The Huntsville Wing Review: Crabby Joe's and Kelsey's

Through complications of scheduling, week two of the Huntsville Wing Review was missed. This left us with the exciting opportunity to play catch-up by reviewing two wing nights in one week. Being the gluttonous wing pigs that we are, nobody was disappointed with this deviation from routine. We were also forced to stray from our geography based route, leap-frogging to Crabby Joe's in order to hit their Tuesday night wings special. Some of us had been there before, but never on wing night and with mixed reviews mainly concerning the level of service. With open minds and empty guts, we were in for a shock that none of us had ever encountered before.

Arriving to the restaurant at 7pm, we noticed that there were between 12 and 15 tables seated around the restaurant. We sat ourselves down at the bar, anticipating a speedy service with so few customers ahead of us. Nate and I had been snowboarding all day and had built up a hunger, skipping lunch to appreciate our wings even more. Our waitress greeted the four of us and immediately stated, "If you're here for wings you won't be able to order more than 25." Confused, we replied with questions like, "so, we can only order 25 at a time?" and "so, we have to order at least 25 each?!" Her response: "No. We have 25 wings left in the entire restaurant."

I can't begin to properly dictate the angry, cursive bewilderment that passed our lips. Needless to say, we left Crabby Joe's faster than a cheap stripper at a backyard keg party. With our first review clocking a 110% satisfaction level, none of us expected our second to live up to those standards. However, an early DQ seemed out of the question, especially at a chain restaurant that is supposedly capable of quadrupling their capacity. This was truly the straw that broke the camel's back, and Crabby Joe's of Huntsville has received a DISQUALIFICATION!! I can honestly say that I will never go back. Shame that the management is so poor. Shame on you Joe. Shame shame double shame. I mean, honestly, it's wing night and you have 25 wings for the entire fucking restaurant?! I'm getting heated just thinking about it...

So we were forced to throw a hail-mary, and Kelsey's ended up catching that pass. Sunday - Wednesday is all-you-can-eat wings at Kelsey's, but for $17.99 we weren't certain that this was a good deal. On the positive side, this includes unlimited fries and free dipping sauce, and they are now offering boneless wings which are like little flattened McNuggets. Down side is you need to eat a lot of wings to get your money's worth. We worked it out to roughly 28 wings each - not an unbeatable task, but certainly not to be taken lightly. The other major downside was in the fine print: you cannot bring any wings home, and to avoid a gross misuse of all-you-can-eat status your first order can be a maximum of ten wings; once you're done that you may order only plates of six at a time. At this point our stomachs were beginning to unionize and form legal complaints of mistreatment, so we said "fuck it" and dove in.

With speedy beer service from Nikki, our waitress, the wings arrived in decent time. First orders for three of us were classic "bone in" wings. Decent temperature, flavour and texture on these guys; they're not bad, but sit very heavy in the guts... This should have been our first sign to admit defeat and back away slowly. Corky decided to be a wild man and order a plate of Sweet Thai Chili boneless wings. These proved to be the hit of the night, spawning poetic praise like, "These boneless wings make me never want to bone again." The fries were also good, but far too tempting a filler on an all-you-can-eat belly blowout.

Round two took way too long to come out. Conspiracies started shooting around the table, and our final thought was that Kelsey's makes you sit on your first plate for at least 40 minutes to annihilate your appetite. I think the batter from my first plate actually expanded in my guts to create an impenetrable perimeter because after 10 I was already feeling light-headed. When the orders finally arrived, they weren't what we were looking for. Nate stuck to his bone-guns and ordered another round of the classic bone in wing. The rest of us ordered boneless Thai, and I ended up with something called "Golden Buffalo", which is apparently a chicken wing covered in some type of bastardized mustard marinade. Because I'm a sucka-chump who can't complain to a nice waitress, I accepted this boned travesty.  Corky got a plate of the same flavour, but boneless. Tebby got what he wanted, because people don't fuck with Tebby.

This is where I really started to feel the pain. These wings are just plain gross. Unless you're one of those mustard lovin' weirdos out there that put that shit on steak, I would avoid these like a package of pre-stained underpants from the Sally Anne. To quote: "Golden Buffalo tastes like a cheap wrotten whore," and "Golden Buffalo sucks dick." Not one of us enjoyed that flavour, and with six more into us, we embarked upon another plate.

I really would have liked to just call it a night at this point, but the cries of ecstasy coming from the mouths of Sweet Thai Chili munchers was too much to resist. One more plate of boneless wings for three of us. After another long wait between plates, apologetic Nikki served up our boneless wonders. They're like the love child of a McNugget and a chicken finger, very tasty. This may be Kelsey's saving grace, although the mere fact that there is no bone is contentious enough to note. I'm sure that wing purists, like Nate, could not consider this a chicken wing. And it's not - who knows what the hell it is. I liked it.

For a table of professional chicken wing eaters, we must have been one pitiful looking pack of pansies. Few words were uttered at the end of this evening. Like a freshly converted hoard of zombies, we groaned and dragged our battered butts out of Kelsey's, happy to have found the end to a long night. Final results were as expected: mediocre. Not to put down the wings, they were "ok", but the heavy feeling that rested in my stomach made me seriously consider an early evening prayer session with the porcelain gods. Also, the all-you-can-eat wing night is not worth $18. Maybe if the service were quicker or the wings not so greasy, but you're better off going on Thursday's half-price night, if you really must go. And in that case, you may as well go to The Cookhouse. Quick rundown: Atmosphere - 3.4. Chicken Meatiness - 3.9. Wing Temperature - 3.9. Hot Wing Heat - 3.8. Service - 4.0 (with honourable mention to Nikki, who suffered from a sub-par kitchen staff). Bonus - 3.5. Final score of 19.6/25, or 78%. For those of you with autism averaging these marks in your brains, this isn't adding up. One of our judges refused to tabulate a final score, only offering a final mark. This has been accepted by the National Wing Review Board, and any complaints should be sent their way.

As promised, the next review is The Bush Co., and it was a dandy!