Hot wings, New York-style pizza, and Philly steak sandwiches may be the signature foods of the east coast, but it's hard to imagine any restaurant treating them with more reverence than west-coast franchise Alondra Hot Wings. The eponymous wings are the house specialty, hot and slathered in one of 18 sauces. Ranked on a scale from mild to atomic—which requires a waiver to order—the sauces also include flavors such as lemon pepper, spicy barbecue, maple syrup, and thai chili.

Alondra's other major influence is written all over the menu—and the walls. Also from that old Italian-American milieu: pizzas built on from-scratch dough, bearing names such as The Godfather—a hearty amalgam of four meats—and the Little Italy, which flecks chicken breast with basil. Draft beer and wine help mouths cool down after biting into a hot wing or almost insulting the ghost of Al Capone.