Kyirisan

Kyirisan
1924 8th St NW, suite 140,
Washington, DC 20001 

EXCELLENT
So I know it has been forever since I posted but life happens, truly.  I do however have people ask... where is your wing blog, or where are getting wings tonight.  YES, I still love wings and sorry no, I have not written in many years.

So here you go:

@kyirisan is located in Shaw in the hipster little strip where you can also find a Glens Market, Warby Parker and Bonobos to name a few.  This restaurant serves some funky flavor food with Chinese flare.  It is perfect for this little hipster vibe the street has going on. When I went for the first time I did not order the wings, I know... what is wrong with me!!!??? But I ordered the offal salad, which was amaze-ballz as well and I am super sad to say they removed it from the menu.  To all you adventurous eaters out there, you should have tried the offal salad, it was glorious.  It was a time consuming dish to make and not enough people would order it so they had to remove it from the menu, it broke my heart.

So when I went back trying to get the offal salad, the waiter said, "try the wings."  Well, of course why didn't I think of that.  As soon as the wings came my heart was put back together as these wings are unbelievable delicious!  (Sorry I don't have a picture)  If you go to the website:

https://www.kyirisandc.com

a picture of the wings scrolls across the top of the page.  These wings are perfection as they are Creme Fraiche Wings with a Chinese fusion including gochujang, sudachi, oyster sauce and finished with chives.  They are cooked to perfection and the combination of sauces are to excellent.  Next time I get them I will try and take a picture before I eat them, so I can post a picture.

Old Ebbitt Grill

Old Ebbitt Grill
675 15th St NW
FAIR
Washington D.C. has many well-known restaurants and Old Ebbitt Grill is one of those restaurants.  I would never say people go there for the chicken wings though. One of the greatest things that Old Ebbitt has is a reverse happy hour for their raw bar.  Since many of us work crazy hours or just like late nights this reverse happy hour that runs from 11:00pm to 1:00am Monday –Thursday. This current visit was a for a lunch so I did not partake in the half price oysters and I can never resist ordering chicken wings.

Old Ebbitt Grill has one type of chicken wing on their menu and it is a classic buffalo style wing.  The wings came out piping hot and were a decent size not too small and overly large. As they arrived you could smell the vinegar in sauce, the smell that makes your mouth start water knowing that the wings are going to have some heat in the flavor. 

The wings were covered in a sauce which made the wings gooey and slightly soggy.  The sauce was nothing spectacular and was your typical buffalo sauce, such as Texas-Pete or any bulk hot sauce you could buy.  I would say overall the buffalo wings were okay and had good flavor but there was nothing too special about them.

DCity Smokehouse

DCity Smokehouse8 Florida Ave NW

DCity Smokehouse has got to be one of the city’s best hidden new gems.  It is a pretty recently opened establishment that shares its location with Revive Catering.  The establishment is mainly takeout but if you want to be a lingering customer they have a bar with about 4 seats which is usually taken up by people waiting for orders and not eating.  The food ranges from brisket, chili marinated grilled chicken, pork ribs and pit smoked wings just to name a few.  As you walk in you can smell the sweet and mesquite smoky smell they are cooking up in the back. 

I of course went in and ordered the wings. Their chicken wings are made with a dry rub and smoked.  They are served with cilantro ranch, chipotle garlic or house BBQ sauce.  I have had all three sauces and all are very good.  The wings are so tender when you get them they literally fall off the bone from being smoked to perfection.  These are not crispy wings due to the smoking process but they are pretty much perfection.  The rub has a sweet and salty taste to it and blends well with the smoke flavor from the meat.  The wings are a decent size and will fill you up.  The sauce they give on the side is complimentary to the wings but in reality the wings do not need any sauce.  The one down fall for them is they are closed on Sundays so come football season you need to remember to pre-order your wings on Saturday and can pick them up Sunday.  Other than that DCity Smokehouse is excellent and I love getting these wings. EXCELLENT

Thunderburger

Thunderburger
3056 M St NW

Thunderburger is located in Georgetown and is a restaurant known for its burgers.  I went there for my Cheeseburger League, 2013 and Scott, Andy, Kaitlyn and I decided it would be a good idea to try the wings as an appetizer to our huge gourmet burgers we were about to eat.  Thunderburger offers one type of wing, which typically means they do them right and they are probably great.  The wings offered at Thunderbuger are: Grilled Buffalo Wings that are grilled, then fried served with either as hot or mild and a side of celery and carrot sticks with blue cheese dressing.  As the wings came out I always notice the size first, and these were decent, not puny little shit wings, but a good decent meaty sized wing.  I also prefer flats to drums on the wings and this was a good offer of flats (see picture).  The group that ordered these wings are no stranger to eating hot food so we went with the hot sauce and it was a wise decision.  The hot was not overpowering but had just enough kick to make you want to eat the celery and blue cheese dressing. The sauce on the wings was not overpowering with vinegar and spice but instead had a great balance between the two.  We all ended up ordering monster gourmet burgers after our wings and we were super satisfied.  We continue to talk about how we want to go back just for the wings and will be back soon.

