{"id":56202,"date":"2022-05-28T00:01:42","date_gmt":"2022-05-28T06:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nmgastronome.com\/?p=56202"},"modified":"2026-04-03T11:00:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T17:00:23","slug":"wing-it-up-albuquerque-new-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nmgastronome.com\/?p=56202","title":{"rendered":"Wing It Up – Albuquerque, New Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
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Wing It Up, one of Albuquerque’s very best food trucks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bizarre Foods host Andrew Zimmern has nothing on my friend Ralph Guariglio. Zimmern who claims to love such “exotic cuisine” as fermented walrus anus probably wouldn’t touch some of the…er, interesting foods Ralph enjoyed during his travels for Intel.\u00a0 That’s especially true when Ralph traveled\u00a0 to Vietnam and The Philippines, all the while chronicling his adventures in “Captain Ralphie’s Travelogue.”\u00a0 Though most of us envied his peregrinations, few of us would have had the gastronomical fortitude to try such “delicacies” as beating cobra heart and live lobster (yes, still alive…and thrashing).<\/p>\n

Much as Ralph loves adventurous dining, his passion and favorite food group is chicken wings.\u00a0 Ralph can eat chicken wings for breakfast, lunch and dinner with chicken wing snacks in between.\u00a0 Never mind that chicken wings have a disproportionate “effort-to-meat” ratio, he happily gnaws on those tiny avian bones to extricate every meaty morsel, a look of blissful contentment on his face.\u00a0 Ralph is the type of guy who would bob for chicken wings in a deep fryer. \u00a0 When he married his beautiful bride Linda, I thought for sure the wedding cake would be studded with layers of chicken wings and the cake would be “frosted” with Buffalo wing sauce.<\/p>\n

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Alejandra Leal Sporting Very Stylish and Classy Dallas Cowboys Attire. Brittany \u00a0Muller Didn’t Wear Her Pittsburgh Steelers Regalia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When Ralph visited the Intel plant in Rio Rancho, he never asked to be feted with chicken wings. Nor did we ever presume he would enjoy chicken wings in our fair city. Unlike at his hometown of Ahwatukee, Arizona, a Phoenix suburb, most chicken wings in the Albuquerque area came from chain restaurants (Applebees’ riblets anyone?).\u00a0 Fortunately, we kept Ralph happy with frequent infusions of New Mexico’s sacrosanct red and green chile (which he undoubtedly figured out would have tasted great with good chicken wings).<\/p>\n

Over the year, I’ve had my share of wings but never came close to developing the type of unbridled passion bordering on lust for the poultry appendages Ralph has.\u00a0 For the most part, I wondered what he saw…or rather, tasted in them that inspired such loyalty.\u00a0 It wasn’t until Chef Bob Yacone (RIP) introduced me to his award-winning maple-bacon wings that I finally got it…and when I say “award-winning,” I’m talking about\u00a0 earning first place at the National Buffalo Chicken Wing Festival<\/strong><\/a> in Buffalo, New York. That’s like winning the Super Bowl of chicken wings.\u00a0 That’s what Bob’s restaurant, Forghedaboudit<\/a><\/strong> did.\u00a0 Sadly, Forghedaboudit has closed.<\/p>\n

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Sweet Teriyaki Chicken Wings<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ralph isn’t the only chicken wing fanatic under spacious skies.\u00a0 According to Buffalo, New York radio station WYRK Americans will eat 18,000 chicken wings in their lifetime. That’s an average of eating about 24 per month, or 290 a year. For Buffalonians >and for Ralph< that seems like a low number.\u00a0 The day in which more chicken wings are consumed than any other is, not surprisingly, the Super Bowl. \u00a0 According to the National Chicken Council<\/strong>,<\/a> Americans consumed a record-breaking 1.4 billion chicken wings during Super Bowl LIV weekend.\u00a0 That couldn’t have been just Ralph.<\/p>\n

One of the reasons chicken wings are so popular is their versatility.\u00a0 You can coat them in a sauce or dry rub or you can have them naked (usually just the wings, but if you’re nude when you eat them they won’t make make a mess out of your clothing).\u00a0 You can fry them or bake them.\u00a0 You can dip them in ranch or blue cheese dressing.\u00a0 You can have them as a snack or make a full meal out of them.\u00a0 You can even have them bone-in or boneless.\u00a0 It’s hard to believe chicken wings used to be nothing more than scraps used mainly for making chicken stock.<\/p>\n

