Spiciest Dish in Columbus – Tweeter’s Chicken Crib

We first heard about Tweeter’s Chicken Crib a few years ago. Most people that talk about it are doing so because of their Devil’s Breath wing sauce. This past week on Wing Wednesday, we stopped by and snagged some Devil’s Breath slathered chicken tenders and some covered in the Spicy Chipotle BBQ.

Update: Tweeter’s Chicken Crib is now closed.

Tweeter’s looks like a little hole in the wall and while it has 6 or so 4-person tables, it seems like there are lots of call-in orders. Reading the reviews on Google was a bit confusing because people kept complaining they wanted the chicken overcooked but it would come out undercooked. In this situation though, we believe what the reviewers mean is that the chicken isn’t quite as crispy as they’d like. After a car ride home, sitting in sauce, the tenders were no longer intensely crunchy, but duh, that’s to be expected. As of the end of last year, Tweeter’s is under new ownership, so hopefully they can get their review game back up (without the snarky owner responses).

A peek at their full menu. Lots of options, including jalapeno poppers!

One quick note, every Wednesday is $1 Chicken Tender night at Tweeter’s so if you start salivating during this review, now you know the best day of the week to chow down. As I walked out, bag of heat and chicken in hand, I asked quickly about the Devil’s Breath sauce. Unsurprisingly, the heat behind the Devil’s Breath is from an extract, an easy way to give the sauce a consistent heat in every batch. Also, being in Ohio I imagine trying to source super hots for a chicken sauce is not the most economical choice.

First up we opened the Devil’s Breath tenders to see what all the fuss was about. The tenders stared back into our soul, an angry red that smells of vinegar and death. In most cases the death smell would ward off lesser consumers of chicken, but for us that’s the sort of smell that gets us out of bed each morning.

The tenders are thick as is the breading, but each piece feels like it’s about a fifth of a pound and for one dollar you’re definitely getting your moneys-worth. We weren’t sure what to expect with the first bite, but we dug in. The initial flavor is very vinegar forward with a bit of heat. As we made our way deeper into the tender, the extract started to kick in, now fully coating our mouths. Surprisingly the heat dissipated pretty quickly for the first four of five tenders, something we definitely weren’t expecting. For the final tender, there was some extra sauce left in the box (excess from the others) so we slathered the final chicken as thick as we could and split it up. Now we were aware of the legendary Devil’s Breath sauce people were talking about. Once it was extra-loaded with the sauce, it induced some sniffles and a pretty good mouth heat. Overall a pretty enjoyable spicy chicken, but not quite as much flavor or heat as our chicken at Atlas Tavern.

We moved on to the Spicy Chipotle BBQ tenders and really enjoyed the flavor of this sauce. A little sweet and a lot smokey, these were pretty good as BBQ tenders go. We didn’t catch much of the spiciness, but our receptors could also just be a bit tainted at this point.

So are Tweeter’s Devil’s Breath tenders the spiciest dish in Columbus? No, but it’s definitely not something an amateur spice lord is going to be able to handle and for the price its definitely worth checking out. Devil’s Breath would make an excellent dipping sauce for any number of their appetizers. The sauce list is pretty deep, sporting ~18 wing sauces and four dry rubs, so there’s something on the Scoville Scale for everyone.

• Teriyaki
• Honey Sriracha
• Smokin’
• Sweet BBQ
• Golden BBQ
• Asian Zing
• Devil’s Breath
• Mild Buffalo
• Classic Buffalo
• Orange Jerk
• Parmesan & Garlic
• Honey Chipotle BBQ
• Hot Buffalo
• Spicy Garlic
• Southern Cajun
• Chipotle Ranch
• Spicy Chipotle BBQ
• Sweet Buffalo
• Angry Jerk Dry Rub
• Lemon Pepper dry rub
• Sriracha dry rub
• Cajun Dry Rub

Tweeter’s Chicken Crib is located at  5927 Karric Square Dr, Dublin, OH 43016. For quick chicken at a good price and a laundry list of sauce options, Tweeter’s has got a lot going for it. 

For what it’s worth, we believe the Devil’s Breath recipe changed under the new management. We heard tales of a challenge wall, of people having stomach pains, etc and then we found this picture of the previous sauce. That’s not to say it’s a bad thing, just wanted to point it out for anyone that was yelling at their screen like “IT’S NOT THE SAME!”

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