Bon Chon

Bon Chon
107 A Gibbs St Unit A Rockville, MD
GOOD
I don’t venture out into MD or VA too often for wings but I wanted to try Bon Chon for a while because they had been written about as being one of the best wings in the U.S. to try so I felt like I really needed to try them.  The Bon Chon Andy M., Kaitlyn M., Scott G. and I went to is the one located in Rockville Town Center.  They offer two flavors for their wings but besides wings they also offer chicken legs.  We decided to get both flavors on the chicken wings and on the legs.  We also tried both sauce flavors on their pot stickers to see if the flavor was any different.

 

Soy Garlic- I would have to say these wings were probably preferred with the group that came to eat that day. The wings were very crispy as they were deep fried and piping hot when they came out.  The sauce was not overly salty from the soy sauce and had a slight lingering flavor of garlic.  The flavors on these wings were nicely balanced and very flavorful.  The sauce was the same and just as delicious on the chicken legs.  When we had the sauce on the pot stickers it seemed to be intensified but not overbearing and still pleasant.

Hot is on the left

 

Hot- These wings were also just as crispy and fried as the Soy Garlic wings and they definitely had a kick to them.  It was nice to eat them alongside the other flavor as to not be over powered by the heat in the hot wings. The flavor of the hot sauce reminded me of a sriracha but with a little more vinegar added to the sauce.  The meld of spices that made the sauce was very tasty and definitely added heat.  The sauce when eating the pot stickers was intensified and made the pot stickers very spicy hot and burned some.  I would recommend getting the pot stickers in only the soy garlic to really enjoy the taste of the pot sticker or if you don’t like spicy food.

 

Over all the Bon Chon chicken is very flavorful, comes out extra crispy and deep fried and both sauces are true to their name.  There is a side of coleslaw and pickled radish that is also served with the chicken which is a nice in between to the hot wings and legs if you need something in between to cool down your pallet.  I would definitely go back to have more wings or have them to-go for some football.  GOOD

The Coupe

The Coupe
3415 11^th St NW
GOOD

When I hear that a bar has added a happy hour and on that happy hour they have included chicken wings I feel it is in my duty to patronize that bar and try their wings.  The Coupe added a happy hour to their weekday menu which included a .50 cent wing special.  On their menu the chicken wings are labeled as Sriracha glazed wings with a daikon radish and carrot slaw and the sauce on the side is a wasabi ranch.  Sriracha is my favorite hot sauce of all time, one because of the complex flavors it adds to any dish and two because of the thickness of the sauce.  I hate things being runny and watery and Sriracha is a nice thick hot sauce with a deep spicy Asian flare that still allows you taste the food you are eating.

 

 

I went to The Coup with Scott G and Liz G and we decided to order a good portion of wings. When they came out they looked delicious and the size of the wings were decent.  The wings were not too small and not overly large.  I was pleased to say that they had a slight crisp to the skin and the meat on the inside was steamy and juicy and not overcooked at all.  The Sriracha sauce was not very hot or overbearing.  It must have had some sort of sweetener added to the sauce to calm down the beat but it was still flavorful and had a good meld of flavors. 

 

Along with the wings there was a side slaw on the plate instead of your typical celery and or celery and carrots mix.  The slaw was made of daikon radish and carrots shredded.  The slaw was very tasty and was nice to eat alone as a side to the wings.  The sauce served with the wings and slaw was a wasabi ranch that had a touch of wasabi in the ranch that gave a nice ting to the dressing.  When added to the wings it added another depth of flavor that was very appealing.  I would like to have that dressing on a salad.  Overall the wings were pretty good and I would go back again to order them.  They are the only wings offered at The Coupe but that is perfectly fine since they are pretty damn good.  GOOD

Looking Glass Lounge

Looking Glass Lounge
3634 Georgia Ave NW
GOOD/EXCELLENT
 
I was on my way to Petworth for a book club meeting at the Public Library when I decided I had some time before the meeting.  What better way to kill time than to stop and grab some wings to eat.  I went into Looking Glass Lounge because the last time I was there I only had a couple beers during the epic Inagur-crawl me and few friends went on (Scott, Tammy and Lauren). 
 
The menu offers two types of wings, Buffalo or BBQ and they are both served as one pound of wings.  I decided to go traditional and get the Buffalo wings because I prefer hot wings over a BBQ wings any day. 

WING REVIEW:
When the wings came out they were a perfect size, meaty and pretty tasty.  The outside of the wings were decently crispy with a spicy sauce that reminded me of the flavors in Franks Hot Sauce.  The Buffalo sauce has the vinegar tingle that hits your noise, the heat and spice that burns a bit but not too much that made eating all the wings unbearable.  The wings were also served with both carrots and celery on the side with ranch or blue cheese to dip them in. 

 

Overall Looking Glass Lounge has great beers on tap, whiskey flights which I prefer and very tasty wings.  The wings at Looking Glass are a wing I could get on a regular basis and never be disappointed.  GOOD/EXCELLENT