MARSHY'S BAR-B-Q & GRILL ~ Ottawa, On

After an anonymous reader left me a message here, about All-You-Can-Eat (AYCE) Wings at a place called Marshy's in Ottawa, I knew I was going to have to try them. LJ took a Thursday night off and travelled to the Centrepointe location (there is also one at the Scotiabank Place arena where the Ottawa Senators play hockey).

Going there, I had no idea who Brad Marsh was. Immediately entering the place, I could see he was a hockey player, and I was pretty sure from the wall to wall Ottawa Senators memorabilia he played for Ottawa. Wikipedia states he:

is a professional ice hockey player who played the position of defenceman.
Originally selected by the Atlanta Flames in the 1978 NHL Entry Draft, Marsh played with the Flames and followed the organization when they relocated to Calgary. He also played with the Philadelphia Flyers, Toronto Maple Leafs, Detroit Red Wings, and Ottawa Senators. His number has been retired by his junior team, the London Knights.

Also:

He scored 23 goals and added 175 assists in 1086 NHL games, which is a
record for fewest goals scored by a player who played at least 1000 games.

Wow, clearly a hockey hero. But I don't care for hockey, so none of this mattered. What matters is the place not the man. The place inside, as mentioned before, is clearly decked out like a sports bar. Pennants, flat screen tvs with the game on (even booths here have tv's in them) and jersey's are all around. There were lots of servers running around which made service prompt and friendly. The crowd was a strange mix: men in suits, multi-generational families. I was getting mixed vibes all around about the nature of this place.

Of course, LJ and I came for the AYCE wings. A big sign outside say they are "simply the best and biggest wings in Ottawa" which is a pretty big claim. We would see. We ordered some fries (they were frozen fries, but they were big, not bad for frozen, but nothing special), and went on to sample various flavours of wings . . .

2008 THE SCORE 3.0: Marshy’s Bar-B-Que - Ottawa

STYLE:	Breaded, deep fried
PRICE:	$10.99 for 1lb $20.99 for 2lb
SAUCES:	BBQ medium/hot/suicide honey garlic dry spice	1/1
HEAT:	Tingle for the suicide
SIZE:	Medium with breading	1/3
WETNAP FACTOR:	Wet – a nice amount of sauce	2/3
CRISPINESS:	crisp – the breading gives it a slight crunch	2/3
FLAVOUR:	Terrible – 4 out of 5 sauces tasted were not good	0/3
SIDES:	Veggies, and sour cream dip	2/3
CLEAN UP:	Napkins and wetnaps	2/3
WING NIGHT:	Thursdays AYCE $11.95 with drink purchase	1/1
OTHER:	Free refills on pop, buffalo shrimp
TOTAL:	Good chicken and breading, terrible tasting sauces	11/20

The first batches of wings LJ & I got came in an order of 14. 14 is a big number! LJ was done after this, but I went on to try more flavours in multiples of 6. The wings are a small medium, but they grow because of the breading. They are meaty and fall off the bone. As the chicken itself goes, these were a well done wing. However, Local Heroes clearly serves a bigger wing.

Now to evaluate the sauce, lets look at them on their own:

HOT

LJ's first and only batch. She got hot, but they were not. They tasted like regular hot sauce on a wing, but something was off. I think there was too much butter in the mix because it tasted heavy and gave a churn in the stomach that was not heat related.

SUICIDE

They looked so good when they came out: lots of chili's and a dark red complection, I thought I was in for a heat treat. However, I did not feel like I was taking my life with these. In fact, I quickly began to dislike the pepper flake flavour that did nothing for taste.

BBQ

These were my absolute least favourite. Their signature sauce, was simply gross. I actually forced myself to finish these. It was a strange sweet sauce with an Asian flare added in that made for a mess. How do you mess up BBQ?

DRY SPICE

This was my favourite, and the last of my options. Very crispy with a salty, granualar version of KFC chicken. I wouldn't eat more than 12 without adding some sort of sauce, but after the BBQ, this redeemed Marshy wings.

FINAL SCORE:
So much about this place. Hockey atmosphere with strange patrons. Plain frozen fries, veggies and dip (and by the by, why is sour cream a dip? I know sour cream helps cuts the pain from heat, but it tastes terrible as a dip!). While the wings were not that big, they were well breaded, cooked with the right amount of meat that fell off the bone.

The sauces however, well, they seem to get as many goals as Brad. And for AYCE, 11.95 is not that cheap: I ate enough to make them $0.45 a piece. LJ got the wings down to about $0.85 a piece, which is more than you would normally pay for wings. Moral of the story: eat eat eat to make it worth while, but it makes it worth while when sampling flavours. In the end, I really liked the chicken, but the sauces sucked. I might try them again, but there's more wings in Ottawa to discover. 11/20

Marshy's Bar-B-Q & Grill
117 Centrepointe Drive, Ottawa (Nepean technically)
marshys.com (warning: website does not work with Firefox properly, use IE)