Sports restaurant takes diners under its spicy wings

• By GEORGE MORRIS
• Restaurant reviewer
• Published: Oct 9, 2009

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Buffalo Wild Wings isn’t the place you bring that special someone for a romantic, candle-lit evening. And that’s just fine.

Want to watch a ballgame — or multiple ballgames — with friends? Don’t mind — or even enjoy — the noise of a play-by-play broadcasts and people reacting to the various screens? Want to do all of the above with highly flavorful food? This is worth checking out.

Buffalo Wild Wings isn’t alone in the restaurant market featuring a sports-bar ambience, but it has stood the test of time locally, which indicates it has found a winning combination of food and service to go with the atmosphere. The food, of course, starts with the chicken wings.

Our Thursday night foray to watch the Ole Miss-South Carolina game was fortuitous: Boneless wings are 50 cents each on Thursdays, so we dove right in. The wings were meaty, cooked in a crisp, light breading and flavored with your choice of 14 sauces, which range from quite mild to ludicrously hot. (We’re kind of guessing on the extreme hot end, but based on what they call “medium” sauce, we’re perfectly willing to go out on that limb.)

The medium was plenty hot for me, and I found it worth it to have ranch dipping sauce on the side to balance out the vinegar-pepper heat. Although the menu indicates otherwise, I thought it much hotter than the “Asian zing ,” which I liked.

Our table’s favorite, however, was the “mango habanero.” Yes, habanero. As in those extremely hot peppers. The sweet mango sauce is the first taste you experience, and then the pepper sneaks up on you. Keep a drink handy. But, seriously, this is a great wing sauce because of that nuance.

Speaking of the wings, 12 were more than filling, especially after our table of four took apart the sampler appetizer plate ($10.99), which includes nachos, onion rings and mozzarella sticks. A dozen traditional wings are $8.49 on normal nights; 12 boneless wings are $9.19.

Despite the restaurant name, there is more available than just chicken wings. One of our guests had the ribs and boneless wings plate ($11.49), which included a half-dozen or so baby-back ribs in a sweet sauce that were tender and scrumptious.

And, if you’re not into wings at all, there are seven burgers. The black and bleu burger ($7.99) has a sizeable slab of thoroughly cooked beef on a Kaiser roll and is dressed with lettuce, tomato and a bleu cheese dressing. A good burger, but not a great one. The Kaiser roll is a bit dry, and we could have done with a little less shredded lettuce, which made the burger so thick it was difficult to eat. We opted for onion rings instead of fries or other side dish offerings, and they were crisp and flavorful, especially with the southwestern ranch dipping sauce that came on the side.

We were more impressed with the pulled pork sandwich ($7.79). The meat is tender, well cooked, hickory smoked and shredded southern style. It’s topped with the restaurant’s signature Buffalo Wild Wing Sauce, which packs some heat and goes very well with the pork. The sandwich is dressed with lettuce and tomato (and onions if you want them). It’s big, plenty big enough for lunch and a bit messy to eat. Again, we found the Kaiser roll a tad dry, but in this case, by the time you get to the last bite of sandwich, everything is soaked in sauce.

We sampled several of the flavored lemonades ($2.99), with mixed reviews. It all depends on one’s tolerance for sweetness. The mango lemonade is on the extreme end, the huckleberry lemonade just a little less so, and the wild lemonade was, in our minds, just right.

If all of this isn’t too much, there are desserts, including chocolate fudge cake with vanilla ice cream ($4.69). Moist, sweet, rich. You can’t ask for more.

Actually, you can, and that’s service. We thought our servers did a great job on both visits, and Trent really hustled during the ballgame and provided helpful advice when asked. When the wrong flavor wings came to our table, an apologetic manager accompanied the correct wings, which made us feel like they valued our business. Other restaurants should take note.