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Mango-Habanero Chicken Wings<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When absence from chicken wings at Forghedaboudit was making our hearts grow fonder, we fortuitously tuned in to the October 4th What\u2019s Up Abq<\/strong><\/a> podcast interview with Michael “Mighty Mike<\/strong><\/a>” Mondragon.\u00a0 Mike, whose barbecue is taking the city by storm, raved both about the chicken wings and the “great girls” (Alejandra Leal and Brittany Muller) who owned and operated Wing It Up, the food truck that featured fabulous fried fowl.\u00a0 We caught up with Wing It Up at Marble Brewery’s Westside Taproom<\/strong><\/a> where a “Mighty Mike’s Meats” sticker on the window confirmed the “mutual admiration society” between the proprietors of two of the city’s best food trucks.<\/p>\n

We enjoyed our inaugural visit so much that the very next day we tracked Wing It Up to Rio Rancho’s Brew Lab 101<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 Though my eyes normally gravitate immediately to a food truck’s menu, I couldn’t help but notice Alejandra’s Dallas Cowboys shirt and matching face mask.\u00a0 Naturally, I had to compliment her on her fashion sense and class before commiserating with her about the Cowboys season.\u00a0 When I asked why Brittany wasn’t wearing similar attire, Alejandra forlornly explained that Brittany is a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, but she’s working to convert her.\u00a0 I applauded Brittany for not wearing Steelers regalia as it would drive customers away.<\/p>\n

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Maple Syrup and Salt Fries<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It says a lot about Alejandra and Brittany that you can enjoy good-natured banter with them.\u00a0 Alejandra, who takes care of the “front of the house” explained that they launched Wing It Up in 2019 and have been very enthusiastically embraced by chicken wing aficionados.\u00a0 She stressed that their food truck is all about feeding great food to great people.\u00a0 Brittany manages the fryers, coaxing delicious flavors and textures out of chicken wings so addictive you’ll become a regular.\u00a0 Not all the sauces are created in-house, but the sauces they procure are of very high quality and deliciousness.<\/p>\n

28 May 2022<\/strong>: For three years, Alejandra and Brittany cultivated such a loyal following that they decided to strike out as a brick-and-mortar restaurant, launching their storefront on May 14, 2022. Sadly, their brick-and-mortar venture closed within two years. \u00a0Situated on the corner of 4th and Gold, Wing It Up was just a block south of heavily trafficked Central Avenue. \u00a0With ample seating, diners didn’t have to take their wings home or search for a shady space in which to enjoy them. \u00a0As with the food truck, the\u00a0“wings you will crave” menu wasn’t solely about chicken wings.\u00a0 The menu (subject to change) also listed chicken tenders, a chicen sandwich, mozzarella stix, sweet potato fries, fried zucchini bites, fried pickles and fries available in a number of intriguing seasonings.\u00a0 Wings are available in seven-, ten- and twenty-piece portion sizes, boneless or bone-in.\u00a0 If you can’t decide which of two wing flavors to enjoy, order a wing combo (ten of one flavor and ten of another, for example).\u00a0 Family (or Ralph) sized meals spearheaded by fifty wings are also available.<\/p>\n

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Left: Deep-Fried Reese’s. Right: Deep-Fried Oreo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You’ll enjoy studying the wing sauces menu where you’ll find such alluring sauce flavors as golden BBQ, sweet red chile, mango habanero, hot green chile and\u00a0 lemon pepper rub.\u00a0 There are ten wing sauces in all.\u00a0 There are also eight fry seasonings which transform fries from predictable to rarefied air.\u00a0 Fry seasonings include sour cream and onion, flame-grilled BBQ, cheesy Cheddar ketchup and salted maple.\u00a0 Get the picture.\u00a0 These aren’t your run-of-the-mill wings and fries.<\/p>\n

31 October 2020<\/strong>: My Kim’s introduction to Wing It Up came in the form of sweet teriyaki wings <\/strong><\/em>served naked (deep fried with no flour and no breading). She thought for sure she’d be ferrying home at least half of her ten-piece order, but surprised herself (and me) by not only finishing every single wing but doing so well before I finished my ten piece order. That’s a sure-fire predictor that we’ll be regularly tracking down Wing It Up. These Super Bowl worthy wings are meaty, sticky and delicious with a sweet teriyaki sauce that isn’t as cloying as its name might suggest.<\/p>\n

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Sweet Chile Wings<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

31 October 2020<\/strong>: The pairing of incendiary habanero peppers with the tropical floral fruitiness of mangoes is probably not what Teressa Bellissimo had in mind when she invented chicken wings at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York, but it’s exactly what you’ll crave time and again.\u00a0 Heat-seekers will appreciate the steady level of tongue-tingling heat that will get their taste buds dancing. It’s an up-front heat, not one that sneaks up on you, but one that’s always present. Habaneros have their own fruity, floral, and sweet flavor and it goes nicely with the sweet, sticky mangoes. These mango-habanero wings<\/strong><\/em>are outstanding.<\/p>\n

