something CCR related. Here is:

 That's it for this week. Until next time... don't spill that mustard.