Hot Wings Bracket, Round 1: All-Star vs. Ching’s Wings

The second match-up of the first round of the Hot Wings Bracket is sweet and spicy duel between the honey hot wings at All-Star and Ching's Wings.

Here’s how the first round works: In the first round, I’m going to try half orders of  wet wings (meaning, with sauce) from each restaurant. If I have honey hot wings at one wing joint, that's what I'll have at its opponent. I’ll lay out my thoughts on each offering, and you guys will have 24 hours to vote in the poll at the bottom of the post. I’ll cast my vote, too, and the winner will move on to the next round. You can only vote once in each match up.

Let's meet the contenders:

All-Star Hot Wings

10 honey hot "party wings" (half wings), fries and "blue drink", about $9.

Ching's honey hot wings were also served in a to-go container, but I ate every single one at the restaurant. The skins were crisp, the meat was juicy, and the sauce was firey enough to satisfy my need for heat, but had enough honey to be just the right ammount of sweet.

The wings were fairly coated in sauce, but it stuck to the chicken pretty well, leaving just enough in the to-go box to sop up with the included roll. The fries were standard crinkle cut fries, but Ching's dresses them up with some of the same lemon pepper seasoning they use on their dry-rub wings.

When I went around dinner time (on a week night), there were a lot of people eating at the restaurant, inculding what had to be the entirety of the U of M softball team. Ching's is also the only place I know of where you can watch seven different basketball games simultaneously in a room the size of my kitchen while photos of smiling Tiger athletes smile from frames that have been nailed to every available surface.

Napkin rating: again, about 10, but Ching's goes the extra mile and puts both hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes on every table.

So, who's it going to be? You've got until 5 p.m. tomorrow to cast your vote. The winner will go up against Bosses in the second round.