AuRants

Basic Information:

• First Time to AuRants - 04/20/16
  Overall Rating: 74

  Lynch Serniak

  Lynch's Rating: 40 out of 50

  Environment: 7
  

  Perhaps better known for their interesting meat selection (ostrich, kangaroo, and shark as a couple examples), AuRants is a non-traditional restaurant located in Duryea. You’re going to see that non-traditional theme throughout this review because they do some interesting things here with their wings. The place itself is very nice – a great place to take someone on a date or celebrate someone’s birthday. It has a small bar area with a large draft and bottle beer selection. The dining area is larger with a good number of dining tables. Our server knew his stuff and did a decent enough job, although there were a few mistakes made. I think this is mainly due to the confusing way they run their wing night. Instead of the usual approach of charging a price per wing, they charge based on orders of six on the type of wing you order. On top of that, they charge an additional amount if you order more sauces. I’m still not positive on how the pricing works, but I’ll try to outline it within the size section. Overall, the place is very nice; they just need to adjust the wing ordering to make it easier on the customer and the server.

  
  Wing Size: 7
  

  For their regular menu, AuRants has you pick a protein of your choice and then the method of how you want it cooked. They mostly follow suit for their wing night. First, you pick the type of wing you want, ranging from $4 for six apple cider brined wings to $6 for six crispy blue corn tortilla chip breaded wings. Yikes, that’s a mouthful (no pun intended). The wings overall are big and meaty. From there, you pick a sauce of your choice. It seemed to me that the first sauce you choose was included in the original price. You can order additional sauces for $2 each. While $1 a wing sounds like a bit for a particular wing, they really do fill you up.

  
  Wing Flavors: 10
  

  Like I said, AuRants is very non-traditional, and so are their wings. Not only do you get to choose from a variety of wings prepared different ways, but they also offer a huge selection of extremely unique sauces. You could make the argument that the wings without any sauces are tasty enough. Throw in wing sauces like Teriyaki Plum and Ancho Chili Maple Syrup, and I’m sold. You’ll struggle to find a sauce that you want because they all sounds so interesting and delicious.

  
  Wing Taste (x2): 8
  

  The Retro wings are cider-brined wings that are slow roasted and then flash fried. The wings have a nice crispiness to them and a hint of cider that separates them from a regular fried wing. If that’s not enough for you, you can have them tossed or dip them in the sauce of your choice. The Crispy Blue Corn Wings were absolutely delicious. The wing is breaded with blue corn tortilla chips and fried for an amazing taste. Quite honestly, I could have eaten all six of these without any sauce on them. They just had a huge amount of great flavor. I’m a sauce man though, so I needed to try out some of the sauces. I ordered the Retro Hot Buffalo sauce. It had a good flavor with a nice spice. I’m convinced that I actually had the Hellfire sauce due to a mix-up, but I was still happy with the flavor. The Teriyaki Plum sauce was interesting. It didn’t quite have that salty Teriyaki flavor that I love and I think that was mainly due to mixing with a Plum sauce. It was good, but I wasn’t blown away. I tried some of the Thai Ranch boneless wings, and this was my favorite sauce out of the bunch. The Thai flavor had a good kick that was mellowed out with the Ranch sauce. Overall, AuRants is not really a wing place, but it is worth checking out mainly for the unique experience.

  Serniak's Rating: 34 out of 50

  Environment: 6
  

  This is probably the most misleading 6 in the history of me giving out ratings of 6, but hear me out. AuRants is the one true place in the area that caters to the wild, sportsmen and exotic side in all of us. This is the only place I know in the area where you can order kangaroo tacos one week, only to have that replaced with New Zealand Gold Medal Lamb Chops. They cater to a crowd that prefers to eat crazy stuff from all over the world, which by the way, is awesome. So I think it goes without saying that AuRants is a bit of a classier place than your typical joint and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s not that I bad experience there, it’s just when I go to a place for wing night, I’d like be in an atmosphere where I might hear anything get said. I’m looking for sassy bartenders who who put people in their place who are hustling around. I’m essentially looking for that sports bar feel. They actually do have a bar on the one side of the establishment, that seemed very nice. The place is very clean. AuRants is the perfect place to take a las on a nice date, or coworkers who are looking for something new. Our server was a nice guy who did a solid job although he and ourselves all got confused on how to order the wings on their wing night.

  
  Wing Size: 6
  

  Big wings is what you will get at AuRants. No doubt about that. It’s the pricing that I’m not a big fan of. Here’s how it works. They have their wings that are sold for $4 per half dozen so that’s like 60cents a wing. Not great considering most places are between 45-50cents on wing night. They say on the menu that these half dozen are cooked in some seasonings and that people order them without sauce and eat them like that. To me, they kind of tasted like a Thanksgiving turkey, but a really weak one. But like I mentioned earlier, you can get sauces. But each sauce is an additional $2. I think it’s wild that a cup, or in this case small type bowl of sauce is $2. Just doesn’t register with me. Maybe I just have no idea how much mixing flavors of sauces together to make one mega sauce really cost. A mistake I made was to not have my wings tossed with the sauces. Our server mentioned that I could do that and I just forgot about doing that. So I had to dip them, which I hate. Who wants to dip wings. Again, the answer is no one. You can’t sufficiently dip flat wings in the cup or whatever you have. Just toss them with the sauce and let it be over.

  
  Wing Flavors: 8
  

  Potentially the most unique assortment of 15 Flavors you’ll ever see out of place, but if you know anything about the creative brains at AuRants you shouldn’t be to surprised. Ever here of flavors like ancho chili maple syrup, coconut curry cashew, ginger maple mustard, Maker’s Mark whiskey bbq and Zinfandel remoulade? The answer is no, no you never have unless you were recently eating wings with the Queen of England. Feels like these are the flavors she’d ask for over there. Love the big brains on these folks at AuRants. Always thinking, always going for it, always producing results.

  
  Wing Taste (x2): 7
  

  Now even though I screwed myself over and had to dip my wings into sauce instead of being a normal person and having them caked with sauce, the taste of my wings were solid. I ordered the hellfire, which I was told we’re going to be pretty hot. I’d say they were a notch below pretty hot. I’d consider them to be at a level of “some good spice right there.” They weren’t anything that burnt my insides but they were definitely a leg up compared to most hot wings. Next I had the buffalo bbq aioli. It was a good looking reddish cream sauce that brought a full flavor of tangy hot sauce and then was mellowed out by aioli, which is a fancy way of saying mayonnaise. Finally, I had the ginger maple mustard. What an excellent addition to a mustard based wing with the ginger. There was ginger flavor throughout and with the sweetness of the syrup and sneaky heat of the mustard, it made for a trifecta of conquering flavor.