Christmas time 2019 is here, which affords me the opportunity of traveling back to Buffalo and of course, continuing my series of wing reviews and power rankings. My first stop this trip (No. 61 overall in this series as of this posting) is Mineo’s South Pizzeria in you guessed it—South Buffalo. I ate at this place several times when I lived in Buffalo, usually getting a superb steak hoagie but never had their wings. That changed with this trip, and here’s my unbiased thoughts…..
PROS: If you’re looking for the proper mix of pizza and wings for your gathering and not looking to be blown away by an upper echelon wing, these are perfectly acceptable. I’d consider these slightly above average pizza joint chicken wings. They’re decently sized with pretty good sauce (I had medium/hot) and were crisp enough. Sometimes not going out of your way to be unique in taste and presentation works just fine. This is one of those cases.
CONS: I mean, they’re not even close to what I’d consider must-have chicken wings. There’s not a single thing about the wings that provided me with any kind of wow factor.
QB COMPARISON: Alex Smith. Give him enough supplementary weapons and he’ll look the part but on his own—meh, nothing special.
If MINEO’S PLAYED A FULL NFL SEASON: 8-8. They’ll beat the team they’re supposed to and lose the rest, occasionally in blowout fashion.
OUTLOOK: If you’re hungry only for wings and nothing else, I have a hard time recommending these. Getting them with pizza for your house party is fine but that’s about it for me. It’s not that they weren’t at all enjoyable, it’s more about better places for wings in the vicinity, including Nine Eleven Tavern just a hop and jump north on South Park Avenue (when they feel like being open.)
Having said that and this is important— Mineo’s South Pizzeria is incredibly good at others things. Their pizza, which I’ve had a few times is very good and their steak hoagies are criminally underrated—one of my favorite in Western New York. In regard to pizza and especially subs I think this place falls into that “hidden gem” category. This is a very good little eatery—-just not in love with the wings although admittedly you can do far worse. I’d rank these around the middle of the pack among WNY options.