My very first idea for a web site was to do a running review of chicken wings at various restaurants, since wings are one of my favorite foods. So I’m going to start that here. It will be a clean slate; I will not review wings I’ve eaten in the past, but I will only review wings as I eat them from here on out.

Buffalo Wild Wings (Lee’s Summit, Missouri)
Smallish wings with decent flavor. I’m not a big fan of trendy sauces, and this place has quite a few. I did have some of the Thai wings, which were a good flavor but didn’t deserve the three-flame rating as they weren’t very spicy at all. I also tried the sweet barbeque wings, which were good as well. As for the hot wings, the sauce was thicker and a bit gloppy, but with good heat. I’ll give them 3.5 out of 5 wetnaps.

Another review: I later went back and had wings that were one level up on the hot scale, and these were actually better. I realize that I have a pretty strong constitution when it comes to heat, but don’t let their ratings scare you. The next to the hottest are not as bad as they want you to think. Raise that to 4 out of 5 wetnaps.

And yet another: I have been obsessed for a while now with the Mango Habanero wings, which combine sweet with heat, one of my favorite combinations in the world. Hit me on the right day and these wings are hot enough to almost bring me to tears, but so so good. Those get 4.5 of 5.

Captain Ribman’s Meat Market (Lawrence, Kansas)
It has to be noted that I am automatically prejudiced against a place that bills itself as the “jayhawkiest” sports bar in the world, even if they didn’t have “Missouri Tiger” listed under the SCRAPS heading in the menu. So they started out at a disadvantage. However, their inferno wings were actually good enough to overcome the stigma. Big meaty wings and great heat on the sauce, which had red pepper flakes in it. A strong 4 out of 5 wetnaps, even though they didn’t give us wetnaps.

Helen Fitzgerald’s (St. Louis, Missouri)
These were the strangest wings I have ever eaten. The wings themselves were big and meaty, but the sauce almost defied description. It was thick and opaque, and looked almost like frosting. There were a few types of sauce listed on the menu but we didn’t specify, so I’m not sure which one we got. It wasn’t very hot and tasted very vinegary. 1 out of 5 wetnaps. They didn’t give us wetnaps either, and we could have used them to wipe the sauce, which was about the texture of hair gel, off our hands.

Boone Tavern (Columbia, Missouri)
Nothing overly special here. I would consider these your standard bar wings. Not terribly hot, not terribly big, but with decent taste. Put it right in the middle: 2.5 out of 5 wetnaps.

The Phoenix (Kansas City, Missouri)
Kind of like the Boone Tavern wings. It’s not one of their specialties, so they don’t put any extra effort into them. They’re good, not great, but worth it if you want wings to go with whatever else you’re eating. 2.5 out of 5 wetnaps.

75th Street Brewery (Kansas City, Missouri)
There are two restaurants by which all other wings are judged, and this is one for me. This isn’t a restaurant that specializes in wings, but as far as I’m concerned, it could be. The wings are big, meaty, slightly crispy, with a sauce that has great texture and great heat. The red pepper flakes sprinkled around the plate are a nice touch, and they make their own bleu cheese dressing to go with them. Probably my favorite wings in Kansas City. 4.75 out of 5 wetnaps.

The Peanut at 50th and Main (Kansas City, Missouri)
When you say ‘wings’ in Kansas City, the Peanut is one of the first places that comes to most peoples’ minds, and rightly so. One important thing to know about their wings is that one of them is the whole wing, both pieces, still hooked together. So a dozen is really more like two dozen. This also works against them to a certain extent, because they are incredibly messy to eat, and no wetnaps in sight. The heat is good, they’re nice and meaty, definitely tasty. Also contributing to a lower-than-expected score is the fact that their bleu cheese (no ranch) is extremely garlicky. As if beer and wings doesn’t contribute enough to bad breath, the dressing can leave you feeling like you have a toxic waste dump in your mouth. And your stomach, as it happens, but I didn’t hold that against them. 4 out of 5 wetnaps.

The Brooksider (Kansas City, Missouri)
I got a weird deja vu when these wings came out, because the sauce reminded me of the sauce at Helen Fitzgerald’s. Ick. But I got over it when I tasted them. In certain ways they are those wings I’ve referred to before: your standard bar appetizer wings. There was nothing fancy about them, nothing special about the presentation. But the sauce was good and hotter than you would expect from bar wings, and that will boost them up to 3.5 out of 5 wetnaps.