31 October 2020<\/strong>: During our time in England we fell in love with salt and vinegar crisps (what colonists call fries).\u00a0 Pairing sour, acidic vinegar and salt is a rather scientific process we won’t discuss here.\u00a0 Suffice to say, adding vinegar and salts to crisps…er, chips is genius.\u00a0 So are vinegar and salt fries<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Contrary to the picture you’re probably conjuring in your mind, these fries aren’t soggy and flaccid nor are they so sour they purse your lips.\u00a0 As with our favorite crisps, the fries have a very nice balance of sour and salty flavors and boy, are they delicious.<\/p>\n

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Fifteen Glorious Wings<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

31 October 2020<\/strong>: After indulging in a coop’s worth of chicken wings, you might not have room for dessert.\u00a0 That would be a shame because Wing It Up offers a variety of postprandial delights.\u00a0 You might luck upon mini pineapple upside down cake or as we did, two Texas state fair favorites: deep-fried Oreos<\/strong><\/em> and deep-fried Reese’s<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Not being much of a sweets guy, I enjoyed they them vicariously through my Kim.\u00a0 She certified them both as well worth the extra hour she’ll have to do on the treadmill.<\/p>\n

1 November 2020<\/strong>: After having insulted her beloved Pittsburgh Steelers, I feared Brittany would put an extra ingredient (arsenic)\u00a0 on my sweet chile wings<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Thank goodness she’s quick to forgive.\u00a0 The sweet chile sauce is the type of sauce in which the flavor comes in waves. First, you’re hit with a mellow peppery sweetness, then just as you’re starting to wonder where the heat is, you get a hit of piquancy from the red chile flakes.\u00a0 It’s a sensation that stays with you.\u00a0 The sweet “chile” isn’t of the New Mexico variety.\u00a0 It’s more of a “chili” sauce, the type popular on Vietnamese and Thai cuisine.\u00a0 By any spelling, it’s a good sauce that goes so well with great wings.<\/p>\n

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Golden Barbecue Wings<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

1 November 2020<\/strong>: On many chicken wing menus, plain wings<\/strong><\/em> seem hidden in…plain sight if you can find them at all.\u00a0 Americans, it seems, love their wings sauced or dusted with a rub and chicken wing restaurants accommodate them.\u00a0 Not my Kim who loves fried chicken any way she can get them.\u00a0 She loves thighs, breasts, wings, legs…feathers.\u00a0 Wing It Up’s plain wings served naked are terrific, akin to really good fried chicken.\u00a0 These wings are so good she wouldn’t “desecrate” them with a very good ranch dressing provided with carrots and celery on the side.<\/p>\n

1 November 2020<\/strong>: Fearing we wouldn’t be seeing Wing It Up until at least next weekend, my Kim picked up a denary of golden barbecue wings <\/strong><\/em>to take home.\u00a0 We wondered if\u00a0 “golden” meant South Carolina’s golden mustard-based barbecue sauce, but that wasn’t the case at all.\u00a0 The golden barbecue did have a balance of three basic flavors: sweet, spicy and smoky.\u00a0 That balance, in perfect proportion, is the key to making these wings so darn tasty.\u00a0 Old-fashioned barbecue sauces seem to play second fiddle to the hotter or sweeter wing sauces, but this sauce doesn’t take a backseat to any.\u00a0 It’s outstanding–even reheated at home.<\/p>\n

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Sweet Potato Fries with Salt and Maple Syrup<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

1 November 2020<\/strong>: Several years ago,\u00a0 at Roswell’s Big D’s Downtown Dive<\/strong><\/a> we discovered what my Kim described as the best fries she’s ever had.\u00a0 Named “Thanksgiving fries” (sweet potato fries, sweet whiskey butter, cinnamon and pecan smoked bacon) they blended sweet and savory flavors in a manner that imprinted them permanently in our hearts and memory engrams.\u00a0 When we espied the sweet potato fries with salt and maple syrup\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>at Wing It Up, it triggered sweet memories of those Thanksgiving fries.\u00a0 Unlike the fries of our dreams, the salt and maple syrup fries weren’t sticky.\u00a0 If pecan-smoked bacon had been part of the formula, they might have been even better than the Thanksgiving fries.<\/p>\n

4 January 2022<\/strong>: My Kim jokes that I wouldn\u2019t eat KFC chicken if you put a gun to my head. That\u2019s not entirely accurate. I\u2019d drive a hundred miles out of my way for the “real” KFC. That would be Korean Fried Chicken and it\u2019s harder to find than toilet paper was during the onset of the Cabrona virus. \u00a0KFC is characterized by lightly coated chicken pieces fried until the outside is crispy, fat is rendered out and the meat inside is cooked through. \u00a0You’d swear KFC had a crust; they’re that crispy. \u00a0Wing It Up’s Korean wings <\/strong><\/em>aren’t intended to emulate KFC–at least in appearance. \u00a0Their signature batter makes them somewhat thicker than KFC, but similar to KFC, the wings are seasoned with a glaze that’s\u00a0impregnated with a sweet, slightly piquant sauce. \u00a0Notes of garlic, ginger and pepper are obvious.<\/p>\n

