Vancouver Wing Review: Kuzma's House

So first off, other than our local watering hole called The Charlatan, it’s been damn near impossible to find a decent wing night in Vancouver. “Wings” is probably as good as it’s gonna get, although you should expect them to have good wings with a name like that. Unfortunately, the company we keep is infamous for sloth-like behavior and a general aversion from leaving the vicinity of a couch, so outings much further than The Charlatan are usually dismissed with reactions like: “that’s too far”, “I’m just gonna order Domino’s, they have a great deal for today”, and “Man vs Food marathon is on and I’m gonna try to make something stuffed with cheese and wrapped in woven bacon.” So when I found the deep fryer The Weasel got for Christmas that was sitting around for 3 months, there was quite a bit of excitement in the couch community, which led to the inaugural wing night at Kuzma’s House.



Me and the Doctor go to the local TNT asian supermarket - a place renowned for its all around lack of social courtesy and rampant line-budding - and pick up 5.5 pounds of fresh, unfrozen wingettes miraculously without any problems. No drumsticks. I was happy, since a lot of the time drumsticks are hit and miss. Sometimes they are so pinner that there’s no meat at all on them and other times they are so grossly huge but half of them are cartilage. Brodie was supposed to get some wings too, but not surprisingly, didn’t. We had to return to the TNT halfway through the night and get another 5 pounds, bringing the total for the night to 10.5 pounds of wings. They were $3.99 a pound, so we got roughly 105 wings for $42, making them approximately 40¢ each. Which is a pretty standard per-wing price. But here’s the kicker: we got to drink beer we bought from the liquor store, sidestepping the inflated beer prices of restaurants and pubs - bringing the beer to wing ratio up, while keeping overall costs at a minimum. It’s basic wingonomics.


Back at the house, we flour-coat all the wings while enjoying some tasty Dos Equis cervesas and prepare to drop the first batch. We are all pretty excited. Questions arise as we anticipate our first round of homemade wings with the excitement of a child who just found out they are going to Disneyland. “What kind should we make first? Should we mix two kinds? Dry? Wet? Hot?” A mad scramble erupts as we rummage through the pantry to try and find anything that would be even remotely good on a wing. The luxury of making wings at home is the ability to experiment. And that we did. Things got a little more creative as the night wore on and the beer stock diminished.


Here’s a list of what we made, followed by a short review of each flavour, whether or not we’ll make them again and a score out of 1000:

• Dry Jamaican Jerk
• Sweet Barbecue Garlic
• Chili Garlic Siracha
• Franks Ret Hot with Cajun Spice
• Montreal Steak Spice with Minced Garlic
• Habanero sauce
• Horseradish Dijon Mustard
• Original Shake-n-Bake with Dry Jamaican Jerk
• Sweet Chili Soy
• Oyster Sauce
• Fine Chili Sauce with Cajun Spice
• Thai Sweet Red Chili
• Beer Battered and breaded with Jalepeño Pringles

Dry Jamaican Jerk

We found this jerk spice in the pantry and gave it a whirl. Pretty decent for a dry wing. A little too much cinnamon in the mix, but overall a good wing to kick things off. Good, but I don’t think I’d go looking to buy more of the spice.

Score: 711/1000


Sweet Barbecue Garlic

This one was a big hit. It was an asian recipe BBQ chicken marinade. We made this flavour the most throughout the night. It really works well on a chicken wing. I’d definitely buy this sauce again, since its only $3 bucks for a bottle.

Score: 892/1000


Chili Garlic Siracha

Cock sauce’s chunkier brother was mediocre at best. The consistency is too thick for a wing. This stuff comes in a jar and has chili seeds in it, but no matter how hard you try, it’s impossible to get more than a bit of sauce residue to stick on the wing. You basically have to spread it on with a butter knife. It’s tasty stuff though, so that’s its only saving grace. Not really worth trying this one again.

Score: 379/1000


Franks Red Hot with Cajun Spice

Unanimously voted the best of the night by far. A hat tip towards The Doc for suggesting this one on the basis that “it’s what they do at The Cottage, so they must be good”. The Cajun spice is a nice addition to the already flawless wing sauce. I’ll be making these for years to come.

