WACKY WINGS ~ Mississauga ON

-- Wacky Wings is NOW CLOSED --

I live and work at the same place, so lately it's been important to me that I get out of the downtown core and explore a bit. On St. Patrick's Day I found myself out in Mississauga for the later part of the day. Last year when the Wing Wars were raging on (Buffalo Wild Wings from the USA vs Wild Wings Canada), a third contender jumped into the ring - also from Canada: Wacky Wings. Originally from up North in Sault Ste. Marie, this cottage themed wing joint was setting up to stay, and they asked me to come see them.

Well, I wanted to go but had no real means. So a year later I had access to a car, I was in Mississauga, so this seemed like the natural dinner decision.

Finding them was a little confusing only because they are in the back corner of a strip mall - but once they come into view, you can't miss the giant chicken or the neon palm trees. Walking up to the front entrance I saw stuffed chickens in the window staring in. Some might think this is a little morbid, but I think it's awesome.

The restaurant is HUGE inside, much bigger than I thought. On one side is a massive factory/industrial looking bar side with huge screens and loud music (Irishy music since it was St. Patrick's day). The dining side that I sat on is all cedar wood with deer heads on the wall, cedar tables, cedar walls. Each booth in my section had a TV (I put on the Food Network and watched Eat Street). Most people were on the bar side but there were a few families in the dining room.

My server was Robert and he was friendly helpful and knowledgeable. He was always refilling my drink or answering questions about their 100 different flavours of wings.

I was set at my table with a big roll of paper towels and wetnaps. They also were advertising their AYCE wing special on Wednesday. This was a Saturday, so I was a little sad. Like most wing joints, you have to order a LOT of wings to split flavours, which is hard because you want to try a lot, but keep it economical. I went with their Bone In Wings Sample Platter ($22.99) which is 20 wings split 4 ways.

What a great looking platter of wings. I'm hungry again just looking at it.

The wings come in orders of 5, 10, 20 etc. The wings themselves have a breading/dusting on them that makes for a crispy/crunching coating.

The wings come with a side of carrots sticks and dip. And because it was St. Patty's day, they greened up the ranch dressing. Fun!

The wings themselves were a mix of small and medium, but more on the smaller side. They were a medium meatiness but were very tender chicken. I could pull the bones out pretty easily.

I had a hard time choosing my 4 flavours for the platter. But eventually I narrowed it down to 4 different flavours - a hot flavour, a spicy bbq, a pop flavour and crazy jalapeno dill. All of the wings were quite saucy and the sauces themselves were thick.

SIGNATURE HOT

I was looking for a classic hot sauce - I had my eye on Hot, Jalapeno Hot, Feelin' Hot Hot Hot, and Megan Fox Hot. But then I saw their "Signature House" sauces, so Signature Hot sounded good. I told Robert and he gave me a disclaimer that their signature sauces contain actual blue cheese in the sauces, which can turn some people off. I won't lie, I thought about switching too, but then I thought, no, let's see what they have to offer.

It was definitely a unique sauce. I got a stereotypical chicken wing flavour with the hot sauce matched with the blue cheese that one might dip their wings into. It was well balanced so that the possible pungent blue cheese did not overwhelm the taste buds. I liked it, but I think I would try one of the other variants next time.

JALAPENO DILL

This was another sauce I made some inquiring. I was looking at their dry dill wings, but I saw on their menu the jalapeno dill. I asked Robert how this combination worked, like was the sauce a creamy dill or dry? He said it was dry dill mixed with the jalapeno.

They looked festive for St. Patty's day. They also did not taste as I expected. It had a small bite from the jalapeno, and only faint taste of dill. Actually the taste was more like an Indian pickle which was more of a sour taste. I liked the first few wings, but after that I wasn't a fan of the flavour. Next time I would go with straight dill.

Dr. PEPPER MEDIUM

I thought this was pretty straight forward - a medium sauce mixed with Dr. Pepper pop. Funny, there was no Dr. Pepper available to drink.

This was my favourite of the flavours. It was a medium heat, but was still sweet. But sweet in a savoury way. Does that make sense? Basically a hot and BBQ sauce. I liked it and would definitely get it again.

BLAZIN' BBQ

I figured this was a spicy BBQ sauce . . . and it was. It was more BBQ than Blazin' though. It was very savory with a bit of sticky sweetness. I liked it, but I would experiment with other BBQ flavours.

FINAL SCORE:

Wacky Wings is quite the place. It is a monster facility for both families and sports fans. I don't know if it was the holiday, but there were a ton of servers. My server was great - always there for what I needed. The wings aren't huge, but they are tender and crispy. The sauces on the wings are thick and well coated. There are a lot of choices, and some where hits for me, others . . . I'll try something different next time. If I lived in Mississauga I would definitely be coming on Wednesdays for their AYCE wings to do more sampling. 6.5/10

Wacky Wings
1248 Dundas St East, Mississauga ON (and other locations)
wackywings.ca