Hooters on a Monday night is perhaps not the place to go if you're looking for a relaxing wind-down after work. There's loud cheering at the sports on the TVs, the clattering of the open kitchen and quite a lot of tables without much space to separate them. But the reason why it is so busy tonight is most likely because of its Monday offer - all-you-can-eat chicken wings for £11.99 per person.
The three of us all opt for the wings offer. We also order a four-pint pitcher of Bud Light (£20.70) to share between two and a large glass of pinot grigio (£6.44). We choose one plate of hot wings, one of lemon pepper rub wings and one of the garlic habanero rub wings. Within 10 minutes, the waitress has returned, but only one out of the three plates is correct. It's good news for me as I can get stuck in to my hot wings without delay, but my fellow diners have to wait another five minutes.
We attempt to return the two incorrect plates to our waitress but she insists they are unlimited so we might as well keep them. We hadn't touched the incorrect wings so perhaps they could have been redistributed to another table. It did feel a little wasteful. Five minutes pass and the waitress comes back with two more plates of wings, but one of them is incorrect again. This time the waitress is a little more persuaded to take back the incorrect order when she sees that our table of three now has four full plates of wings with another - hopefully this time correct - one on the way.
The hot wings are delightfully spicy and - best of all - they are slightly breaded in that way that wings often are in the US but rarely are in the UK. Crispy, meaty and just shy of my spice threshold. Perfect, quite frankly. The garlic habanero wings are of the 'rub' variety, so they are dry and fully breaded and fried. This makes them chunkier and more substantial than the hot wings. The lemon pepper rub wings are perhaps a little bland for my personal taste, but not everyone is a fan of hot spice.
The two plates we didn't order - parmesan garlic and Daytona Beach - keep us going for a little longer and, having got through five plates of wings between the three of us, we are stuffed. The parmesan garlic wings are similar to the lemon pepper in that they are not too spicy and lightly flavoured, but perhaps not much to write home about. The Daytona Beach wings - somewhere between BBQ sauce and buffalo sauce - are sauced rather than rubbed and had a really quite interesting flavour.
Feeling particularly full and with half a pitcher of beer still to get through, I take a look around the restaurant and it is rather spookily just like being in the US. The largely wood-based interior, the sports on the TVs and the friendliness of the waitresses all ring true to that distinctly American style of hospitality. While I do enjoy a chicken wing at home, I had long since given up on the hope of eating the superior American style of wing without boarding a seven-hour flight. Now I know that I can get them much closer to home, I will certainly be returning.
