Ottawa & Back: ELEPHANT & CASTLE

"ELEPHANT & CASTLE in OTTAWA IS NOW CLOSED!
After 26 years of being Ottawa’s favourite neighbourhood pub for dining, drinking, and gathering the beloved Elephant & Castle® is saying Goodbye! We want to sincerely thank our many guests over the years for your continued support and patronage. We have all made fond memories within these old walls, and it is with a eavy heart that we close the doors.
The staff and management wish you all a warm and wonderful summer.See you soon!
We have a great new concept opening in the Fall. Hope to see then!" Elephant & Castle Website.


For the Simcoe Day long weekend, I tagged along with Bramanda as they headed to the far East, Ottawa to visit Dude. Having been there several times now, I'm loving the city and enjoy taking the opportunity to sample what our nation's capital has to offer in the way of wings.

Spending a lot of time in Byward Market, the entertainment area of O-Town, we hit a recognizable and close by chain to fill our hungry bellies. We went to the upper-scale pub,
Elephant & Castle.

I am most familiar with the E&C on Yonge street Toronto, which has a classy, bank feel to the place. In a small way, it reminds me of Ghostbuster headquarters. The E&C we went to on this day was found partly in a mall, but did not look like it at all. We all enjoyed the environment of the place, and the window to the mall gave us front row seats to see 2 fleeing punk teenagers get nailed by security and taken away in cuffs.

It was time to get down to business and I ordered the wings with a side of mashed potato.

THE SCORE

SIZE of WINGS: medium
HEAT: 4/10
WET NAP FACTOR: 2.5/5
PRICE: $10 for 1 pound (approx 10 wings), add another pound for $8

EXTRAS Info

SAUCE CHOICE: only one "hot", but its not
SIDES: veggies and blue cheese dip
WETNAP: nope
DEEP FRIED, GRILLED, BATTERED: deep fried (it says so on the menu)
WING NIGHT: none
OTHER: none

Breaking things down into their simplest form, these wings were decent. They weren't great, but they weren't bad either. The sauce on the wings had a nice flavour that is like a Buffalo sauce but not quite but no heat what so ever. They weren't big, but they weren't small either.

I also ordered mashed potatoes on the side, and thats where I should have left them, on the side. They looked good, but they were what I define as a plain mashed potato. I prefer, on the other hand, whipped potatoes. These were simply boiled potato with the skins left on. Brad got the fish and chips, which turned out to be large, white and wonderfully flakey fish. Dude got a great Union Jack Burger, and Amanda got a supposedly thin sliced eggplant sandwich, which was very thick and inconsumable.

After tallying up my bill, I was not impressed with the price for these decent wings. If you need a wing fix, and there's only an Elephant and Castle around, they will tide you over. But if you need to be satisfied, keep looking. 3/5

The Elephant and Castle ~ Pub and Restaurant
50 Rideau Street Ottawa (and other cities)
elephant&castle.com