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| - "Cleat's - Home of the World's Best Wings" Are they freaking joking? Don't waste my time!
Cleat's boasts about its awesome wings and it's written on the front of every restaurant. The even call their website www.cleatswings.com
I figured, one of these days, I've got to try those wings, you know, since I'm a fan of good chicken wings. And any restaurant that boasts the world's best wings surely can back it up, RIGHT? WRONG! WTF?
So the wife and I were in Strongsville and I punched up the nearest Cleat's on my Garmin Nuvii. Sure enough, a Cleat's was conveniently located right around the corner from where we were.
Looking at Cleat's menu, I was impressed in that everything 'sounded' delicious. But I didn't want anything but chicken wings because I've been thinking about them for months. Cleats offers a wing sampler that comes with like 25 wings, five sauces or rubs, and fries or potato chips. Yippee!, I thought. I would be able to try many of the expectedly delicious sauces and rubs. I figured at least one of the five sauces had to be yummy. WRONG AGAIN!
We drank some delicous Dortmunder Gold, which they had on tap to our delight and watched a soccer game on a huge flat-screen TV while we waited for our grub. Our server was very attentive and friendly.
Finally, the food arrived. The wings looked really good even though I immediately noticed they weren't dripping with sauce the way I like. The huge stack of fries in the center of the platter caught my eye! The fries were yummy, not great, but decent. They were home made with part of the potato skin left on and they were flimsy and greasy. I prefer my fries big, tasty and not completely greasy.
Without further adieu, the wings were a total disappointment! They were small and kind of dry. They were not big or plump, as expected. The sauces tasted bad except for the honey mustard. Yes. I said it. I didn't like four of the five sauces I tried. The sauces we tried were the Lake Erie Dry Rub, Cajun Dry Rub, Mild Barbecue, Honey Mustard and Teriyaki. Did I say I was disappointed? Totally. My wife was not impressed either.
The honey mustard was actually decent, but the wings weren't very big, which sucked. I would've thought the honey mustard was good, but since the wings themselves were crappy in size and texture...
None of the sauces were great. Both of the dry rubs were spicy, but that was all. They didn't have any real flavor behind them and they tasted the same rofl. The Teriyaki was probably the next worst followed by the mild barbecue, which wasn't half bad. The most important characteristics of a good chicken wing to me is SIZE, quantity of sauce, flavor of sauce, moisture level of the meat and skin, tenderness of the meat, and heat.
Based on this dining experience, I do not recommend these wings AT ALL. I have yet to try the other dishes on the menu and they did 'sound' delicious. I hope to return to try the other items, but I definitely will not waste my time on wings. If I want wings, I'm going to Quaker Stake & Lube or Blue Moose. These other restaurants have excellent wings by my standards.
If we try Cleat's again, it will be the newly-opened Parma Heights location instead of the Strongsville location.
If Cleat's is going to maintain its stance on "Home of the World's Best Wings", they need to go back to the drawing board and find a new chicken supplier and a new sauce magician. Otherwise, I'm going to look at the sign scratching my head as I drive by on my way to a real chicken wing establishment.
http://www.cleatswings.com/
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