Tebaya and Brandon Roy
At the frontier of food allusions are those that relates to sports. Sure, you could peruse the web and come up with blog posts exclaiming, "The top ten best [insert something here] in New York." I could also tell you that you could nom nom nom these cluckers until the rooster comes home. But I'm not going to do that because it takes too much time to compile top ten lists and I just don't love you guys that much. And my web 2.0 speak is completely FTL. What you will find out about in this post is why Tebaya has awesome wings, and how this relates to Brandon Roy, the starting shooting guard of your Portland Trailblazers. No really, you will.
First thing you have to know about both Tebaya and Brandon Roy is that one of them is from Seattle, Washington, and one of them is a store in New York where you can get some delicious chicken wings. What they do have in common is that they're both probably not on your radar, and they should be.
Tebaya is tucked away in this hole in a wall on 19th street in Chelsea, while Mister Roy is tucked away in Portland, Oregon, and we never see his games on TV because west coast time is a bitch. Seriously, why did the earth just HAVE to be round and why did we HAVE to go around the sun. It makes watching NBA so difficult.
What makes Brandon Roy and Tebaya truly special is that they're both subtle, underrated, and surprisingly effective. OK, so maybe only Brandon Roy is 'effective' while the chicken wings at Tebaya are 'delicious.' I simply hesitate to call BRoy 'delicious' because that would come out wrong. And it just came out wrong.
Good wings are usually deep fried and then sauced. For buffalo wings, you see places sauce them with butter and hot sauce for a fiery kick. At Tebaya, they also deep fry their wings and then sauce them. Key difference is that their sauce is soy based and more subtle than most places. Soy sauce based sauces are great because the saltiness component is already there. There is a peppery kick that comes with the sauce as well but it's not overpowering.
The lunch special is about $7 dollars and they give you some rice, lettuce, and a pop. You get 8 wings which is decent, and these are eight gloriously good wings. They are ally-oop good. Yea that's right, I said it, and you have no idea what an ally-oop is. That's ok too. It's when someone throws the basketball in the air (the alley) and then some other guy catches it and flushes it hard into the basket (the oop).
Tebaya really does some good stuff with chicken and I think it's worth a bite if you're around the Chelsea area and you're hungry. You'll probably think it's some really good wings and better than most that you've had. It's better than Buffalo Wild Wings, and I like that place too. Tebaya should do a commercial that's like My Better is better than your better. And eat more chicken, because Brandon tells us it's better than cottage cheese. Yea I don't like cottage cheese either Brandon, you tell 'em.
P.S. - Do you like cottage cheese?
Tebaya
144 W 19th St.
New York, NY 10011
212-924-3335
Did you hurt yourself. . .because that was quite a stretch.
Jonathan
January 24, 2009 6:09 pm
Boy, I'd forgotten about Tebaya, used to live right by there. Those wings are amazing. Now I've got to go back next week at some point.
Alex K
January 24, 2009 11:09 pm
@Jonathan,
Hahahha, yessssss! I wins again!
@Alex K,
Yes! Please do go back. Have you had other stuff on their menu?
Danny
January 26, 2009 12:29 am
The best part of Tebaya is they deliver to Karaoke 17! Sweeeet!
NowhereTiger
June 2, 2009 2:55 pm