US vs UK Wingstop | Foreign Exchange | Food Wars | Insider Food

Joe: A Brit and an American swap countries to try each other's Wingstop. This is "Food Wars: Currencies." Alright, let's start by comparing the classic wings. Here is the classic wing, simple and flavorless. It seems smaller than what I'm used to in the United States. For a wing without sauce, this is better than I expected. I guess, in simple terms, I thought it wasn't going to prove anything, but it did. Nothing bad. Here are 10 pieces of an American Wingstop. These are not simple. I think they are Buffalo. I must say I was expecting bigger wings. I thought American agriculture was about injecting animals with as many chemicals as possible to make them huge.

But no, this is some kind of tiny, skinny, skinny wing. We'll try it anyway. It tastes pretty good. Quite crispy on the outside, which is good, although perhaps a little overcooked. A little dry on that. I have no interest in sitting here eating just wings from Wingstop. So let's take a look at some of the flavors you can get in both countries, starting with lemon pepper and garlic parmesan. You know, lemon pepper, to be honest. It's not my first choice. Alright. Personally, I like my wings a little spicier. It seems that if you pay for the flavors, you get the bigger wings.

That's closer to what I expected. That's a loud drum. Good amount of seasoning there. Like a big dose of lemon pepper. I know it's lemon pepper, but it should be more like lemon salt because my goodness, this is an aggressively salty wing. This is my thing with American Lemon Pepper Wings. Compared to the ones I've had in the UK, I don't think the US is putting much lemon in there. I think lemon has a lot more lemon flavor and tends to remind me more of an artificial lemon-scented cleaning product, like a lemon-scented cleaning spray or wipes, rather than actual lemon.

I feel the garlic parmesan in America, the flavor is very overpowering. So what do we have here in the UK? Not too much garlic or parmesan. They feel that you have dulled the flavors of yours knowing that we were going to do it, or that we should dip our wings in sauce. Weaker than I'd expect in America, but it's been a minute since I took Wingstop, so let's see how Harry reacts. Next we have the Garlic Parm Wing. Once again, you haven't skimped on the seasoning. I don't actually get much of the parmesan flavor even though it's covered in powder.

They are much crispier than any wings I've had in the UK at Wingstop, and I like that. You get a real crunch on the outside. And the chicken inside isn't that bad. Now, the last time we filmed an episode of Wingstop, Joe teased the offers, and I really like them, so I want to see if the US ones are any good. UK tenders are better. They are simply better. I don't know what it is about these. They are not very crispy. I bit them and almost made a squeak in my teeth. I don't know what's going on there.

I thought you guys were better with fried chicken, but. Here are those offers that Harry liked so much. Let's see how these taste. It's a fantastic offer. Really crispy, right? You caught that crunch, right? Wow. And of course, when you get offers, you know you need to dip them in something. So we got a ranch. The ranch is in the UK! Everyone is here. Let's see how your ranch tastes. Our ranch has much more flavor. It has more intensity than theirs, which I think is a recurring theme between the US and the UK. Portion sizes at Wingstop, if we exclude combos and plates, the largest portion of wings you can get in the UK is 12 pieces.

However, bring the boxes. Bring them all. Bring the boxes. Come on. There is a combo online in the UK called Crowd Pleaser, which comes with 50 regular boneless wings and 50 boneless wings and three large fries. It is intended to be shared between five people. Excuse me. It is designed for at least five people to enjoy. In the US, excluding combos, the largest portion of wings you can order is 100 pieces. Yeah, I find it funny that you can order so many wings not explicitly as part of a sharing plate. They might be the ones who say, "Hey, you want 100 wings?

Have 100 wings. Don't worry about sharing." When it comes to drinks, Wingstop in the UK offers Coca-Cola products, and you can get them in a 22-ounce glass, but they delivered that to us, so we didn't get any fountain drinks. Only 500 milliliter bottles. And in the United States, drinks come in 20- or 32-ounce sizes. Here you'll find everything you can find at Wingstop in the US that we can't get in the UK. Here's everything at Wingstop in the UK that I can't get in the US. In the US they have some unique wing flavors. Three, to be exact.

First of all, we have soft wings. From what I can tell, these are simply a milder version of one type of Buffalo wings. Yeah, that's pretty good. It has something like Buffalo sauce, a hint of vinegar, but somehow with almost no spice at all. Then in this box we have the other two flavors. We have cajun and original spicy. So, here is the original hot wing. I imagine, as the name suggests, it will simply be a spicier version of the mild wing. Yes, it's original for a reason. It's basically just a Buffalo wing. And finally, we have the Cajun wings.

Lovely color on this, like a very deep orange-red color. I don't like chicken wings very much. I think, especially when they're topped with a vinegar-based chutney, for me, I get too much of that kind of sour, vinegary flavor. Whereas with a wing like this, with a Cajun wing, you still feel the heat, but it's not that kind of sour flavor, like I say. I think you get a little more depth of flavor. I really like this. This is great. One thing I find funny is that we have Cajun fries at Wingstop in the UK, so I'm not really sure why they don't take that seasoning and put it back on the wings, because I think it would work.

Two exclusive wing flavors here at Wingstop UK. First is the original, which I think is probably what we would call Buffalo smooth. Some decent heat. Okay, Brazilian citrus pepper. Citric. A little peppery flavor. Nothing bad. Personally, I would say that nothing about the flavor stands out to me. Another thing worth mentioning with wings is that you can get many different combinations on the menus. In both the US and the UK, they even have a wing calculator on the website to tell you how hungry you are and how many wings you should order. The funny thing is that the calculator's recommended portions vary depending on where you are, and they're exactly the way you'd expect.

