House of Wings

 

19314 Hwy 281 N #104
San Antonio, TX 78258

Avg under $10 per entree

House of Wings, on 281 and Redland in the same complex as Scout Bar. This was another recommendation from some friends, so I had to try it out. As a matter of fact, I even had some of their food at my friend's apartment after a night on the town. As far as I can remember, the re-heated wings were really tasty. So I decided to invite some old friends and check the out the place.

When I first walked in, you see the counter with the large kitchen behind it, the bright yellow walls all around and a jukebox to the right beside the soda machine. The girl behind the counter eagerly greeted me and was very friendly and happy to explain the menu. When you look at their menu, it boasts their wonderful array of homemade sauces, such as Texas Gold, Pineapple Sweet Ranch, Teriyaki Spice, and Memphis Dry Rub as their most popular preparation. Honorable mention goes to Ring of Fire as the best named sauce on the menu. That was really cool, it's good to know places still make their own sauces. The one thing that kind of got me was that they charged by the pound and state that you get 8-9 bone-in wings per pound, but the boneless wings were sold by amount of pieces. That sort of struck me as strange. The rest of the menu looked like they had something for everyone. They serve appetizers, burgers, gourmet sandwiches, chicken sandwiches, as well as normal sides like fries and onion rings. As far as I could tell, they had a decent domestic beer selection from glancing at their beer fridge.

The overall feel was very casual with brightly painted walls, plastic cutlery, styrofoam cups, yet they had several large flat screen TVs mounted on the walls. The seats and booths were a bit small. A booth that should normally fit four, could hardly fit three people, me being the largest of the three. We actually had to take a chair from another table and stick it at the end of our table to accomodate us.

When the food came out, the presentation looked less than memorable. Everything came out in plastic baskets with paper liners. You could tell most everything was cooked out of a bag, but that was expected. The wings themselves were big, hence them being touted as "PREMIUM KING WINGS". The sauces they were prepared in were really tasty. I chose Lemon Pepper and Original Hot with a side of their homemade creamy, bleu cheese and a basket of half fries, half onion rings for the table. One friend ordered 10 boneless wings with Teriyaki Spice and Original Hot. My other friend ordered a half pound of regular bone-in wings prepared with Honey BBQ. 

Overall, the food was decent. I liked the size and quality of the wings themselves and selection of homemade sauces that the wings were prepared in, as well as the bleu cheese for dipping. You could really tell they worked hard on those aspects of the restaurant. The rest was kind of forgettable. I think the allocation of funds was misappropriated. Instead of spending money on so many flat screens, they should have spent more time and money looking for better sources of some of their foods; like their fries, onion rings, even boneless wings; as well as better ways to present their food. I've been to several casual, semi-fast food places serving mediocre food that utilized inexpensive, yet better vehicles for presentation, which in turn made those experiences a LITTLE more memorable. Restaurants shouldn't be serving mediocre food, but if you're going to, at least mask it by bringing it out on something a little nicer than a flimsy brown plastic basket with a boring paper liner. Even other half-ass wing places have that on lock down.

On a final note, I would go back only because of the wing size and great sauces. Those are the strong points, and I guess the most relevant points to have as a wing restaurant. I would probably order a couple pounds of just the wings to-go and leave all the auxiliary stuff behind. 

House of Wings - Your sauce is HALF GOOD!

I hope you will come back and see where else I go and what else I eat.
h@yb - peace, my beautiful babies!

Everyone loves a chubby Asian,

boogielovestoeat