This week, Shingetsu Japanese Restaraunt on South Florida Avenue:

“I was a little apprehensive about going to a Japanese Sushi Bar & Grill for Wingsday but I understand that that we must be diverse in our reviews (What - do you want us to discriminate against a place because it’s not a sports bar?). As we walked in we noticed that the restaurant was clean and easy on the eyes. Our hostess (restaurant owner) even wiped down our table before we sat down which was reassuring. Although the menu listed Chicken Wings (listed as Cho-Kara) as an available option I was a little concerned about what the “special sauce” was? We had plans to order a few wings and then maybe another entrée just in case the wings didn’t work out. Our waitress (restaurant owner) who was full of spunk came out and instantly sold us on how good the wings were so I ordered 12 of them in the “special sauce”, forget the entrée.

We were told that it would take about 15 to 20 minutes for everything to cook but it seemed more like 30 to 40 minutes. The waitress understood that it was taking longer than expected so she brought us out some Edamame (We called them Japanese French fries, but they were really soy beans) to curb our appetite. The wings arrived and again I was a little concerned with the “special sauce” it didn’t look all of that appetizing (The closest I can come to describing it is like the parmesean wings at Hooters, at least in sauce appearance/consistency). The wings themselves were quite large, had loads of meat of them, and when I finally bit into them I determined that they were cooked to near perfection. The sauce that I had been so worked up about was tasty as well with a small touch of heat. Our waitress continued to amuse us with her wing talk and made our experience pleasurable. The prices weren’t bad either for the quality/quantity of the wings (12 wings/$9.95).”
–Shawn

“Shingetsu can be defined as “enlightenment of the mind” according to the lazyweb. We were referred to this Japanese eating establishment because of its highly ranked wings at a Chamber of Commerce sampling. This is the first time I’ve ever had edamame with my wings. I guess edamame is Japanese for French fries. The wings were very large and of good quality. They were fried to near perfection. The “special sauce” however, leaves something to be desired. They were not at all hot. The sauce was the tangy pink-orange-white concoction that you find as a staple at many Japanese steak houses. It often goes by the names shrimp sauce, yum yum sauce, or sakura sauce. I’m glad I tried them, but would likely not eat chicken wings at Shingetsu again. I doubt that my mind was enlightened much during this visit to Shingetsu. Perhaps I’ll opt for sushi at my next visit. Shingetsu is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to eat wings there.”
–Steve

“Imagine my excitement when I found out that we were going to hold Wingsday at a Japanese Sushi Bar & Grill. My two favorite things all in one place, IN ONE DAY! I got a little crap for my order, but I will justify it in a minute. I got a half order (6) of the wings, and an order of the Spicy Tuna Roll. As you may well guess, people judged me ordering sushi on Wingsday (Yes - he’s talking about me.  I’m a judger.  It’s called Wingsday for a reason!). I like to just think of it as a side order of fries.

The wings came out in no time at all after about 40 minutes, which makes an hour long lunch break difficult. They were covered with the “secret sauce” which is a scary term in an Asian bistro. Basically, the special sauce turned out to be that mayonnaise based dipping sauce you get at a hibachi grill. It was ok. The wings were good in size, more comparable to Decisions than any other place I have gotten wings in a while. The server/cook/owner/hostess/short, loud Asian woman said they would be too hot for us, and that we should order rice as well - just in case we couldn’t eat the wings. These wings had no heat to them at all. My Spicy Tuna Roll had more of a kick with my soy sauce/wasabi concoction.

As for the sushi? Listen. Tuna is commonly know as “chicken of the sea.” Just ask Jessica Simpson. So, with a little kick from the wasabi, my tuna has now become buffalo chicken. Very justifiable (Hardly.  But funny). ”
–Mike

“Shingetsu – the name alone made me think more of Bourbon “Chicken” than Chicken Wings. So I showed up, expecting the worst.

But I was pleasantly surprised. As I arrived 30 minutes late, the wings were just being served as a sat down. They were very large – comparable to the famed Decision’s Wings that has been our baseline for wing-size.

They were cooked perfectly (I’m with you on this.  As far as cooking a wing goes, you can’t do it better than Shingetsu). I mean that. Crispy on the outside, steaming hot on the inside. And all that meat – cooked thoroughly. The sauce – I cannot begin to describe the flavor here. It had a tiny kick of heat with an oriental flair. Not the “teriyaki” Orient – the honest-to-goodness taste of Japan. I think. I was never good at geography. Unlike anything we’ve tasted thus far, in a good way. Wingalicious.

The service was second-to-none. Our waitress/chef/owner was attentive, friendly, and just talkative enough to not be over-bearing. She said we can call-ahead next time and they’d start cooking. She even offered to bring additional wing sauce, hot sauce, snap beans, etc. It could have been that we were only one of two parties in there, but it was probably my ravishing good looks and boyish charm (I’m sure it was your ravishing good looks and boyish charm; although, now that I think about it, didn’t you show up, like, 30 seconds before we ate?).

