While Buffalo may not have made it to the Super Bowl, you can bet plenty of folks will be diving into that city’s famous wings at parties everywhere this Sunday.
And yet NBC Chicago's Food Guy Steve Dolinsky takes the road less traveled, a trio of chicken wings, inspired by three different Asian countries.
Buffalo may have served as inspiration, but there’s no denying the chicken wings at Cà Phê Dá and Dang Good Wings in Pilsen take their cue from Vietnam.
“I wanted to treat it like Buffalo wings where I dredge it, and then fry it and have a sauce separately and tossing in it,” said Thai Dang, the chef and owner.
Marinated in fish sauce, sugar, chilies and garlic, the wings are dredged in cornstarch and rice flour before being fried for the first time.
“Which gives it this really crispy texture on the outside,” Dange said.
They’re fried a second time to-order, then tossed in a vibrant, lip-smacking sauce of fish sauce, sugar, fresh Thai chilies, garlic and scallions. A riff on the Buffalo version contains sriracha and Thai chile, balanced by sugar and garlic.
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Both flavors are dang good.
“Perfect match for my last name, right?” said Dang.
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Korean fried chicken – both as sandwiches and wings – has been the heart of the menu at Crisp in Lakeview the past 18 years. The style is notable for its two-step frying, as well as the saucing options.
“We do pressure fry at the beginning, so it coats and makes it nice and juicy – forms a shell – and then we do a second open fry to really get it crisp, and then it’s infused with some sauce on the outside,” said owner Jae Lee.
The crispy bird is doused in one of two sauces, finished with sesame seeds and scallions.
“Seoul Sassy is a soy-ginger-garlic, more like a sweet soy glaze; Crisp BBQ is based on a gochujang – it’s a smoky, sweet pepper paste – so it has that familiar flavor of barbecue sauce but not tomato-based; it’s a little more spicy,” Lee said.
Up in Albany Park, Great Sea is one of a handful of restaurants left still serving Gam Pong chicken wings.
“In the early 1980s, a lot of ethnically Chinese Koreans moved to Albany Park, and they made this dish that was actually something they made back in Korea, but they noticed that wings in the United States were so cheap, so they said instead of doing the whole chicken, let’s just use wings,” said Monica Eng, co-author of the book "Made in Chicago: Stories Behind 30 Great Hometown Bites."
Unlike wings at your favorite bar, these are transformed, thanks to the creators’ ingenuity.
“But it’s kind of messy, so let’s make a little handle by Frenching the wings and making them lollipop wings,” she said.
Great Sea also makes a different sauce than its competitor down the street.
“Made it spicier, stickier and sweeter and they actually sell the sauce here now,” said Eng.
There’s also Bonchon and CM Chicken doing Korean-style wings, both with multiple locations in the Chicago area.
Here's where you can go:
Cà Phê Dá – Dang Good Wings
1800 S. Carpenter St.
773-999-1800
2940 N. Broadway
773-697-7610
3253 W. Lawrence Ave.
773-478-9129
9 locations in the Chicago area
6 locations in the Chicago area
