First post about non-Chinese food... Cluck U Chicken.

I had been craving fried chicken for 2 weeks, and I had heard great things about Cluck U's super spicy wings, so since jayc and I were in the area, we decided to hit up this student hang out of Santa Clara University for some hotness.

As many people already know, their wing sauce comes in a scale of smoking-ness, ranging from MILD to NUCLEAR to GLOBAL THERMAL NUCLEAR. I'm a pretty conservative person, so after hearing all the stories, we went for the ATOMIC level, just to be safe.









In addition to 10 Atomic Wings, we also got 3 chicken tenders and some gravy fries.

I waited impatiently for my chicken, because I had really been thinking and dreaming about friend chicken for two weeks, so I was really excited about this chicken!

When the food came, it looked pretty good. The Wings were already covered with Atomic sauce, and it was a nice touch that the wings came with some celery, you know, just to balance out the meal. The chicken tenders were large, and the batter outside looked like beer batter, as opposed to the flaky kind of bread batter used normally. They were hot to the touch (temperature-wise). The fries were just regular thick cut fries with gravy poured all over. So far so good.

First I try the chicken tenders without any sauce. The batter was pretty crunchy and had that good fried taste, but it was a bit too hard for my liking. I thought it could have been a little more light and crispy. The chicken inside was just average chicken breast - not very moist but not too dry either. Meh. I was not blown away. But hey, the wings are supposed to be the big shizzle, right?

So I move onto the wings. First, I blamed myself for being too conservative because the Atomic sauce was not very atomic at all. Maybe it was the sweetness of the sauce, but initially I didn't really feel any hotness in my mouth whatsoever. It was only after a whole wing that I started to feel some warmth. I guess I should have gone for traditional death or something instead. But that is no one's fault but my own, so no complaints. However, the wings themselves (i.e. the MEAT) was also very disappointing. From the rave reviews I had heard about this place from friends, I expected the wings to be spectacular. Cripsy batter on the outside, and once you bite through the batter you get overwhelmed with the juices inside, and then you bite into the super tender chicken meat. I had been harbouring this image of friend chicken in my mind for two weeks! I didn't really get any of this from Cluck U's wings. The batter was crispy enough, given they were slathered in hot sauce. But the chicken inside was really not very juicy. It wasn't dry, because what kind of moron can really mess up wings so much that it's dry, right? But it really just was not that spectacular. Even the meat itself was more dry than I would have expected wings to be.




*I did not take this photo. It belongs to jatbar.*










Anyways, I don't have any huge gripes against Cluck U Chicken, but I have to say that it is average at best, and perhaps if I wanted to try the super hot sauce on average wings, I would go again. But if I get another craving for great fried chicken parts, I'll try somewhere else.

So in summary,

Hot Wings with not-so-ATOMIC sauce - 3.5/5 (-1 for being slightly on the dry side, -0.5 for sauce being too sweet)
Chicken Tenders - 3.5/5 (what can I say, they were just really average!)
Celery that came with the wings - 4/5 (this place gets extra pts for caring about our balanced diet)
Fries with gravy - not really worth reviewing. Just super average fries. With average gravy on top.


Address

2565 The Alameda
Santa Clara, CA 95050
(408) 241-2582


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