One thing I like about Ottawa is that there is a lot of independent pizza places. I don't care much for most of their pizza and they all have basically the same menu's, but I occasionally find a jewel among them.
Way out of the way in a weird part of the city surrounded by housing, automotive shops and partly forested area is a strip mall that houses Palermo's Pizzeria. I've passed this place several times as it is a few stores down from one of my favourite wing places in the city, O'Grady's Outpost. Palermo's also liked one of my photos on Instagram and that doubly put them on my radar.
This is basically a take-out joint with 3 tables for sitting in. The place is clean, bright, and looks like it went through a reno in recent times. I went in just after lunch time and the place was pretty quiet.
There was one pizza dude making pizza's in the back. When he saw me he came over but I needed to look over the menu to see for sure what I was getting.
I have to say I really like Palermo's aesthetic in both the pizzeria and their menu. The grey/black with white and orange made that menu pop.
I had missed breakfast, so I went for 20 piece order but and pizza dude was able to split it up into 2 sauces for me. And sour cream. Oh Ottawa.
These wings came in cardboard boxes, which is great compared to those Styrofoam take-out containers that are not great environmentally. I was just chatting via e-mail with long-time reader George about how unfortunate that places still use those clam-shells.
Wings come in orders of 10, with about 10 fitting in a box. They were both put into a paper bag and that bag felt like a brick. That's a good sign.
The wings were small to medium in length which is a shame because I like bigger wings. On the meatiness scare these were a medium plus (+) because many were pretty plump. The skin was crispy and the meat was tender. Overall these were a very nice wing.
The sauce menu was pretty standard, but my eye was caught by the Suicide, and Buffalo. The Buffalo was intriguing because my experience with wings from pizza places is that they don't put much care or accuracy into their labeling, so they my put Buffalo when its actually just hot sauce. At best it might just be Frank's Buffalo sauce. What would Palermo's be like?
The good news either way was that the wings were in a lot of sauce - one order they had lots of sauced but not tossed very well, while another order were tossed great.
BUFFALO
At first, I couldn't tell which wings were which. After I ate a few of each, it was clear these were not the spicy of the two. They also didn't scream Buffalo to me, as in they weren't buttery and hot/sour, but I did find them really tasty. The sauce didn't taste like the same sauces all the other pizza joints do. It had a good flavour but they were overshadowed by the Suicide wings.
SUICIDE
These wings weren't spicy off the bat, but then it kicked in. It was a nice burn, but this was a sauce that was full of flavour. I'm not sure what they were using but it was very tasty. I gobbled these wings up and when I didn't eat all my Buffalo wings, I dropped them into this sauce to mix around and have for leftovers.
FINAL SCORE:
This place was a pleasant surprise. I don't know about their pizza, but the wings are a notch above most of the take-out wings in the city. They aren't huge, they are crispy and sauced well in some very good sauces. 9/14
Palermo's Pizzeria
25 Tapiola Crescent, Ottawa ON
palermospizzeria.ca
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