Libassi’s is a small joint located in what I consider a lesser-travelled area of Scranton. It is an Italian restaurant through and through. There was a small bar area when you enter, but the majority of the place is seating for dining. It is more of a place to take a date. It is most definitely not a place to have a wing night. Maybe we were late to the party, but the place was pretty dead when we arrived around 7:30. It is a very clean place, but it’s not a place to get rowdy. The waitress was very friendly and easy to talk to, but the whole process was slow. It took a pretty long time to get our drinks. It took a while to have our order taken. It took a while for our food brought to us. And it took a while to get our check. Everything took much longer than it really should have. You’d think service would be better since it was such a small crowd (no more than 6 people in the place at a time), but that was not the case.
Well, when I received these wings, I was blown away by the size of them. These wings were pretty massive. Then, when I received the check, I was floored by the amount. These prices were outrageously bad for wings. You could get better wing prices at some wing places on a regular night. I didn’t do a super close inspection of the wings, so I didn’t notice if the sauce was laced with gold dust. If they weren’t, it was a very bad price on wings.
From my past experiences, Italian restaurants are not the place to go for variety. The menu doesn’t say anything about Hot Honey, but I’ve heard it through the grape vine this is a flavor you can order. Lo and behold, when I asked for it, it was a flavor. Who knows what else they have out there, but this is the extent of my knowledge of the wing flavors based off of the menu.
I ordered 10 Hot and 5 Hot Honey. Let me just say, after this place, I’m going to make it a point to avoid wing nights at traditional Italian restaurants. We have not had any luck with them in the past. If asked to describe the flavor with one word, it would be ‘meh’. Is ‘meh’ a word? I don’t care. These wings were subpar to say the least. The Hot were pretty spicy, but didn’t carry much flavor. The Hot Honey added a bit of sweetness to the Hot flavor, but again, I was not impressed. I also tried the BBQ, and was once again let down. Maybe the Mild or Medium was the way to go. Maybe some how a milder sauce brings out a secret flavor that wasn’t present in a Hot sauce, but these wings were simply not that good.
To be fair, it wasn’t Libass’s fault for having a not so great atmosphere. The place is primarily an Italian, family style restaurant that doesn’t really cater to the wing eating crowd. We got there sort of later at around 7:45 so I attribute the lack of patrons to that as well. Our server was a nice person who contributed to our banter with a good attitude. Then the service got a bit slow when it was time for us to pay. There was only one other group of people in the place and it took 20 minutes to leave after we were given our checks.
The size of the wings were not tiny but not huge by that matter either. They also were not crispy at all and need to be ordered in orders of 6, which I’m not a fan of. The biggest reason they get a 1 for a rating is that I ordered 24 wings and my bill came to 21 dollars……on a wing night. How in the hell is that possible? Basically, I paid more for wings on a wing night than I would of paid for wings if I went to just about any where else to get as many wings on a non wing night. It comes to 75 cents or so per wing on their wing night.
The only flavors they had were mild, hot ,honey hot and bbq. Not to much to choose from. Also, the honey hot wasn’t even on the menu. We knew before hand that if you ask for it specifically they will make it.
I ordered 6 hot, 6 honey hot and 12 bbq. The hot didn’t have much spice to them and were typical along with the honey hot. The bbq were probably kraft bbq flavored and were flat out bad.