On the Wingstop website, we asked them to recommend what would be good for someone who is hungry, and for me, here in the UK, they recommended eight wings. On the US website, the recommended order for a hungry person is 10 wings. You guys have sandwiches, also known as hamburgers. Just one, the Big Flavor burger. This has slaw, pickles, ranch, and also of course chicken in any sauce or flavor you desire. We went to have a barbecue. Come on. Wow this is great! The salad is really good. UK Wingstop, let's go. The American version is the chicken sandwich.

It comes with pickles but no salad, and it's also a large piece of chicken instead of chicken tenders. Also, look at the curious distribution of pickles there. I'm going to rearrange them quickly. It looks like they added the original hot sauce to this one. I like the look of the bun. Very shiny bow. That's really good. The chicken is really juicy. I like the amount of spice you get when you add the piece to the sauce. The pickles are good. I love pickles. Happy to see them included virtually anywhere. This could actually benefit from UK slaw because I think it's a little dry.

I think some kind of slaw or mayonnaise or some kind of sauce on the bottom would be a big help. But pretty good. Nothing bad. America has some unique sides that we can't find in the UK. First, we have these Louisiana Voodoo Fries. So, these are fries topped with cheese sauce, ranch, and Cajun seasoning. They are not terrible. Yeah, they're not that bad. I quite like Cajun seasoning. I liked them on the wings. I like it now. I think maybe the cheese sauce and ranch are a little much. Next, we have Cajun fried corn. How much of this is fried?

Fried corn, I don't just eat popcorn. Hmm. That's pretty good. Yes, I think in terms of texture I was expecting something different from fried, but don't pay too much attention to it. I like the seasoning though. Quite salty. A little heat, a little smoke. It combines well with the sweetness of the corn. I like it. And finally, on the American menu you will find vegetable sticks. The vegetables in question here are obviously celery and carrots. I think they are found quite often along with wings in bars and restaurants. Yeah, I wasn't sure if people actually ate this when it was served with wings, but now the team tells me they did.

I'm not a fan of celery, but I do love carrot sticks. You have sweet potato fries. You and your chips. By the way, they call them sweet potato fries here. I thought you would call them fries. Sweet potato chips? When there are sweet potatoes, they always remain soggy. The honey and mustard salad. I had some of this salad on that burger a second ago and I loved it. So, just cole slaw. Not good. What happened? I guess slaw only works as a dressing and not on its own. Another thing to note is that we can actually get the cheese sauce found on the fries as a separate menu item here in the US.

Obviously in the UK we have cheese fries, so I'm not sure why they can't serve you the sauce on the side. But in the United States they do. Both countries have their own signature desserts. In the United Kingdom they have two exclusive churro flavors. We have Oreo crumb and Lotus Biscoff crumb. Jesus. Airing. Fantastic. Biscoff Lotus. This is really good. Wow, these are amazing. These are really good. Yes to these. Wow. Then we move on to desserts, where in the US you'll find this three-piece chocolate brownie. That's really good. That's sticky, chocolatey. Alright, moving on to the drinks.

If you are eating in the store, you can have all of these drinks. You know what you can get at Wingstop in the UK and we got it - a couple of beers, darling! Camden Pale and Camdem Hells Lager are available at Wingstop in the UK. Make ice cold beer with your wings. Sounds good to me. Then finally we moved on to US Wingstop's drink options. First of all, we drink unsweetened tea. Obviously I'm from the UK and I'm really passionate about my tea, so I'll have to try it and see that you guys aren't trashing it too much.

That has no taste whatsoever. I'm afraid to try this now, but this is the sweet version of the tea. It's just sugar water. None of these taste like tea. What the hell is going on? That's like syrup. That's not tea. You are effectively drinking only sugar water. In the United States you can also get Dr Pepper and Blue Powerade. Lastly, we have this huge container of Simply lemonade. This is an American style lemonade. So for the British, Americans consider lemonade to be a cloudy, calm, lemon-flavored drink. Whereas we consider lemonade much more like a Sprite, as a clear, carbonated, lemon-flavored drink.

There are also two more teas on the menu at a US Wingstop, but we didn't get them today. These are a Gold Peak sweetened green tea and a Gold Peak raspberry tea. Although if we are guided by these two teas, they will also be bad. I know I was enjoying some of the wings before, but I really liked the sandwich. The churros, both churros were great. The Lotus Biscoff churros, absolutely delighted. Oreo is great too. I really wish they would come back to the US. And you guys had beer, good for you UK. Your Wingstops are very nice.

Your garlic parmesan, not enough garlic and parmesan. It definitely has the smell, but the taste... Having tried both the US and UK Wingstops, I think they're generally pretty similar. I think the UK does a good job of replicating the US version. I think one thing the UK could be doing better is maybe balancing some of those wing flavors. I think, for example, that the lemon pepper here was aggressively salty, and again, I think the lemon flavor was too artificial and too harsh. Whereas the UK version, I think it was probably better and a little more balanced.

I think if there was anything I could bring back from the US menu and put on the UK menu, it would probably be Cajun wings. I think compared to the classic hot sauce wings, I preferred the taste. I think it was more of a deep flavor. The heat was there, but balanced. It wasn't just the acid in yourface on your tongue. A pleasant smoky flavor thanks to the paprika. Yeah, I think it was just a delicious, very well-balanced wing. If I could remove anything from this menu and all the menus in the world, I think it would have to be that terrible attempt at tea.

Both unsweetened and sweetened tea were equally bad. The one without sugar simply didn't taste like anything. The sweetened one just tasted like sugar. I think you guys are really underusing tea. It's so good. It's not just that I'm partial Brit. Well, it sort of is, but you know, the tea is excellent. You guys are currently screwing it up big time. Get rid of it until you can figure it out. Man. Thank you. It's also 2:30.