The notion of value is at the heart of Sola Cepa. While it is merely one category of four in the ultimate rankings, I would argue it is the most crucial to evaluating a restaurant. If the onion rings from such hall of fame restaurants as Saucy Dog's Barbecue or Uchiko cost $20 a pop, there's no way they could possibly be worth it.
This does present some difficulty in reviewing, particularly at restaurants which offer onion rings solely or primarily as a side to some other dish. Wing Doozy is one such restaurant. In 2017, I ate lunch there with some colleagues and took copious notes on the onion rings, but wasn't able to write a review. Why? Because I ordered the onion rings as part of the combo, I wasn't able to accurately assess the value of the onion rings.
As a committed reviewer of all things allium, I was forced to revisit Wing Doozy many years after the fact, yielding the following review.
Presentation and Appearance: (3.5/5)
The onion rings are very clearly freshly made and hand battered, radiating heat and comfort. Handmade onion rings are often concomitant with gaps in the battering, which is slightly present here. There are four onion rings of mostly consistent size, with one smaller outlier.
The color is golden brown with a few spare knobs of burnt and slightly blackened bits of batter. They arrive served in a black plastic basket with the requisite wax paper lining, simple yet effective. More importantly, it is consistent with the ethos of Wing Doozy: unpretentious and utilitarian.
Taste: (3.5/5)
The batter is soft, bordering on creamy, with the characteristic quasi-buttery smoothness of hot, fresh batter. They manage to avoid a deluge of grease, the buttery batter melding with the taste of the juicy onion. The seasoning is well balanced: salted, but not to an extreme, with a hint of peppery bark.
The batter is a little overpowering compared to the onion taste, almost hidden and muted in the presence of its power. In a rarity, one of the onion rings has a doubled onion center, which I commonly find in frozen rings but almost never find in the hand-dipped varietal.
Texture: (2.5/5)
The batter remains the star of these onion rings with its textural heights. It is both soft and ever-so-slightly crispy. The onions err a little towards hard compared to soft, but the juices mesh well with the batter.
The batter is a little hard, with hints of shedding overcoming its natural cohesion. I'm reminded almost like a smooth leather, or a turtle's egg, as these onion rings seem vaguely natural rather than artificial or machine-made.
Value: (3/5)
These onion rings are priced at the somewhat standard premium price point of $1 per ring. I don't think they quite rise to that level, but they're certainly a step above the bland, mass-produced morass that makes up much of the onion ring offerings of the world. There's a somewhat diminished onion taste present in these rings, and they're certainly missing the potential enhancements from a quality dip, but these are an ample side option.
Total: (12.5/20)
