I love chicken wings. Ever since my college days where I’d routinely put down double-orders from Buffalo Joe’s with waffle fries (aka buffalo chips) and an RC cola, I’ve been enamored of the little flavor bombs. Last week, I had the good fortune of being invited down to Overland Park, a suburb of Kansas City, where Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of KISS and their business partners were opening a new location of their chain restaurant Rock & Brews. The menu is pretty typical when it comes to pub grub — burgers, pizzas, salads, beers — but I was happy to see three different kinds of wings available. I normally just go for straight up Buffalo wings, but I was advised to check out the Asian wings and I’m glad I did. They were the best things on the menu. Crispy, crunchy, salty, spicy, and sweet; these wings had my tastebuds tingling. Just look at that photo. Man. I wish I had an order of them right now.
This is a photo of Asian wings.
First of all calling them “asian” wings is ridiculous. That’s a huge region with vastly different cuisines. What cuisine are they actually? My guess is they don’t know since they are just ripping it off and changing it for an american palette.
Second of all, if you do want to try how other countries prepare wings maybe you should go to a restaurant owned and operated by someone from that country rather than an American rip off. I know I’ve had awesome and very different wings at Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants.
I think expecting a chain restaurant to be culturally accurate is a little over the top. Their average customer isn’t going to know the difference between Laotian and Cantonese flavors, so the restaurant doesn’t need to make the distinction for them. Nobody said they were going for authenticity. The Asian wings at Rock & Brews don’t come from a specific cuisine, rather take common Asian flavors (soy, coriander/cilantro, chilies) to synthesize the tastes of the entire continent. If they were pretending to be an authentic restaurant of any sort, I’d take issue with this, too, but they’re not. They’re a chain and they know it.