E Wing House serves up tasty wings and much more

Photos | E Wing House via Facebook

E Wing House
1956 S. University Blvd., Suite H
Mobile, AL 36609
251-725-2681

Football has blown by me at an alarming speed. These are always the fastest months of the year for me, often too busy for me to keep track of what’s going on. It starts with the new school year, a hectic time. Mid-season is full of turkey, presents and fireworks. The Super Bowl wraps it up with visions of Mardi Gras dancing in our Port City heads.

We call it “football season,” but you know there could be a strong argument in the restaurant world to rename it “chicken wing season.” It’s silly that I’ve not been more active in the wing world this year, so it’s better late than never. Let’s get one in before the Super Bowl!

My family is less than chicken wing crazy, so I needed a spot that was more than wings and fries. I knew I was taking an armload of food home with me to satisfy several cravings, so I ended up at E Wing House on University.

If you’re looking for something a little on the trashy side, this place delivers the goods. I’m not saying that in a derogatory way. I came here because the menu reminded me of things I would get at a carnival or outdoor music festival. I’m sure you have an image in your mind. My first order was jalapeño poppers ($5.99). A trashy lunch, I ate two of them on the way home.

When home, I set up the TV trays and killed a can of Diet Dr Pepper (it came with one of the meals) and doled out a slew of much-needed paper towels for the feast at hand that began with chili cheese nachos (small, $4.99). Ball park cheese smothered the chips like I’d have made when I was 10 years old and showing out. Canned chili like you’d find on a hot dog added an extra layer of elegance to the Styrofoam, and I never saw the bottom. There was simply too much for a small serving.

Closely akin to the nachos were the Big Daddy Fries ($9.99). This container must have weighed a few pounds due to the heavy helping of crinkle cuts, chili, black olives, jalapeños and two scoops of sour cream in the northeast and southwest corners (A+ for presentation!), but the real weight came from the cheese that filled every crevice.

Next came the wings. I asked my cashier, Youcarra, if she had a favorite sauce. She claims honey barbecue has a little bit of heat to it. I knew for my first attempt I should try just a regular hot on my 6-piece wing combo ($12.99). X-Hot, Danger and Killer are there for those of you who wish to sweat it out. I was just looking to set a pace.

Messy as can be, I found the wings to be really good, not too hot, but cooked well. It was also nice to have some fries, unmolested by toppings, for control. As far as revisiting the wings, there are about 20 more sauces from which to customize your order, so I’ll be back.

Katie is more of a chicken tender girl than a wing fiend, so I included a Philly cheesesteak ($10.99). Is it the best Philly ever? No. Is it a trashy version? Yes. Is it good? Yes. This six-incher was thick as a brick, and it was hard to see the peppers, onions and beef from all of the cheese covering it! The bread was soft, the flavor was there, and cut into small pieces, the whole family got to share.

At this point, we may have been through 20 pounds of food. Why not make it 25? That’s what I unintentionally did when I added the special of the day, a 2-Piece Catfish Combo with 6 shrimp ($15.99). That’s the proper name. A pair of giant fillets, with a decent amount of cornmeal in the batter, rested atop a bed of the same crinkle-cut fries from earlier.

Tender, juicy, but done, I was over the moon for the catfish. The only way it could have been better would be if it were bone-in. The shrimp were the flat, fried tail-on shrimp you’d find at a mall cafeteria or relative place. They were nothing to get excited about, but I was happy they were there.

I noticed on my receipt that there was a $0.00 charge for the catfish to be naked. This implies that perhaps one could order catfish doused in one of the 20-plus wing sauces. That could be a game-changer. I did see you could order tenders in a sauce. There was also Buffalo shrimp.

“Big Mama Sandwiches” take up a serious amount of real estate on the menu, and aside from the Philly, a chicken club, chicken bacon ranch, and the catfish and shrimp also make sandwich appearances. I was a little shocked to see they offer something called the Mobile Fat Burger. That sounds worth investigating. A place with these kinds of nachos, fries, wings and fish is bound to have a burger that is out of the ordinary. As its name indicates, like everything else we tasted, it should fill you up.

The other side orders seem like stuff you’d find at either a sports bar or a fried chicken joint. Cheese sticks, fried pickles, mushrooms, popcorn shrimp, okra, coleslaw, potato salad and hush puppies say more about this place than my first glance and hasty order. I love this kind of stuff. It’s perfect for game day, diet ending, fast breaking and trashy eating. You can always eat an extra Lipitor or return tomorrow for a crawfish salad!

Only a couple of games left. Football season is almost over. I thought this was an article about chicken wings, but E Wing House has so much more. Can we eat wings during basketball? Asking for a friend.