THE MOON DOG PUB & GRILL ~ Ottawa ON

Some business at Université d'Ottawa/University of Ottawa (it is a bilingual school) gave me the chance to grab a bite to eat at a local pub. I was going to check out one of the school's two campus pubs, but I was parked near a place that peaked my interest for some reason.

Oh ya, I remember the reason, there was a red sign out front that had a special with chicken wings. Wow it does not take much to get me inside a place eh?


I didn't know anything about the pub; its never come on my radar via Internet, print or word of mouth. The place was an old house that was made over what looks to be a very long time ago. The furniture is probably the same as when uni students went back in the 90's.

There is just one dining room, with a little bar, a TV or two, a very old mural on one wall, and not much else. The TV had MTV while Majic100 played John Tesh and soft rock. The atmosphere was, well off to be honest.

I was expecting a lot of students from the university. The only one was my waitress I think. A lone white haired man sat in the front window. An older couple sat in the middle, and another senior couple in the other corner. Several were friendly with the head cook, "Mike" who I think is the owner as well.


My waitress Angie greeted me with "Bonjour/Hello" as I am clearly in a bilingual area. She brought me a glass of water with her, which is great service in my opinion. She was friendly, but shy. She took my order, but came back to tell me about the special combo, which I decided to take.



8 wings, fries and pop for $8.95. Not a bad little meal. And it came with a container of sour cream. My coke was was ice cold, and was delicious.

The fries were nothing special. From frozen is my guess. The were crispy and pillow soft, but I had to salt and vinegar the heck out of them, over and over, with generous amounts of ketchup to get some flavour. Hot and crispy, but flavour wimpy.

The wings are classic hot wings. Deep fried, then tossed in hot sauce. I say hot wings and not Buffalo wings because I don't think there was butter added to the hot sauce. The wings are naked (not dusting or breading).

They were a medium sized wing with a medium level of meat on the bones. The skin was deep fried crisp. Not in a way that the skin pulls away from the meat and is a crispy treat on its own; no this is where the skin and meat become one, like I remember from the old days.

There was a drizzle of sauce and the wings were tossed, which meant the wings were sloppy, but there was just a tad of sauce to dip at the bottom. I ordered hot, but as with most places hot is not. There was just a hint of spice tingle, but nothing amazing. The sauce was good, but nothing original.

FINAL SCORE: The pub itself is nothing special. But food is pretty cheap, and the service friendly. The fries weren't bad, but not great either. The wings were decent for pub classic. They won't knock your socks off (6/10 is probably a little generous), but they hit the nostalgia spot in my mouth. 6/10

The Moon Dog Pub & Grill

238 Laurier Avenue East, Ottawa ON

PS: I wish I had asked about the name. I feel there is a story there. But I didn't think of it until I wrote this. Dang.