Score: 961/1000


Montreal Steak Spice with Minced Garlic

We chopped up some real garlic and added it to the classic go-to steak spice thinking it would be a great idea. The garlic just fell off every wing, so these were basically just Montreal Steak Spice wings. They were okay, but nothing special. I might make these again if I was in a pickle for a dry wing, but I wouldn’t put it on a menu. It might be good mixed with a barbecue sauce or something.

Score: 534/1000

Habanero Sauce

Brodie’s better half brought this sauce back from Mexico. It has a yellowish colouring, and wasn’t nearly as hot as some habanero sauces I’ve had, leaving me to believe there’s some mango or some other fruit in it. Anyways, we didn’t put enough of it on the wings cause we were scared our butts would explode, but I’ve made these again and they are really good. If I could find the sauce, I’d keep making these on a regular basis.

Score: 783/1000


Horseradish Dijon Mustard

A flash in the pan idea. Mustard might belong on a wing in some form, like that mustard dip you get with the giant pretzels at baseball games, but definitely not this one. Palatable, but not recommended.

Score: 222/1000


Original Shake-n-Bake with Dry Jamaican Jerk

We found some old shake-n-bake and decided to give it a whirl and top it off with some of the aforementioned jerk spice. They were pretty good, but probably could have cooled off a little more. Everyone really wanted to dive into them and ended up burning their mouths on the chickeny goodness. I might try these again, but I’ll probably experiment with a few other batters and breadings before I do.

Score: 746/1000


Sweet Chili Soy

This is The Charlatan’s signature wing that we all love so much, so we decided to give it a whirl at home. Mix some sweet chili sauce with some soy sauce. These are really good and I recommend everyone try them. You don’t need much soy to compliment the sweet chili, and I think we went a bit overboard this time, but I’ve got it down pat now.

Score: 878/1000


Oyster Sauce

When we went back to get more wings, The Weasel really wanted to try some with oyster sauce, so he bought some. I thought they were gross, but if you’re asian or a weirdo like Weas you might like them. It’s not really any wonder why you don’t see these on any menu, anywhere.

Score: 59/1000


Fine Chili Sauce with Cajun Spice

We ran out of Franks, so we tried doing ‘The Cottage’ wings with another generic hot sauce. They were satisfactory if you’re an idiot, but there is no comparison between the Franks and this sorry excuse for a hot sauce. Waste of time.

Score: 338/1000


Thai Sweet Red Chili

I don’t remember having these, but I think it was just the sweet chili sauce from the sweet chili soy, but without the soy. They were probably good, but not as good as the sweet chili soy, so I’ll score it accordingly.

Score: 736/1000


Beer Battered and breaded with Jalepeño Pringles

This is where we went all out. I crushed up some j-lap chips and we beer battered the wings before dropping them into the fryer. Man these were crazy. So salty, but they had 3 layers of crispiness before hitting the juicy meat core. A lot of work, so I’d probably only bust these out for special occasions. Gotta let em cool down for a while, unless you have a high pain threshold. Gets a bonus score for wildness factor.

Score: 824/1000


The whole night in general was a good time. There wasn’t any seating accommodation in the kitchen so we all just stood around for 3.5 hours eating wings, drinking beer and having a wing house party. Each batch of wings dropped was about 20 or so, and then we’d just put them on a communal plate to share and pig out. As soon as one batch was up, the next would get dropped, so there was a continuous flow of wings. We had the cook time down to 7 minutes and 35 seconds at 350°F for nice, juicy wings in the middle and crispy outsides.

Brodie had been in Mexico for the past two months and had returned the very day of wing night, so needless to say he was fired up to get back to a bit of reality. On the recovery from a massive hemorrhoid, he had crashed a dirtbike into a cobblestone sidewalk a few days earlier and was covered in road rash. Nevertheless, he was in high spirits, rum and coke in hand and making up wing related lyrics to any song that came on the record player.


Sung to the tune of “Mony Mony” by Billy Idol:

Here she comes now, she’s eating some wings.

Wings! Wings, Wings!

And the chorus:

Sweet and sour, Honey garlic, teriyaki

Having the freedom to play your own music, associate with the people you want, drink cheap beer and create your own new flavour of wing are what made the inaugural wing night at Kuzma’s a success. Many types of unconventional wings were made, and will be improved upon in the future. I think the next wing night we’ll pull the fryer into the living room so we all have a place to sit and pig out since Beastwick can barely support his increasing girth for longer than an hour.

Until next time, keep your wings tips up.