Al Fresco Buffalo Chicken Sausage

Buffalo chicken in a sausage.  Wow… brilliant… pure brilliance….

This isn’t a review, but rather just a rave.. I’ve been a fan of Al Fresco sausages for a few years now, but they have reached a new plateau of genius with their latest flavor, Buffalo chicken sausage.  The color is a bit bright when you first look at them in the package, but the flavor is worth it, with plenty of spice and other flavors to make it interesting, not just one-dimensionally hot.  I highly recommend this for any other hot wing fan out there and I can’t wait to try it on some grilled pizza!

Memphis Roadhouse – Attleboro, MA

This was my first visit to Memphis Roadhouse since starting this blog, but their wings have long been a favorite of mine.  They are always pleasantly spicy and smoky, this time being no exception.

The first thing you’ll notice with an order of wings from Memphis Roadhouse is the size of the wings themselves – these are jumbo wings with plenty of meat.  This really allows them to smoke them without loosing moisture, though they are never fatty.  The sauce is pretty traditional, not needing too many other flavors thanks to the smokiness of the chicken.  The skin isn’t crispy, but isn’t greasy or fatty either, and the meat is thoroughly cooked.

As a side note, I would like to say that the food there the other night was excellent all around.  I go to Memphis at least a few times a year, but the food last night was the best I’ve ever had there and some of the best barbecue I’ve had in a restaurant, period.

RATING: 5 OUT OF 5 STARS!!

Wynkoop Brewing Company – Denver, CO

A business trip to Denver afforded me the opportunity to taste some of the local eateries, including the Wynkoop Brewery, the first modern brewpub in Denver and among the forefront of the the brewpub and microbrew revolution of the last 20 or so years.

Not only was the beer excellent, but the food was great as well.  My colleagues and I just got a selection of appetizers to go with our beer and while the typical spinach and artichoke dip given a re-mix as artichoke and Parmesan dip served with big wedges of beer bread got rave reviews from everyone, I was particularly enamored with the wings.  Pleasantly spicy and sweet with a nice fresh flavor in the sauce, it complimented the perfectly cooked wings… well, perfectly.  Among some of the best wings I’ve had anywhere.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Maggie McFly’s – Middlebury, CT

While on a recent trip to visit y girlfriend’s friends, we ate dinner at Maggie McFly’s in Middlebury, CT.  A two-store chain of an upscale pub in Connecticut, they had the usual suspects on the menu and an appetizer sampler included buffalo wings.

These were your typical wings – the sauce was the classic buffalo wing style and the wings were cooked well enough though not particularly crispy, bordering on soggy or fatty.  I don’t have much to say about them – not that they were bad at all, but they were also nothing special.  A good enough quality wing, but also not worth going out of your way for.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 stars