The ambiance was not that of what one would normally think of when dining on Wings – it was a nicely decorated, typical Sushi Bar. Not the beer-swilling, peanut-shells-on-the-ground, forty-two-70-inch-televisions-at-every-corner establishment like we’re used to. The frat-boy in me wants to deduct points because of this, but the grown-up in me likes the nutritious shredded wheat! upscale part of it all.

Now I finally have a place I can bring my wife to for Sushi and Sake, while I can chow down on man-food.”
–Scott

(Please note - this review is a week late - since most of our traffic comes on Wednesday, we’ve decided to hold our reviews back one week and publish on Wednesday. Just keeping you in the loop.)

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This week, Champs Sports Bar, in South Lakeland. We’ve heard about Champs for years, but several of us had never been - that’s been remedied. I’m pretty sure it won’t be years before we go back. The reviews:

“O.K. guys, today is the first day of my vacation. I don’t really want to
think a lot about everything (or anything), so this is not going to be like my typical
reviews. Here we go:

• wings were pretty good, I got Hail Mary and Sweet Hot
• Hail Mary had good heat; I didn’t care for the Sweet Hot
• restrooms were very clean
• restaurant atmosphere was nice. I liked it (I did too. I thought it was a different, but very cool atmosphere).
• service was very prompt, even though our waitress was spaced out. She
may have had a mental disorder, so I don’t want to talk too much trash (he totally nailed this. She was a good waitress, just out there somewhere).

Alright, I’m going to St. Augustine (Evidently, whenever you have decent wings with a spaced out waitress, the appropriate response is to go to St. Augustine. Who knew?). See you next week.”
–Mike

“Today was my first Wingsday experience, and let me just say I was nervous. These guys are professionals and I didn’t want to ruffle any feathers (Is that a wing joke? Because it’s pretty funny).

I ordered 6 honey bbq and 6 teriyaki wings (We’ll call this the “woman’s platter”) I passed on the 75 cent fries, because they weren’t the crinkly kind, and we all know that those are hands down the best kind of fries ever. The first wing I picked up was delicious, I think I even exclaimed out loud how wonderful it was. I thought it was the honey bbq…I found out quickly, after I picked up a wing from the other side of the plate, it was a teriyaki. Silly me (obviously, we’re not all professionals). Either way they were both pretty good. The wings were big…2 or 3 mouthfuls per wing (and some would say I have a big mouth). The honey bbq weren’t good to me, but I don’t like bbq. I don’t know why I ordered them, I think I was just nervous and we were late and I needed to say something, so I picked them. The teriyaki more than made up for it though, ’cause they were really teriyawesome (Wow. Just wow.). I even ended up with sauce on my neck…so you know I was into it.

Miscellaneous:
The waitress was nice, but spaced out.
The ceiling had glow-in-the-dark stars on it w/ black lights. RAVE!
Somehow, my Dr. Pepper got refilled with sweet tea, and I didn’t notice until Scottie pointed it out to me (This has got to be reassuring to our readers. “Reviewer didn’t notice sweet tea mixed with Dr. Pepper. I’m sure she can tell the difference between good wings and bad.”). Guess I was spaced out too.
You can get 12 wings and a drink for $6.99, and ad fries for 75 cents, so that is a really good lunch deal.

I’d go back.”
–Emily (special guest reviewer, and wife of Mike. It’s also important to note a couple of things - a. Emily was in charge of photos for this week, and b. I’m sure the photos are safe, up in St. Augustine)

“Champs was one of the first places to do a lot of things “right” in my eyes (Finally. 12 wing establishments and we found one that does a lot of things right. I’m kidding. Sortof). For starters, seating and TVs abound… probably more televisions than any place we’ve been to yet. Not to mention the fact that there were 5 of us in a booth and there was still ample room.

The wings came out extremely quickly – this is both a positive and negative statement. Positive because we were hungry, negative because we learned that during the “lunch special” they continuously cook wings, ordered or not. This leads me to believe that there might be some heat-lamp action going on during slower lunch hours, but I digress (I thought the same thing, but I have no complaints about the quality based on our experience).

I ordered 12 wings, with fries and a drink (For less than 8 bucks!)– 6 “Garlic” and 6 “Hail Mary,” a step below their hottest wing. With the continuous cooking of wings, I think it’s a fair bet that nearly all wings are “made-to-order” by dipping them in whatever sauce you order right before they hit your plate. The Garlic wings tasted like the garlic-butter you get with a Shrimp Scampi. Not that great, and not very “strong” like our waitress warned us. They were a far cry from Kau’s ButterGarlic wings, my personal (yet unreviewed) favorite wing. The Hail Marys (“Maries?” – change “Y” to an “I” and add “es” ?? (This is why I love Scott - he writes his own jokes)) had a decent flavor but lacked the “kick” of heat I would expect from a second-hottest wing. Now I wish I had tried “Lava.” At least they were temperature-hot, and crispy. Not extremely tasty though. I will say Travis’ Hot-Garlic mix were the best wings I sampled.

