Quaker Steak & Lube (Gates Edition)

I used to get a kick out of watching Man vs. Food for the first couple seasons it was on. Then, by the third season, you could tell that Adam just wasn't all that into bringing himself to the brink of vomiting for a career any more. His visits to restaurants devolved into him sweating, mouth-breathing and mailing in his banter with the staff. You could almost sense his hatred for what he had become and what he was about to do.

Which brings me to *horns* Quaker Steak & Lube. I learned of this place while watching Man vs. Food. Adam choked and gagged on the hottest wings they had blah blah blah. Needless to say, when I saw that this gag-inducing wing joint was making a foray into the Greater Rochester Area, I was intrigued.

Surprisingly, the wife was on-board with a visit to this place, located in Gates, near Tinseltown.

We went at around 6:00pm on a Friday and the joint was rockin' (Gates-style). Our host informed us that it was "ugly sweater" night and he was clearly partaking. This set off alarm bells immediately. Chotchkies, anyone?

I wasn't going to let the chain nature keep me from loving the wings tonight. Adam Richman loved this place, right? (Mental image of him crying, pouring milk on his face and gagging on the food in slow-mo...)

So we were seated. We reached for the menus and started looking. Very shortly after we sat down, our waitress asked us if we wanted drinks. I said, "Fuck yes," but without the f-word part. Luckily they had a local brew, Rohrbach's Scotch Ale, on tap and I put a check in the positive column.

While we were waiting I noticed that a waiter was sporting his ugly sweater, doing air guns with his index fingers and generally being the most annoying person you'd ever want to encounter while trying to eat your dinner. Then, a la Jason Lee in Chasing Amy (skip to the 3:13 mark), I had an epiphany and realized just what I had stumbled into: Jack Astor's Wing Shack. Gritting my teeth, I promised to not hold this guy against the food.

Eventually, we received our drinks, ordered our appetizer and our food. I had the Louisiana Lickers wings and Premium Pretzels Combo. My wife had some Asian style sauce on her wings and o-rings (onion rings).

In relatively no time, our appetizer was on the table. And, I must admit, I loved the nachos. The cheese was mega-liquidy and the beef wasn't completely ground but the whole thing worked. The corn, beef, liquid cheese and assorted chopped salsa veggies combined into one irresistible treat. I mowed those nachos to the liquidy, soggy bottom.

And, right as we finished our nachos, our food arrived. Of course, the food was burn-the-roof-of-your-mouth-off hot and inedible for a few minutes. So I tried one the "premium pretzels" on my plate. But they weren't fooling me. I had nuked enough of those frozen, mini Super Pretzels as a child to know that that's exactly what they gave me. Another check in the negative column.

Soon after, I dug into my Louisiana Lickers. Tasted like a dirty sock. I immediately regretted going with the Lickers. They had a trademark symbol by the name! Shouldn't that make them good or something? Luckily, our waitress brought us some bleu cheese to dip our wings into. And, wouldn't you know it, the bleu cheese made the wings palatable. I ate them all and tried one of my wife's wings. Her Asian wings were totally predictable: stir fry sauce, on the sweet side, with some sesame seeds thrown in. Bleh. Once again, though, the bleu cheese made them taste better.

On the technical side of things, the wings were not all that crispy. They weren't slimy but, since the sauce was slathered on the exterior, they were very messy. the wings were typical chicken wings in that they weren't all that meaty or large. The meat itself was rather juicy but very, very hot.

Overall, I wasn't impressed. I didn't particularly like the atmosphere. Our waitress was very nice and attentive but kept making excuses for the helter-skelter atmosphere. And the food just didn't stand out. If the wings can't stand on their own two feet, that's a failure, in my opinion.