CJ’s (Columbia, Missouri)
These are the wings that spawned my love of wings. I don’t ever remember eating wings until I went away to school and started eating here, and a food obsession was born. The problem is that you’re never really sure what you’re going to get. It’s not unheard of to arrive at CJs at 8 pm on a Saturday night and find it closed because they ran out of wings. It’s also not unusual to go early and suspect that you’re eating last night’s wings reheated. But still, fabulous. They’re slightly cripsy, the hot (one level below BYFO - Burn Your Face Off) are perfect, and while I usually enjoy bleu cheese with my wings, at CJs, it’s completely unnecessary. And almost wrong. They’re that good. 4.9999999 out of 5 wetnaps, just because there might be better ones somewhere. But I doubt it.

Jerry’s Bait Shack (Lenexa, Kansas)
Hardly worth mentioning. These were like frozen appetizer wings with little sauce and baked. Baked. The horror. Jerry needs to stick with their pizza, which is awesome, and take these babies off the menu because they’re messing up the focus. Just my opinion. 1 out of 5 wetnaps.

Kentucky Fried Chicken (the one in Oak Grove, Missouri, not that it matters)
I know. Hear me out. KFC recently introduced their Flavor Station, with three different flavors of wings you could choose from: Honey Barbecue, Sweet and Spicy, and Fiery Buffalo. The wings themselves are a good size, with a little bit of a thick coating, and the sauces are all very thick. I tried all three, and my impressions are as follows: Fiery Buffalo are really almost too fiery. I’m always surprised when I get mainstream wings - that is, wings where you don’t choose your own level of hotness - that are this hot. The sauce was overly vinegary, though, and I’ll grade them down on that. 2.75 out of 5 wetnaps. The Sweet and Spicy were better, but I probably didn’t enjoy them as much as I could have because I couldn’t get the taste of the Fiery Buffalo out of my mouth. 3 out of 5 wetnaps. Finally, the Honey Barbecue, again, sorry, but they are some awesome wings. That sweet, sticky sauce is just great, especially considering where they come from. 3.5 out of 5 wetnaps.

AmeriSports Pub (Kansas City, Missouri)
I had heard really good things about these wings, so I had to check them out. I was fairly impressed. Not the best wings in Kansas City, like I’d heard, but solid nonetheless. They were nice, big, meaty wings. They had a good hot sauce and were slightly crispy. I’d give them 4.25 out of 5 wetnaps.

ESPN Zone (Times Square, New York)
Decent wings. I think the environment is supposed to be enough for you. Good size, good spice, nothing overly special. I’d give them 3 out of 5 wetnaps.

Charlie Hooper’s (Kansas City, Missouri)
Good wings. I’m starting to understand what I’m looking for in wings: hot sauce and slightly crispy skin. These meet my needs in a good way. Let’s say 4 out of 5 wetnaps, the standard for those with acceptable sauce and texture.

Willie’s (Kansas City, Missouri)
The older I get, the more difficult it is to impress me, but Willie’s did. Their wing sauce is slightly sweet, which is always going to make me happy. We ordered the hot wings, but they really weren’t hot at all. Which would normally be the kiss of death for me, but the sauce was good enough to overcome the lack of heat. The one thing to keep in mind is that they are very very small, so you probably want to order twice as many as you think you want. I’ll only give them 4.25 out of 5 because of how mild they are, but it’s definitely worth the trip.

810 Zone (Overland Park, Kansas)

Big meaty wings with a sauce that isn’t quite hot enough, but pretty standard for bar wings. It’s interesting because the restaurant is run by the same company that does 75th Street Brewery, but those wings are a little hotter with the red pepper flakes. 3.25 out of 5 wetnaps.

Old Chicago (Overland Park, Kansas)

Meh. Just your standard size in your standard sauce. Nothing special. 3 out of 5 wetnaps.

The Fox and the Hound (Independence, Missouri)

I have to tell you that I went here and had wings several years ago, one of the first weekends they were open. The wings were large but still pink on the inside, and while I prefer my beef to still be mooing at me when it’s served, chicken is another story. Therefore, I was pleased to have wings more recently that were actually not only fully cooked, but also very good. The wings themselves have a peppery bite to them (black pepper, not red) that I really enjoyed. 4.25 out of 5 wetnaps.