Rocky Mountain Wingshak’s new location sports great wings and more
Amazing buffalo wings with garlic pepper sauce from Rocky Mountain Wingshak on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2011. SPENSER HEAPS/Daily Herald
A buffalo chicken salad at Rocky Mountain Wingshak on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2011. SPENSER HEAPS/Daily Herald
Buffalo chicken sandwich and onion rings at Rocky Mountain Wingshak on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2011. SPENSER HEAPS/Daily Herald
Garden salad at Rocky Mountain Wingshak on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2011. SPENSER HEAPS/Daily Herald
Boneless buffalo wings with pineapple barbeque sauce at Rocky Mountain Wingshak on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2011. SPENSER HEAPS/Daily Herald
Rocky Mountain Wingshak is where it’s at.
After a recent visit, and with more than a slight nod to those quirky popsters the B-52s, we feel confident in saying that the Rocky Mountain Wingshak is a little old place where you can get together … to satisfy your craving for genuine Buffalo-style wings.
(Come on, admit it. You can already hear a background chorus in your head singing, “Wingshak, baby … Wingshak, baaay-beeee!”)
Another great thing about the Rocky Mountain Wingshak is you won’t have to bang, bang on the door, baby. No, it turns out you can just walk right in to the new Provo location and pick a table of your choosing — which was no problem during our late afternoon Saturday visit as we were the only non-employees in sight on site. That was not the case for long, however, with traffic steadily picking up as the main dinner crowd arrived during the course of our restaurant visit.
Patrons peruse a large menu on the wall and place their order at the front counter. Having never been to the Wingshak before — the Provo location opened on Sept. 19 and the original American Fork location has been around since 2006 — we were enthusiastically indoctrinated by the server behind the counter, who patiently explained all things wings.
Once we placed our order, we staked out a table in the middle of the room, right between two big-screen TVs that were tuned to a pair of different ESPN stations showing college football games. (It was late Saturday afternoon after all.) The volume on one of the TVs was actually loud enough to hear, which we liked, since one of our pet peeves is places with myriad TV options but the volume muted or turned too low to hear anything. What’s the point of that? We made a mental note that Rocky Mountain Wingshak would probably be a great place to watch a big game, and, indeed, the decor inside took on a sports theme with banners and jerseys representing BYU, Utah Valley University, and Provo and Timpview high schools. There was even a Jimmer Fredette Kings jersey — wishful thinking, perhaps, that the current NBA labor lockout will get solved before more of the Jimmer’s rookie season gets wasted.
In anticipation of whetting our wing appetite, we sampled a trio of side orders which were all excellent. The cheese sticks featured a crispy outside surrounding warm, melted mozzarella cheese that spilled out with every bite. We were intrigued by the garlic cheese fries, which were buttered in garlic and sprinkled with Parmeson. The onion rings may have been the best of all, with one member of our party remarking that these were the best rings they had sampled in a long, long time. It should also be noted that the Wingshak makes an excellent fry sauce to accompany its fries, tots and rings.
As for the wings, well, they were certainly worthy of being the centerpiece of any meal. Appropriately dubbed Amazing Wings on the menu, they are fried naked, then dipped in the sauce of your choice before serving. For every order of 10 wings, you can pick one sauce. We found ourselves wishing that we could have tried a few more sauce options, but settled for “mild” and “BBQ” on our order of 20 wings. Other flavors include medium, hot, XX, garlic pepper, hot garlic pepper, lemon pepper, hot Parmeson, pineapple BBQ, hot BBQ and teriyaki.
It should be noted that the mild flavor still packs a bit of a punch — but, admittedly, we rate as pilgrims when it comes to hot and spicy flavors, so judge accordingly. Both flavors, however, were augmented by frequent dips in the accompanying ranch dressing. Delicious!
We also tried an order of boneless wings. The large, meaty portions come accompanied with your choice of sauce and dressing — we opted for teriyaki and bleu cheese respectively — and were served in a crispy covering. They were definitely one of the highlights of our meal.
To get a bit fuller perspective of the non-wings portion of the menu, we also ordered the Chicken Salad and the Buffalo ‘Wich, and enthusiastically endorse each. The salad came topped with chicken and included bell pepper, cheese, slices of cucumber, tomato and croutons. We tried it with both ranch dressing and a side of pineapple BBQ sauce. We preferred the ranch, but put the BBQ pineapple sauce to good use on the mild wings to help sweeten things up.
The Buffalo ‘Wich was also fantastic and came with buffalo chicken meat on Texas toast along with BBQ sauce, tomato and lettuce.
Thrill seekers should persue the Wingshak Challenge, which stipulates that participants eat 12 boneless wings served in XXX hot sauce within 30 minutes, with no drink and no dressing for $9.99. Those that survive win a T-shirt, a $10 gift certificate and their picture on the Wingshak Wall of Fame. The wall was still empty on our visit, but owner Alan Whited said seven or eight brave souls have successfully completed the challenge and will soon be appropriately featured.
We’ll definitely be back to the Wingshak.
Where: 2255 N. University Pkwy, Suite 39, Provo
Original location: 456 E. State Road, American Fork
Prices: Wings $4.99 (for 5) up to $74.99 (for 100), salads $4.50-$6.85, sandwiches $1.95-$4.50, sides $.65-$3.99
Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily (closed Sundays)
Info: Provo (801) 377-4010, American Fork (801) 756-2667, www.wingshak.com