The Hairy Lemon – The worst wings I ever had

A few months ago my wife, son and my in-laws headed out to dinner for a fish fry. My father-in-law had a place in mind that he heard was good so we headed that waty. Not surprisingly I had a craving for wings, instead of a fish fry and had it in my head that that’s what I was goign to order if they had them on their menu. A short 15 min drive later and we end up at a place called The Hairy Lemon in Richfield WI. Again he heard about this place because of the fish fry not the wings. One thing I look for when I go into a random bar/restaurant that may have wings is if they have any sings up about wings. For instance if they have a wing night, what their sauces are, etc. Some places have propaganda all over about their wings and that’s usually a good sign that they take their wings seriously. It’s not just on the menu as a place holder.  No such luck at The Hairy Lemon. This was definitely going to be a gamble. But a gamble I was willing to take just in case by some freak chance I’d stumble on a diamond in the rough.

The menu says “10 wings served with your choice of sauce $5.00″ . Fair enough price. $.50 a wing isn’t bad. I asked the waitress what type of sauces they had and she wasn’t really sure. Not a good sign. After asking someone in the kitchen she confirmed it was a buffalo type sauce. Sounds good.

A short while later she brings everyone their fish-fry and me my wings. I could tell the second I laid eyes on the wings what was in store. First of all, they were huge. But huge because of all the breading they had on them. I could tell they were’t hand breaded and they were processed previously frozen wings. Definitely not a fresh wing. The shapes were also inconsistent. The drummies had extra pieces hanging off, and the flats were just an oblong, football shaped blob. The biggest sign these weren’t going to be good came as soon as I laid my fingers on’em. They were SLIMY! Sometimes wings can be a little slippery because of the sauce, but the sauce combined with a breading that was spongy and soft created the most unpleasant texture of a wing I’ve ever seen. Heck even chain places like KFC, and TGIFridays aren’t like this. The part that the squishy consistency wing ruins the most, outside of the over-all flavor, is that I don’t get to use my standard wing eating technique which is using one hand and specifically my thumb, index finger,and middle finger to hold the wing leaving my other hand clean and free to grab my beer. More on that special technique in the future. The wing sauce was definitely a off the shelf generic wing sauce. Just the average flavor you’d expect from McDonalds Buffalo Sauce (which I’d actually say is better) or Wendys. So after reluctantly grabbing a hold with bold hands firmly I dive in for a bit and just as I suspect, generic flavor and mushy texture. I mean seriously, it doesn’t get worse then this. The first time I ever attempted to make wings at home and my own sauce it wasn’t even in the same ballpark as this crap. They turned out damn good actually. So how does this happen? I have no clue. Well I try to plow my way through’em trying to be polite and eat my food. About 6 wings in and I put on my acting hat. I had had enough. “Man am I full.”, “Those wings were huge”, “I usually don’t eat that many wings.” etc etc. Luckily the in-laws bought it and I didn’t look like a food snob…

So that sums up the wings. Terrible. The worst wings ever, hands down. I debated whether or not to post this on my site. In their defense the Hairy Lemon just recently started serving food, and the fish-fry was really good. But I felt my duty is also to tell you all the bad wings I’ve had and what made them so bad so you don’t stumble into the same situation.