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Korean Wings<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

28 May 2022<\/strong>: When Popeye’s launched its chicken sandwich in 2019, the sandwich sold out within a couple of weeks. \u00a0It took weeks to replenish ingredients, but when the sandwich returned to the menu so did droves of diners. \u00a0 Its popularity triggered the so-called “chicken sandwich wars” with other chains vying for supremacy in the chicken sandwich market. \u00a0Since its auspicious launch in 2019, the chicken sandwich has been an integral item on the Popeye’s menu, accounting for much of the restaurant’s 13.8% growth in 2020. \u00a0In large part because of my loyalty to independent restaurants, I resisted trying Popeye’s chicken sandwich until 2022. \u00a0Predictably, I was disappointed. I’ve had far better chicken sandwiches in virtually every local mom-and-pop that serves them.<\/p>\n

Include Wing It Up among them. \u00a0Alejandra explained the sandwich is available with any of the sauces and rubs, but her recommendation was buffalo wing sauce and ranch dressing, a combination she assured me she enjoys very much. \u00a0Alejandra has been akin to a personal chicken concierge, always making savvy recommendations that please this poultry paramour. \u00a0Unlike so many chicken sandwiches (particularly among the chains), the chicken isn’t so heavily breaded that you have to launch an expedition to find it. \u00a0Wing It Up’s sandwich is about the chicken not the breading, not the sauces. \u00a0The buffalo sauce and ranch dressing play three-part-harmony with the chicken, each doing its part to make this juicy, delicious sandwich stand out.<\/p>\n

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Chicken Sandwich With Buffalo Sauce and Ranch Dressing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It’s too bad Wing It Up wasn’t around when Ralph visited New Mexico with regularity.\u00a0 It’s a food truck for not only those who love wings, but for those who just don’t understand them.<\/p>\n

Wing It Up<\/strong>
\n317 Gold, S.W.
\nAlbuquerque, New Mexico<\/strong>
\n(505) 314-6119
\nFacebook Page<\/strong><\/a>
\nLATEST VISIT<\/strong>: 28 May 2022
\n1st VISIT<\/strong>: 31 October 2020
\n# OF VISITS<\/strong>: 4
\nRATING<\/strong>: Excellent<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0\u2013 High quality dining experience; very good to excellent food, attentive service, and a well-maintained atmosphere; worth a detour.
\nCOST<\/strong>: $$
\nBEST BET<\/strong>: Sweet Teriyaki Wings (Naked), Mango-Habanero Wings (Breaded), Salt & Vinegar Fries, Deep-Fried Reese’s, Deep-Fried Oreo, Sweet Potato Fries with Salt and Maple Syrup, Golden Barbecue Wings, Plain Naked Wings, Sweet Chile Wings, Korean Wings, Chicken Sandwich
\nREVIEW #1189<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bizarre Foods host Andrew Zimmern has nothing on my friend Ralph Guariglio. Zimmern who claims to love such “exotic cuisine” as fermented walrus anus probably wouldn’t touch some of the…er, interesting foods Ralph enjoyed during his travels for Intel.\u00a0 That’s especially true when Ralph traveled\u00a0 to Vietnam and The Philippines, all the while chronicling his adventures in “Captain Ralphie’s Travelogue.”\u00a0 Though most of us envied his peregrinations, few of us would have had the gastronomical fortitude to try such “delicacies” as beating cobra heart and live lobster (yes, still alive…and thrashing). Much as Ralph loves adventurous dining, his passion and favorite food group is chicken wings.\u00a0 Ralph can eat chicken wings for breakfast, lunch and dinner with chicken wing snacks…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[440,522,731,141,563],"tags":[1530,1531,1110,1533,1532,1537,1539,1540,1536,1541,1535,1538,1534],"class_list":["post-56202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-albuquerque","category-chicken","category-food-truck","category-new-mexico","category-rating-excellent","tag-alejandra","tag-brittany","tag-chicken-wings","tag-deep-fried-oreo","tag-deep-fried-reeses","tag-golden-barbecue-wings","tag-korean-wings","tag-mango-habanero-wings","tag-naked-wings","tag-salt-vinegar-fries","tag-sweet-chili-wings","tag-sweet-potato-fries-with-salt-and-maple-syrup","tag-sweet-teriyaki-wings"],"yoast_head":"\nWing It Up - Albuquerque, New Mexico - Gil's Thrilling (And Filling) Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nmgastronome.com\/?p=56202\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wing It Up - Albuquerque, New Mexico - Gil's Thrilling (And Filling) Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Bizarre Foods host Andrew Zimmern has nothing on my friend Ralph Guariglio. 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