The last time I did a chicken themed place I opened with a furious cluckster of puns. Well, not this thyme. Cluck U isn’t the place for jerks who make puns and want to get jalapeño business. Only bring your sweetest attitude if you don’t want to catch some poppers. People think this easy but it is mustarder than you think. Air Spud all day.
With that out of the way. Cluck University is a fast food (?) joint right on First and Washington specializing in all things chicken and even burgers. If you like wings, tenders, sandwiches, wraps, salads, burgers, fries, onion rings, buns, and all the bells and whistles of sauces that come with it, Cluck U is the place for U. While it certainly caters to the cheap, greasy food crowd (we all need that occasionally, admit it), don’t be fooled. Cluck U’s quality is leagues above your average bar wings. Finally, they’re even Halal, and their website claims you can order up to **2500** wings at once. Just wow.
Given that trains last weekend were running local because of the incident at Penn Station, I decided I better load up on food for the long, arduous journey. I ordered a 15 piece of Caribbean jerk wings, a medium order of sweet chili barbecue fries, an order of onion rings, a bottle of water (which I forgot to grab), and an order of cinnabees to top it all off. It was all out within 15 minutes.
Overall, I’d say I was quite impressed. Cluck U has been capturing my eye for a while now, and I’m glad they delivered as strongly as they did. The wings were not quite as crispy as I personally would have preferred, but they more than made up for that in terms of flavor and quality of the wing. These wings were not covered in fat with barely any meat towards the center. These were REAL chicken wings, which just shows how much quality of the ingredient can influence your end result. The sauce was also the perfect combination of sweet, tangy, and smokey to complement the meat. As an interesting side note, while I didn’t find the wings particularly hot, my friends claimed their lips were on fire despite not tasting much heat also.
The “spuds” were also very nicely made. They weren’t your typical McDonald’s fries, but they also weren’t entirely baked potatoey. I’d say they struck a great medium and were just the perfect size and texture for maximum munching alongside your wings. The sauce I got with them, the sweet chili, was definitely more of a conventionally hot sauce, and it was absolutely delicious. It was sweet, a little sour, and had a nice chili flavor throughout that went great with the wings. I definitely recommend the sweet chili sauce in particular and the spuds in general.
The onion rings and cinnabees were also very good. The onions were perfectly caramelized and the outer breading was not just a mess of a shell that would fall off hopelessly. It was a nicely fried, though not as crunchy as I would have preferred, breading that went very nicely with the inner onion. Finally, the cinnabees were great but also very standard. They reminded me very heavily of monkey bread. If you are feeling a doughy pastry after Cluck U, their “bees” will definitely satisfy you.
Cluck U is a great place to go if you’re craving anything chicken. Their menu is quite big for such a speciality place, its also quite accommodating. If you need particularly chrunchy wings, I might shy away, but if you don’t mind something a little different, their wings are some of the best in town.
Location: 4/5
Food: 4/5
Service: 4/5
Price: $$
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