Looking Glass Lounge

Picture it: Tuesday night, working late, you get a call -- friends going out for wings. Do you take a pass citing work and an early day tomorrow, or do you shut off your monitor, get on your bike, and make it happen? I briefly considered the question and a half hour later walked into Looking Glass Lounge. I'd soon be glad I did.

LGL is a bar/restaurant just a few blocks from the Petworth stop on the green line. Walking in it looks like just another dive bar, but once I started to look around it became clear that a little more was going on. Small chandeliers and an embossed tin ceiling lend an understated elegance, and our server was helpful and attentive. I asked for mine extra crispy and she said it was a common order. Wings are regularly $9 but $4 on Sunday and Monday. We waited, the couple next to us playing scrabble, the four guys at my table talking about wings.

And the wings came. And they were good. Really good. I finished them and dipped my fingers in the sauce good. Hot and fresh, almost perfectly crispy, and a wonderfully authentic spicy Buffalo flavor. Couldn't have been much more in there than Frank's Red Hot, butter, and garlic with some vinegar and hot pepper for bite. It's the kind of sauce that makes your fingers smell like wings the next day and that little cut on your hand sting like the dickens. Here finally are the wings I remember. These folks are doing it right -- go try Looking Glass Lounge and let me know if you agree. Their wings just might be the fairest of them all.