Do Delaware's best wings hold up after 20 minutes in a car? We held a takeout taste test

Are these wings supposed to be hot? asked longtime News Journal reporter Esteban Parra, sitting in front of a table of Delaware's favorite hot wings.

It's not his fault: He's from Texas, where pain is apparently a way of life. And as far as he's concerned, Delaware hot wings just didn't hold a blowtorch to the chile-pepper tongue torture they'd mete out in the Lone Star State.

But this was just the kind of tough wing question we were all here to answer. We had gathered, in the News Journal newsroom, to second-guess the people of Delaware.

For the past month beginning in mid-March, we'd asked Delawareans to vote for their favorite wings in the state. We structured Delaware Wing Madness as a single-elimination wing tournament that would end with the best wing in Delaware, as judged by thousands of online voters.

But once the Wing Madness field was narrowed to four, we installed a failsafe of sorts. We tested the readers' top picks against the only 100% objective and correct yardstick we knew: our own taste buds.

And so, on April 10, we gathered the wings from top contenders Kid Shelleen's, Stanley's Tavern, Anthony's Coal Fired and 2 Fat Guys, and we had ourselves a little tasting.

Delaware Wing Madness taste-off: How we did it

Some wing spots are known for hot sauce, and some for creativity in their wild wing concoctions. And so for balance, we ordered two types of wing from each of the Top 4 contenders.

One was always the standard "hot" or "Buffalo." The other flavor was whatever each restaurant told us was the other most popular flavor.

For Anthony's Coal Fired, this was the onion-topped "original" flavor. At Kid Shelleen's, this was bourbon BBQ sauce. At 2 Fat Guys, it was the Triple Play. And at Stanley's, it was garlic parmesan with a little bit of hot sauce on the side.

But there was another problem. A wing is always better when it's fresh. So how could we be fair to each wing in the taste-off?

The strategy was simple. We ordered wings in advance from each spot, and we told each place the same time we wanted it to be ready: 1:30 p.m. We paid for the wings ourselves, and no restaurant was told in advance about the taste test. Ideally, this would mean each wing was prepped at the same time.

We then sent multiple reporters to fetch the wings, so that all wings would be back at the office within 20 minutes or so. Perhaps, we hoped, the wings would survive the car ride to the office and still have some crispness and warmth left to them.

Wing of the Hill: Great Delaware Takeout Wing Taste Test winner

As it turns out, our wing taste test at the office is not a good judge of the best wings in Delaware. But it was a great judge of which wings you should order for takeout.

When you order them at the restaurant, the flour-dusted wings at Kid Shelleen's arrive with a satisfying crispness that still feels delicate to the bite, and come saucily loaded with generous gush of fire-engine-red house hot sauce. The wings at Stanley's might still seem to crackle with hot oil.

These are wings made to be eaten fresh at the restaurant, when they're steaming hot and fryer-crisp. But the wings at these spots aren't necessarily built for takeout, nor were all of them packaged in a way that would let them endure. Most didn't pack their wings in foil or any other version of insulation that might keep the wings warm.

By the time we ate them, a half hour later, most of the wings were pretty much cold. The once-crisp wings at Kid Shelleen's had soaked up all sauce into the breading, which became a soggy blanket for the meat. The naked wings at Stanley's hardened a bit as they cooled.

And as for Anthony's? The charcoal-roasted wings kept their char but the meat and onions both wilted, and maybe got a little bitter.

We have a winner: These are the best wings in Delaware, according to voters

What's more, most wing spots were a bit more stinting with their sauces on a takeout order, perhaps because staff worried about making the wings soggy. In part, Delaware's spice palate is already a bit tamer than the states of the West and Southwest, or the Rust Belt cities who would feel anything just to feel. But our wings also weren't as spicy as usual, because they quite simply had less spicy sauce.

This was the problem faced by our intrepid wing taster, Esteban Parra, who wondered whether he'd be happier if we'd ordered "nuclear" or "death" or "wicked hot" instead of merely "hot."

Wing taster Molly McVety had the same reaction: There was less chile heat than she expected.

But it was endurance, not chile-pepper heat, that won the day on this tasting.

Only the well-packed wings from 2 Fat Guys seemed to maintain much of their essential character after a 20-minute ride in a car. Maybe they lost some crispness, but they kept their integrity. The balanced sweetness of 2 Fat Guys' sauces also seemed to work better as wings cooled, versus a classic Frank's-and-butter Buffalo-style sauce that tends to get a little acrid at room temperature.

McVety and Parra both anointed 2 Fat Guys as the wings that tasted best a half hour after they were made.

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As for me, I love the savory depth and bite of the hot sauce at Kid Shelleen's. I love the downright sauciness of the wings, as served at the restaurant. And I love the twice-fried crispiness. I went into this taste test thinking that maybe Kid's would be in the picture.

But this was a takeout taste test. And 2 Fat Guys was my favorite takeout wing as well, making our vote unanimous. If we want a big order of wings to watch a playoff game at home, noshing even after the wings get cold? 2 Fat Guys is the runaway wing winner.

Readers thought the same. A week after our takeout taste test, 2 Fat Guys also won the reader vote as the best wing anywhere in Delaware.

2 Fat Guys: 2 Trophies.

2 Fat Guys American Grill is located at 701 Ace Memorial Drive, Hockessin, 302-235-0333; 2fatguys.net.

Matthew Korfhage is business and development reporter in the Delaware region covering all the things that touch land and money. A longtime food writer, he also tends to turn up with stories about tacos, oysters, beer and wings. Send tips and insults to mkorfhage@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: The great Delaware Takeout Wing Taste Test: Which holds up best?