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closeWednesday, Nov. 18, 2009
Pluckers’ delicious diet-busting feasts break the wing-chain trend
Don't chicken out on the drool-worthy feast at Pluckers -- unless you're on a diet.
By Christopher Kelly
Last summer, I was visiting a friend stationed at Fort Hood, and after a long and edifying tour around the base, I offered to buy him dinner. He didn’t hesitate before suggesting we go to Pluckers Wing Bar.
"I’m happy to spring for something a little fancier," I assured him.
His response was definitive: "Trust me, it’s the best restaurant in Killeen."
Turns out my friend knew what he was talking about. In the crowded field of chicken-wing emporiums — Hooters, Wingstop, Buffalo Wild Wings and so forth — Pluckers manages a unique feat: With its clever menu choices and sophisticated service, this place hardly seemed like a chain at all. When I found out that a Pluckers would be opening in Tarrant County this fall, I began marking off the days on my calendar. (There are locations in Dallas on Greenville Avenue, San Marcos, Baton Rouge, and five in Austin, where the mini-chain originated.)
Pluckers finally arrived last month as part of the ever-expanding Arlington Highlands, and a recent visit confirmed that my Killeen experience was no fluke. This place is big, both in spirit and in size. The dining room features dozens of big-screen TVs tuned to sports. The portions are large. Even the lemonade arrives in a Mason jar the size of a fortuneteller’s crystal ball.
We started with the homemade potato chips with warm blue cheese ($6.99), an outrageously indulgent appetizer that just keeps piling on the calories. (It also comes topped with chunks of bacon.) The chips, dusted in barbecue-flavored seasoning, were firm and not too greasy; the melted blue cheese had a terrifically piquant kick. The dish describes Pluckers in a nutshell: It takes a bunch of familiar, unhealthy ingredients and reconfigures them into something surprisingly original and even unhealthier.
Of course, a wing bar lives and dies on the strength of its wings. Pluckers offers the boneless or bone-in variety, which come in servings of five to 100. You also choose among 16 sauces in which your wings will be cooked.
We opted for both the 10-wing lunch special ($9.24), which comes with a side, and the a la carte 10-wing platter ($8.24). Of the five sauces we tried, our favorites were the spicy mandarin, an almost perfect balance of hot and sweet, and the spicy ranch, which transforms the wings into crispy, salty wonders. The Dr Pepper sauce provides a mildly sweet, faintly syrupy coating that divided our table (I was its biggest fan). Similarly divisive was the "Goldrush" sauce, which is advertised on the menu as sweet and tangy — I thought it could have used a little more tang. The only across-the-table disappointment, ironically, was the Buffalo sauce, which tasted a little too generic and under-seasoned.
The wings themselves are unusually plump and juicy — in a phrase, pluckin’ good. Our major gripe was that you can’t mix-and-match more sauces. Our server insisted that each sauce had to be applied to a minimum of five wings, even though we told him we didn’t care how much extra we would be charged. And while we’re normally apt to turn against a restaurant that’s a stickler for rules, the management was nothing if not accommodating and brought us additional sauces for dipping.
To see how Pluckers fared with sandwiches, we also ordered the Big Easy ($9.49), a plump, Cajun-flavored piece of boneless chicken that comes topped with jalapeños and honey mustard. It was a bit messier than we might have preferred (it almost instantly fell apart), but the flavor combinations were intriguing, and the chicken was flawlessly cooked.
We didn’t order dessert, though one of our sides — cinnamon sugar-dusted sweet potato fries that tasted curiously like churros — served basically the same function. (Another of the sides, the macaroni and cheese, set our collective diets back about six weeks, and it was worth every caloric bite.) And while Pluckers isn’t necessarily cheap (our bill for three came to $53.28 before tip, though we probably ordered enough for four), we all left satisfied and stuffed.
One final note: We returned to our offices following our lunchtime Pluckers expedition and learned about the tragic mass shootings at Fort Hood. I’m relieved to say that my friend stationed there is safe, but my thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of the victims. It was a sobering reminder that members of our military put their lives on the line each day in order to protect our freedoms and guarantee that the rest of us can go on happily stuffing our faces with chicken wings. Their extraordinary sacrifices should never be forgotten or taken for granted.
Arlington
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