My friend Kevin called it “the salt factor.”
Sounds like a Robert Ludlum thriller, doesn’t it? “The Bourne Salt Factor.”
When you’re at a wing shack peeling crispy chicken from spicy bones, and chasing the vinegar sauce with steaming handfuls of golden French fries, gauging the salt factor is key to a restaurant’s final rating.
In the case of Wingman, often voted around town as the best wing shack in the metro area, the salt factor is set just shy of perfection. The wings snap at your tongue and set the teeth tingling; the fries are thick and worthy of the fast-food standard, McDonald’s; even the Philly
cheesesteak had a salty char that went down easy on a summer’s day.
Wingman brings Buffalo-style chicken to the Denver area in an atmosphere part sports bar, part boardwalk tin shack. Bright red and yellow paint schemes featuring the soaring-chicken logo pair with corrugated-metal wainscoating halfway down the walls. As that observant gourmand Kevin put it, “It’s Chipotle meets Red Robin.” If the murals of skiing chickens don’t get you, the half-dozen big televisions – locked on to ESPN – will.
The basic wing meal is 10 pieces of chicken with a soda and fries, for $7.99. They’re drenched in sauce ranging from mild to “X-Hot,” though we didn’t taste a huge difference between the medium and the hot. (We were not wowed by the barbecue-style sauce on the boneless wing order, but it had an intriguing flavor that Wingman would only say is “honey barbecue”).
Wingman’s centerpiece offering is tangy and crisped to perfection, exactly the kind of wing made for a ranch dressing bath or a celery chaser.
The extras are not flashy, but they taste great. The fried zucchini ($4.49) has just enough green showing through the light batter that you can tell Mama you actually ate a vegetable.
I’m not an iced tea drinker but a fan in the group said the sweet tea was just right.
That cheesesteak ($4.79) was worth a separate trip on a day free of wings, but the bun was decidedly uninspired. The deep-fried mac and cheese wedges seemed like arterial overkill, at $3.99, so we declined, though it’s exactly the kind of dish they’d put on a stick and serve by the millions at the Minnesota State Fair.
Wingman is an ideal spot for Friday lunchtime indulgence: The morning workout is taken care of, most of the week’s business is in the “out” box, and it’s vital to argue about your fantasy baseball roster. Take the boys, or the kids, or the girlfriends, order an aromatic pile of wings, and chew away the afternoon.
| Wingman
American|Four locations: 1450 E. 104th Ave., Northglenn; 1555 B E. Bridge St., Brighton; 3333 S. Wadsworth Blvd., Lakewood; 6905 S. Broadway, Littleton|$6.59 and up Store hours may vary; 10:45 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 10:45 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday; 10:45-8 p.m., Sunday; major credit cards
Front burner: Denver’s best chicken wings (subject to debate, of course), and winning extras from fries and fried zucchini to endless soda refills. You can feed four people for $35.
Back burner: The cheeseteak arrived on a squishy Wonder-style bun. Switch that for a chewy hoagie roll, and you’d be all set.
