5 Alarm Wings: People Who Understand Chicken

Every once and a while I get 'fan mail' coming in, and one letter came to me from a couple in Hamilton On who have their own wing restaurant. I've done a bit of research and a lot of people seem to love their wings. And after a little correspondence, you can see why: they seem to get wings and what makes them great. Here's their letter and some more info. I say check them out,

I know I will the next time I'm in Hamilton:

5 ALARM WINGS

"Hi!

We enjoy reading your humorous and insightful posts as you give a pretty thorough review of each establishment.

Do you ever visit Hamilton? If so, we would invite you to visit 5 Alarm Wings. We are located at 553 Upper Wentworth St. (on the mountain).

We LOVE good wings and try to provide the best possible wings and interesting flavours and styles for our customers.

Some key aspects of quality wings we feel are:

- fresh wings (not frozen)
- variety of styles (e.g., sauces, dry rubs, bbq vs authentic buffalo, breaded/dusted vs non breaded/dusted)
- reasonably large selection of recipes (i.e., in-house recipes vs 'straight out of the jug' sauces)
- quality ingredients
- cooked to order (not precooked and then refrigerated for hours or days)
- variety of flavours (beyond the standard mild/med/hot/suic barbeque, honey garlic, etc) - not that one has to have infinite combinations just for the sake of having hundreds of flavours, but there are just so many great recipes - domestic and international - that bring excitement to a plate of wings

At any rate, just a few thoughts with regards to our philosophy of wings. Hope you have a chance to drop by next time you are in Hamilton.

Regards,

Linda and Mike"



"As for our styles and flavours - we serve wings either naked or dusted. I am not a proponent of heavy breading, as I find it makes for a mushy meal and really icky leftovers. We offer a large selection of sauce, and for those who don't care for saucy wings (or are looking for something a little different), we offer dry rubbed wings. (Our customers often like to combine sauces and rubs on their wings. For example, mild or med bbq sauce with troll dust is awesome!) The vast majority of our rubs are made in our kitchen - combinations of spices and chilis from recipes that we have tested ourselves.

We are perpetually creating, testing and searching - the menu we currently have is outdated already. We have ALOT of fun with our menu!

Currently, we have over 40 different flavours (sauces and rubs):

Sauces (mild to hottest)
BBQ (mild, med, hot, suic, 5 Alarm)
Buffalo (mild, med, hot, suic, 5 Alarm)

(mildest)
Honey Garlic
Honey Mustard
Garlic Parmesean
Thai Chili
Garlic BBQ
Thai Peanut Satay
Mango Curry
Cajun
Hot Honey
Lemon Zap
Kung Pao (this is currently my favourite. Last week my favourite was medium bbq with Desperado rub)
Hot Cajun
Hot Curry
Szechuan Stinger
(hottest)

Dry Rubs
(mildest)
Magic Dust
Espresso Jolt
Tandoori
Orange Chipotle
Desperado
Chili Lime
Cajun
Troll Dust
Hot Cajun
Dragon Powder
Tropical Heat
Orange Fever
(hottest)

We also have a variety of what we call 'fun rubs' - they are basically seasonings for popcorn/chips that happen to have taste appeal on chicken wings.

We have too many sides and combos to include in an email, but some of the items that I personally love are:

Fresh cut fries
Fresh cut onion rings
Jalapeño cornbread
Chicken Caesar salad

Well, I hope this gives you an idea of our wings to date (we are EVOLVING)"









Gotta love that philosophy and the choice!