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Dirty Lickins, a closer look
Aloha!
8/4/09 - Instead of having hibachi times at our house, as is usually the case, we've suddenly found another very cool hangout - Trace and Renee's house is just as fun a place to be, with a newly-renovated, swank set-up that looks and feels, from certain angles, like a New York penthouse! It also comes pretty close to having a feature that one day, somehow, someway, I will have at my own home - an indoor hibachi!!! Here, it actually sits in a patio area. In my dream home, I don't mind having the grill in a patio like at Trace and Renee's, so long as there's giant sliding doors connecting it to the living room/kitchen of the house, which in effect serve to fuse the two areas together into one giant room, just like you see in all those fancy Real Estate books!
Yup, my indoor hibachi, right next to the deep-fryer, broiler oven, range, and extra-deep sink (we'll keep the smoker outside!), will be the center of activities, with a super-suction air vent right above that'll not allow one single molecule of smoke to take-up residence in the cushy fibers of the carpet, curtains, and couches. Bordering everything, a huge granite or Corian counter will make us all feel like the Knight's at the Round Table, fresh from a victorious battle, ready to devour a whole side of beef straight off the fire!
But as for now, Trace's fancy grill was aaalll good for me, as it felt like a Cadillac compared to my cheapo grill! Wifey and I got there a little late, so Big Al was already starting with his famous and very delicious herb meats, this time chicken, made from a variety of herbs grown in his own backyard:
Not sure why, but instead of bringing something raw to grill, which I'll always do at my house (in addition to other cooked items!), I instead picked-up a few already-cooked items from a spot I've been meaning to try for a while now. It's called Dirty Lickin's, and here, it's all about deep-fried chicken wings. Located right next to The Alley restaurant and Aiea Bowl at the Aiea Shopping Center, this little-known spot goes through a whole lotta wings, which come either in combination plates or ala carte, in sizes that range from 5 pieces for $4.05, 10 pieces for $7.95, and all the way up to break-out-the-calculator numbers like 200 pieces for $147 and 500 for $357!
In addition to wings, there's yet a few other options, such as salads, wraps, chili, katsu, teriyaki chicken, chicken tenders, kalbi, and pork chops, as well as starter or pupu dishes like onion rings, mozzarella sticks, jalapeno poppers, fries, and cheese fries. Individual serving plates come with an entree, rice, a small green salad, and your choice of either cole slaw, macaroni salad, or potato salad. Recent additions include corn dogs, popcorn chicken, and sandwiches of chicken parmesan or cheesesteak. And just like that, I just gave you the entire menu!
Since we were headed-out to Trace's house, we went ala carte with everything, beginning with an order of onion rings:
Ok, by the time we got to the rings, they'd been sitting for a while, enclosed in styrofoam, so they weren't exactly the best representations here, having become soggy from all that entrapped moisture. But I can only imagine, had they been eaten fresh at Dirty Lickin's itself, that they'd be pretty darn good - it sure looks like the golden-brown, deep-fried batter and wide circles of onion that make this dish sing, yes?
Though you'll never find me with chicken fingers, chicken tenders, chicken strips, etc. myself, except when ordering for my nieces and nephews (aaah, but McDonald's chicken Mcnuggets are the exception!), curiosity always gets the better of me, and I had to grab a small order just to see how they were. To no surprise, actually, what I found was pretty much in-line with what I expected, save for the honey mustard sauce it was coated with, which I loved. The chicken itself definitely looked like breast meat, which will always be dry in all but the best circumstances, and the panko breading was applied a bit amateurishly, so I don't think I'll be ordering this again. But it was good to find out, and on the brighter side (there's always a brighter side, you know!), people like my mom, who love the cleaner, whiter breast area, would probably have been happy with the large sections of meat given.
Not sure how the other dishes taste, but I do have a sneaking suspicion that chicken wings are, indeed, the best thing on the menu here. Besides, if you screw up chicken wings, you really don't deserve to be in the kitchen anyway! I mean, how can you go wrong with such delicious, tender morsels of meat, sandwiched in and around, and so close to, flavor-providing bones and cartilage, then wrapped completely with fat and skin, crisped-up by the magic of deep-frying?
Keep in mind that these wings are all done Buffalo-style, or deep-fried, then tossed in sauces of your choice. There are five basic sauces - bbq, garlic, teriyaki, honey mustard (which you saw earlier on the tenders), and Buffalo, which arrives in the traditional coating of butter and hot sauce (not sure if they add other elements here), and in five different levels of heat.
The first batch of ten wings we ordered were prepared in the traditional way, and at the volcanic level, which is one level before the very spiciest choice.
Good heat, good flavor, decent-sized pieces of chicken. Not bad at all.
Next was a batch of garlic wings. Would have enjoyed a bit stronger garlic flavor, and unlike the local-style garlic chicken you see everywhere, which basically comes with a garlic-infused, dark teriyaki sauce, this one was without shoyu, staying truer to a pure and simple garlic format, a fact which I actually appreciated very much.
You know, one curious thing I found at Dirty Lickin's was that nowhere on the menu can you find a simple, batter-covered wing. You see, buffalo wings don't normally come with any batter or flour at all - they go right into the deep-fryer and are then coated only with sauces. Yeah, that's a good thing in a whole lotta ways, and they are delicious, but all I'm asking for is an option, is all! If left with the choice, I'd probably have ordered at least one batch without any sauces at all, only salt, pepper, and a flour or batter covering - I don't care how you fancify your wings, but this simple style is perhaps the most satisfying way to go, in an old-school, nostalgic, warm-the-soul kind of way, at least. It's like burgers, it is. You can get the fancy stuff once in a while, infused with Wagyu, foie gras, and bleu cheese, but you always, always return to the basics, and it just never, ever gets old.
But I don't mind the tricks here and there. It's all good. Here's the last batch, covered in good ol' American bbq sauce:
Does Dirty Lickin's have killer wings? Well, like I said, you can't go wrong with wings, so in that sense, if it's wings you want, I wouldn't hesitate sending people here. Are they better than anywhere else? Hmm... I wouldn't say that, either for the better, or for the worse, actually. But besides the lack of a simple, batter-fried wing, the different sauces they are tossed in make great options for your next get-together or party - I have no doubt that people will enjoy them, but if they begin comparing, then the following conversations will probably be filled with varying differences and degrees of opinion.
But like I said, you'll probably enjoy them just as I have, so why not make sure for yourself? There are several tables there, both inside and outside, and you'll need to order and pick-up at the counter, plate lunch style, so go ahead and try a combination plate, and they'll be even better than the batches I had above, which sat for about an hour before we ate them.
Hope you're all having a fine week, go out and make the best of it, as always!
Take care and Aloha till next time!
Aku
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