WINGS UP! Kitchener, On

Back to the K/W region for a brief mission, I decided to grab some lunch at another chicken wing chain that has popped up in Ontario. Known as Wing Up!, this chain is so far just in South Western Ontario and they have a cautionary advisement on their webpage: "Warning -These are the best wings you'll ever taste." Wow, that's a pretty big claim.

This location (and my guess is all of them) is a take-out/delivery only. There are a few chairs for waiting, but nothing to actually eat at. The menu is simple - wings and deep fried other goodies. Obviously I was getting wings, but I was trying to find and combos that I could get to split the sauces available. All the combos were big and expensive. I asked the guy behind the counter how many wings approx in a pound and if a pound could be split. 8-10 wings approx in a pound, and 30 wings is where they were 'able' to split, otherwise it was too difficult. I looked at him with a skeptical look, and I ordered 2, 1/2 pound orders. Now I'm no mathemagician, but 2 - 1/2 pound orders is equal to 1 pound in wings. I don't care for this charging, but it is not uncommon in wing-specific restaurants.

Having no place to eat, I took my wings to the road and found a nearby park. I found this . . . table? No its not an illusion or photoshoped . . . its half a picnic table. It was great to me, but it was a little weird in this park. This is something that would be really useful in busy urban parks for business people on lunch break, not solitary by a pool and a sports field. But whatever.

The wings did come with sides: 2 celery chunks and 2 carrot coins. The celery chunks were only a few centimetres, and the carrot coins were a unique contribution to veggies and dip. Its diameter was pretty big as well.

It came with Wings Up!'s own blue cheese dip. A lot of dip (considering the 4 pieces of veggies) with one big problem. If you look at the above picture, on the left the label says "Chunky Blue Cheese" but the photo on the right shows the blue cheese sans chunks. I had two containers of blue cheese that had zero chunks in it. That's pretty ballsy to say one thing and produce another. That's also called lying where I come from. Despite the lack of actual chunks of blue cheese, it was tasty.

Everything came in cardboard boxes, and I was only seconds away from seeing if these were in fact the best wings I had ever tasted.

The two half orders, 5 wings each, had separate boxes with their own veggies and dip. I had the option of having the wings naked or breaded, and I went with breaded. You just get a little more wing with breading, and in theory a good crunch.

These were meaty wings for sure, but pretty much a medium sized wing. On the website they call them humongous, but they really are not.

The wings have to be frozen, and I'm pretty sure when they get them from the bag they are already breaded. I could be wrong, but these seem prefabricated. They remained relatively crispy after the drive to the park and coated in sauce (you can get your wings 'slightly sloppy' for another $0.39 but really, these wings are wet enough as they are).

SWEAT'N BULLETS:

I wanted to try their hottest sauce, with their chili scale going up to four, this sauce should be smokin.

I went to town on the first one . . . there was a good spicy flavour . . . but nothing was really burning or tingling. But after a few wings, the heat began to build until I needed to take a drink. It attacked more the back of the mouth rather than the lips. The sauce was a sweet heat and was certainly a unique sauce.

HONEY MUSTARD:

When I looked at these wings I was scared. They were so thick in the yellow sauce that I was imagining a wall of mustard sting. I actually got the opposite reaction. The flavour was almost all honey with just a hint of mustard. So it wasn't offensive the way I thought it would be, but it ended up being too sweet. No edge at all. I ate most of these right away just to get back to the SB wings.

FINAL SCORE: To put it mildly, Wings Up! are friggen liars.

1. They say "humongous" wings, they are not. They aren't small, but humongous? Come on?
2. They say "chunky blue cheese" and there are no chunks. Come on!
3. They say "best wings you'll ever taste". Come on!

I don't hate these wings. These are a decent wings. But the claims are just to outrageous. Would I get the from here again? If I lived nearby and was really jonesing for some wings. But I would have to really be jonesing. It felt more like an industry wing rather than wings made with love. Take out if you want, but freshly done from a restaurant or done at home will always be better than take-out. 4.5/10

Wings Up!

#1-2399 Kingsway Drive, Kitchener, On

wingsup.com