The 75 cent fries were 25 cents worth of fries with 0 cents worth of salt/seasoning thrown on a plate. I need a gansta refund – I want my 50 cent. [Alternate Joke “50 cents worth of fries… I feel like The Dolphins – I need a Quarterback.”] (ummm, maybe you should leave the jokes to me)

The waitress was attentive, but apathetic, and… out there. One of the wingmen called her a Space Cadet, and I feel it suits her; she appeared to be in a helpless orbit around the restaurant, governed by some unknown force that made her visit our table every 20 minutes like a wayward comet… completely devoid of all intelligent life. Don’t drink that Kool-Aid, kids. (See - I’ve got nothin’ to add to that paragraph. It’s perfect.)

Overall I’d return to Champs. The fact that my buddy Josh (Which was an UNBELIEVABLY nice gesture) picked up everyone’s tab may have me biased. The atmosphere was great. The manager who visited our table (twice) was friendly. The waitress was… a good conversation piece. And the wings… well, maybe I’d just order a few beers. And invite Josh.”
–Scott

“Today we went to Champs Sports Bar & Grill, which I’ve heard of and seen but never visited. When we walked in the first thing that caught our eye was the black lighting and the glow in the dark items (stickers?) on the ceiling. It was interesting to say the least and isn’t something you see in every restaurant Bar & Grill. Once we got past that little distraction we noticed that everything was well laid out and seemed very clean. We sat down to read the menu and quickly discovered that we may have found the best deal on wings in town. There at the top of a menu, that seems to contain well over 100 items, was a deal that gets you 12 wings and a drink (even a beer if so inclined) for $6.95. The deal became even sweeter when we found out we could get a side of fries for $0.75 more (as someone who moves among wing-type circles, this is a fantastic value). Not knowing how filling everything was going to be I ordered 12 wings half hot and half Cajun with a side of fries.

The food came out about 10 minutes after we ordered and everything looked well prepared. The wings were medium-large to large in size (pretty close to Decisions) and I was impressed with the quality of the chicken (me too - not a lot of broken wings). The hot had good flavor and although they weren’t overwhelming they did have a little kick to them. There are two other levels of hot including Hail Mary (one level above hot) and Lava (The hottest). Some of the other reviewers ordered the Hail Mary wings and again I thought that they had a good flavor with a nice kick. No one tried the Lava wings however I’m sure they would have been just as good and should have brought some heat. The Cajun wings were a little on the bland side, I wasn’t impressed. Most of us quickly realized that the wings were very filling and we could have done without the fries which were just OK nothing to write home about (I want to hang out here for a second - it’s amazing how many places we ate at where, no matter how many wings we ate, we could leave and get milkshakes. Not the case with this place.).

The entire experience was very pleasant and it got even better when a friend (Josh) of our friends had the waitress come over after he had left to tell us that he was picking up the tab. We were all little shocked (very grateful) as this doesn’t happen very often in today’s world. Travis and I had only met this gentleman about 45 minutes earlier so we were taken back by the display of generosity. There were a few service slip-ups for a couple of the reviewers (imagine how Dr. Pepper/Tea or Coke/Tea taste when mixed together, probably not very good) but overall I felt the waitress and the other workers in the restaurant were nice and attentive. In my opinion champs may not be the best place we’ve been so far but I feel that it ranks very close to the top (I guess we’ll see about that).”
–Shawn

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Steve’s Rankings:

1. Kazbor’s Grille
2. Decision’s
3. Beef O’Brady’s
4. The Winner’s Circle
5. Bedrock Cafe
6. KauKau Koner
7. Ker’s Winghouse
8(tie). The Gym
8(tie). Salem’s
8(tie). Hooters
8(tie). Chili’s
8(tie). Ale Gators

Keep in mind that we realize these aren’t all of the wing establishments in Lakeland - our quest is far from over. Also, it’s important to note that these are ranked on 6 subjective criteria: Wings, Heat, Variety, Service, Value, and Atmosphere.

Steve’s Individual Leaders
Best Wing: (tie) Decision’s/Kazbor’s
Best Heat: (tie) KauKau Koner/Kazbor’s
Best Variety: (tie) Decision’s/Winner’s Circle/Beef O’Brady’s
Best Service: Decision’s
Best Value: (tie) Kazbor’s/Salem’s
Best Atmosphere: Kazbor’s

Tomorrow, we’ll let you inside Mike’s head (scary!) . . .

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