BETTY'S

Guess who was back? You guessed it, Dude.

Down from Ottawa, sporting glasses and a beard and on a bit of a vacation, he and I went to the movies, played NHL 94 and of course, went for food. By Thursday night we were in the mood for some pub food, something not close to home.

We were headed for the Queen's Quay to check out one of the many pubs, when I got my streetcar/bus connections mixed up. Getting off at the wrong stop, I noticed another pub, Betty's, which I had seen positively reviewed HERE, and Dude and I decided to stop in.

We went to the door and looked inside: it was packed. We hesitated to go in, but some woman at the second entrance yelled that it was good and we should check it out. That little encouragement got us in the door and on a hunt for seats. We found a high table in a second room.

The crowd was a mix from business suits, students and slightly older than us casuals. It was loud but not deafening, and everyone was pretty friendly. The decor of the place was coffee house meets bar. Betty's was something different and turned out to be exactly what we were looking for. We looked over the short but tasty looking menu, with Dude going for the chicken pot pie and I, well, you know.

The NEW SCORE

STYLE: they were deep fried, grilled, then Buffalo wing sauce added
SAUCES: mild/medium/hot/suicide/honey garlic/jerk
SIZE: jumbo 2/2
HEAT: hot was pretty mild, suicide a bit stronger 5/10
CRISPINESS: nice and crispy 3 /3
WETNAP FACTOR: wet, but far from floating 3 /5
PRICE: $9.95 for 10
SIDES: veggies & dips & fries 7 /7
WETNAP/NAPKINS: lots of both 8/8
WING NIGHT: none :(
OTHER: wing bowl included
TOTAL: 28/35

I was VERY happy with Betty's wings. Just about everything about them was done well. First, they were large and in charge. The skin was perfectly crispy, with a nice crunch when bitten and a juicy meaty inside that says these wings were cooked just right. The fact that they grill these wings after is very interesting, although I don't know how this act added to the wings, but the grill marks looked good.



The wings were ordered hot with a side of suicide. The hot sauce was pretty mild, but the Buffalo sauce aroma and flavour was bang on. Suicide was hotter (it should be called hot) and not as bad tasting as other places, but when I used it I felt like I was ruining the original sauce on them already.

What was also great about these wings were what they came with. Excellent cuts of celery and carrot that had a mayo-sour cream dip. The dip was ok, but I would prefer ranch or blue cheese - but kudos for trying something different. This plate also came with shoestring fries - a great addition - but the fries were a bit blah (thankfully I had suicide to dip in!)

Dude went with his traditional 'old man food' ordering the chicken pot pie. He said he enjoyed the pie, what little pie there was. To compensate for the small pie, his plate was overflowing with fries.

FINAL SCORE: great wings in almost all respects - pricier than I like, but with these jumbo flappers and all the sides, its worth it. If only they had a wing night. Or were closer to where I live. 28/35.

As for Dude, hope we will get to go out again before you head to Asia. Good luck getting chicken pot pie there!

Betty's
240 King Street East, Toronto
bettysto.com