This week we found out about a new hole in the wall wing shop called Extreme Wings, on the corner of White Dr. and Pensacola St. Being the hot wing fiends that we are, we had to try it out.
It's a small place, shoved into the side of a Shell gas station (in fact you should be looking for the gas station rather than the restaurant), and parking is a bit sparse, since you have to use the gas station's lot, which, well... you're familiar with gas station parking. Additionally, the venue itself is pretty small, only about 3 or 4 tables, it's more of a take-away stand. They also deliver to a ridiculous radius (consider that they're in deep FSU-campus-land, and they'll deliver to our office on John Knox Rd. by the Tallahassee Mall...!!) which is a huge plus, but thanks to traffic and unrefined insulation and delivery techniques of the burgeoning bistro, the food might get cold by the time it gets to you if you're pushing that delivery distance. We figure the best solution is pick-up and take-out, or delivery if you're closer. Since it's new, the place still looks pretty clean. The furniture is a little cheap as well as sparse, but again, thanks to the space factor, your best bet is to just take-out anyway.
Now, on to the food. First off, they have a pleasantly long and varied list of wing flavors - no website yet to peruse, but trust us. They have the usuals, mild to nuclear, teriyaki, barbecue, and ranging into some uncommons like lemon pepper, garlic parmesan, spicy garlic, to the very unique, like lime pepper, or spicy lemonlime pepper. We decided to sample four that ran the gamut, from standbys to outlandish. Moreover, there are lots of other options, like chicken tenders, sub sandwiches (a particularly tempting one was the Spicy Threat - buffalo chicken breast, cajun turkey breast, and cajun beef), and a surprising variety of hardy salad options. You can even build your own salad or sub. Sides include the typical fries and veggie sticks, and also cole slaw, extra sauce, etc.
We decided to go with their Grand Opening Special: $6.99 for 10 Jumbo Wings, and if you get a large 32oz. drink (separately) with it, you'll get an additional 5 wings. After adding celery and sauce, both extra but small charges, this came out to about $11. We split up our flavors between spicy garlic, spicy lemonlime pepper, spicy BBQ, and nuclear hot wings. We like 'em hot, can ya tell?
Some of these flavor titles seemed a little misleading at first taste, but none of them were bad. First off, the spicy lemonlime pepper wasn't that spicy, nor that strongly lemon or lime, however it was a very nice full flavor just the same. Clearly they're not made with zest of either citrus, and whatever they're doing is certainly not spicy, so if you're intimidated by spicy food, I highly recommend this flavor. Or heck, I just plain recommend it. It isn't fruity or tart or hot, but it tickles each of those flavors a little and it makes a pretty pleasant experience, even over 10 of them. Ditto for the "spicy" BBQ, it wasn't really spicy at all, but a very good full BBQ flavor with just a hint of zip to it.
Nuclear wings we also felt were a little mislabeled, because Laura and I have a high tolerance for spicy food and we like to cry as we suffer through our food and come out as champions in a battle hard won. That's a little masochistic for most folks, but that's just how we roll. So we jumped headlong into Nuclear wings without knowing what their scale is - because if you've ever eaten wings at more than one place, you know that different places vary GREATLY in intensity of what they call "hot". We were a little disappointed that the nuclear wings posed no threat to us at all, however, we did both agree that the flavor was excellent. Sometimes it's a bigger disappointment to go somewhere like Buffalo Wild Wings and get their hottest wings and while they'll kill you, they also just taste like... "hot." Whereas Extreme Wings' nuclear wings definitely packed flavor, and not even that generic hot wing flavor. I highly recommend these to anyone, and don't be scared by the moniker, I would rate these as more like plain hot or possibly x-hot at other places. I wouldn't say they were even as hot as Beef O'Brady's x-hot wings.
Spicy Garlic was the all time winner though. Garlic wings are harder to nail than you'd expect. I mean, everyone agrees, you involve garlic in something and it's always delicious, but with wings it's a little tougher. Garlic tends not to soak into some sauces, or some places may use garlic powder, and the texture of the sauce really contributes to how much of that clings to the wings, all resulting in most wing places' hot garlic wings to taste only a touch of garlic, which can be a let down. Not these babies though. All the sauces at Extreme Wings are relatively thick but smooth, about the consistency of ketchup or BBQ sauce, and the spicy garlic is no exception in consistency, BUT... it has big chunks of fresh minced garlic floating all in it, and it contributes to a very nice, not overbearing, full garlic flavor on the wing. I couldn't get enough of these, they're probably the best spicy garlic wings I've ever had, and I've had a few close contenders. I recommend this to everyone as well, since it isn't the sort of spicy to kill even children, and it's not strong enough to give you bad breath or keep vampires away, but tastes absolutely delicious.
We didn't get a chance to try the fries (potato wedges, to be exact) nor any of the salads, which all looked like great options, plus the flavors mentioned here are just the tip of the iceberg. Other flavors that look intriguing are Italian herb, plain Lemon-Lime, Lemon Pepper (only because much like spicy garlic, many wing places carry this but it's tough to nail), Lime Pepper, and sweet & sour. Considering the thorough satisfaction we got from today's sample, I would expect these other flavors to perform just as well. We'll definitely come here again.
UPDATE: Later I came back for the lemon pepper wings... a very good sauce, though my batch seemed not so soaked in it, perhaps because I let it sit while picking it up and driving home. Once I smothered the wings in the sauce, it was one of the best lemon pepper sauces I had, strong lemon, good salt and pepper spice to it. I still think Wing Stop is the best lemon pepper wings in town, though these are strong contenders.
Final verdict: The place is awesome, tons of variety, reasonable prices, high quality wing sauces, recommend taking-out. If you're looking for diabolically hot wings, you won't find them here; if you're a little timid about hot food but still somewhat adventurous, don't fear ordering the scary sounding flavors here because they taste delicious and are less intimidating than they sound - totally worth the try.
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