Stanley's in Wilmington

Pulled pork sandwich and hot wings from Stanley's Tavern. (Credit: Jessica Bratton)

Whenever we write any football or sports story, we always write about Stanley's. It's a great place to watch sports, there was once a Budweiser Clydesdale in the bar and they have great wings. But over the years, it seems that I've written about Stanley's wings more than I've eaten them.

As a self-professed buffalo fanatic, I realized that I had to get myself back up to Stanley's to see if their wings really continued to live up to the hype.

They do.

Our order of 10 wings ($8.49, or 20 wings for $15.99), real wings, with the bone in, came to our table steaming hot and crispy. They were coated in Stanley's hot sauce (other choices include mild, suicide, cajun or Jack Daniels BBQ), but not swimming in them. There was just enough sauce puddled in the bottom of the dish that we could dip our wings in for an extra buffalo jolt. The sauce had a delicious vinegar tang, and enough heat to make you sniffle just a little bit, but not prevent you from eating as many wings as you can.

The order of wings was one short, nine instead of 10 (which was realized during a "who gets the last wing" battle), but our pleasant waitress remedied that by bringing us two extra wings.

Stanley's knows they do buffalo right, and on their appetizer menu there are also buffalo shrimp ($8.99) and buffalo calamari ($9.49). For our seafood appetizer, however, we went with the dueling crab cakes ($9.99).

The menu description of the crab cakes promised two mini crab cakes, but the duo that appeared on our plate were of a decent size. (Indeed, they were the size that we've seen some places try to pawn off as a full-sized crab cake.) The crustacean cakes were pleasantly filled with crab, and very little filler. The cajun seasoning provided a little jolt to one of the crab cakes, but the crab cake purist eating them preferred the plain one.

The Kobe beef burger ($9.99) sounded tempting, especially since for $1.99 I could change it to a BBQ burger by adding cheddar cheese, BBQ sauce and onion strings, or a deluxe mushroom burger with cheddar cheese and sauteed Kennett Square wild mushrooms.

Or for an extra $2.49, I could transform their grilled chicken breast sandwich ($7.49) into a bistro chicken sandwich, with that grilled chicken on a ciabatta roll with brie, pancetta and onion strings.

Their salad bar ($8.99) is the perfect pairing of healthy and indulgent. It's greens, veggies, fruits, cheeses and other goodies, but you can eat as much as you want. (You can also all the salad bar to an entree for $3.99, or a sandwich for $5.99.)

But I was there on a Tuesday, which is all-you-can-eat ribs night. I wasn't hungry enough for all-you-can-eat ribs, but I was ready to eat their pulled pork sandwich, The Pig ($7.99), which happens to be half price on Tuesdays. The roll was nice and soft, and piled high with juicy shreds of pork. I couldn't decide if I wanted the regular or Jack Daniels BBQ sauce, so I got them both. It came with chips and a crunchy dill pickle, but I also ordered a side of their fries ($1.99). The thick steak fries were crispy on the outside, pillowy soft on the inside and incredibly addictive.

Another diner at the table got the Stanley Original ($8.49), a bar food classic. Two slices of grilled rye bread could barely contain the half pound of imported ham sandwiched inside. With that sandwich, and the entire meal, Stanley's again proved that they know how to do tavern fare better than just about anybody.