Anchorage Tavern
Work had yet again brought me back to Somers Point, NJ, but still left me with the almighty dinner task of where to go to find great wings. Though there are a lot of supposed great eateries in the Shore area, Anchorage Tavern came recommended, so I decided to give them a spin. With a grumbling belly and happy hour on my side, I made my way into this pub to soothe the savage beast that is my craving for awesome wings.
The place was pretty empty when I made my way to the stool, which didn’t really surprise me seeing how it was only 4:30pm. It did, however, allow me to have a clear view of some Vodka peddler giving his all to convince the bartender that she needed his Sugar Free, Gluten Free drink that has little protein so you… get this… don’t get hung over. Needless to say, it was a quick spurt of comedy for yours truly as I waited to get my menu to see what style of Buffalo wings they had to offer. When it arrived, I saw that there were three options to choose from: Easy, Spicy, or Blistering. This, to me, felt like I had my pickin’ of three sauces, but later I found out by the waiter that “Easy” was just a way of saying “on the side,” thus allowing the individual to control his or her sauce intake. So, in reality it was just the two: Spicy (which is a mild) and “Blistering” (which is supposed to do what the name suggests… to your lips). I decided to try them both out and placed my order.
When the wings came to the table I was excited because these things were big, with the tips still connected, and were covered well with the sauce. Each bite was chock full of juicy meat, and with the wings being heavily breaded, they really fill you up. The chicken was very tender, but the downside to all that breading was that it seemed to make them pretty slimy which took away from that quality and left them feeling a bit soggy. One other thing that I noticed was that the first couple of bites tasted pretty good and were nice and hot, but the longer I ate and the cooler the dish got, the less appetizing the meal became. They were still good, but not AS GOOD as their debut to my mouth.
The sauce that I chose was the Spicy, and like the waiter said, it was just a mild sauce (I really think they need to rework the names of these things). It had the basic makeup of a Buffalo sauce, but did not really carry any heat or flavor that I would expect to find… even in a mild sauce. So I decided to try out the side of Blistering, which looked more like a bowl of chili; it was so huge. When I dumped this heated, seed filled, sauce on my wings, I instantly had a flashback to the waiter dropping it off and saying “Enjoy” with a sly smirk as he walked away. I took a big bite, and I have to say it was definitely hotter and had more to offer than the Spicy. I just wish they had a sauce with a heat level that was in between the two, because that would have been ideal.
Ultimately the wings were pretty good, and the fact that they offer a $2.00 Coors Draft all day, every day, made it all the more better. But when faced with the comparison of other Buffalo wings in the area (like Charlie’s right up the street), they just didn’t quite make it to their full potential.
Anchorage Tavern
823 Bay Ave., Somers Point, NJ 08244
