MIKE'S PIZZERIA & RESTAURANT - Metcalfe ON

Sometime when you are out in the boonies, you have to improvise your business to cast a wide net. I think that applies to Mikes Pizzeria & Restaurant.

South of Ottawa just outside of Metcalfe Ontario is Mikes. The place looks like, well I don't know. The top level looks like apartments, and the bottom is the restaurant. It's also a pizzeria, Canadian food restaurant, and it serves Chinese food. Sounds about right.

I walked in at lunch and noticed there were two dinning rooms - the one on the right was dark and empty so I turned to the one on the left. The place looks like it hasn't changed since the 90's. It's all wooden booths and glass dividers. At one table was an older lady, at the other table another older lady, who was in deep conversation with the waitress (who later turned out to be mother and daughter). Everyone stopped talking and looked up when I came in and I felt a little awkward. But Sherri-Lee the waitress was friendly and told me to sit wherever I wanted. She was very friendly, and chatting it up with every customer that came in (that all seem to be regulars).

The menu as expected is a hodgepodge of items. I was coming for wings, but then Sherri-Lee mentioned they had fresh fried fish. That kinda sounded good. So did like a club sandwich. But I could kind of go for Chinese food too. Like I said, I wanted wings, but I found a combo in the Chinese section with wings and fried rice . . . so I had a plan. She asked if I wanted an egg roll and I said why not. I didn't wait long until my roll had arrived.

It was hot and right out from the oil after being fried. This was more akin to what I describe as an Ottawa-style egg roll minus the burnt ends: very cabbage heavy with minced pork inside (in Ottawa they often keep them open ended when they fry them creating a burnt meat end. I'm used to egg rolls being filled with bean sprouts and meat. Either way, this was good, the egg roll wrapper was fried well and was crackly-crispy with a nice plum sauce on the side for dipping. I'm pretty happy because I'm pretty sure this was homemade vs the more frequent practice of places serving frozen product.

After my egg roll, the main dish arrived. It was pretty monochromatic in colour, but it looked and smelled good.

The fried rice was perfectly cooked with little bits of onion, egg, corn, and peas. I added a bit of soy sauce as I do, and it was simple but so good.

And then there were the chicken wings.

Chicken wings are served in two different sections of the menu, as pub style wings, or in the Chinese food. As a pub serving, they come in a pound. In my combination dish, there were 5 wings.

The wings are small in length, but very meaty. The skin has a thin but well coated dusting that makes it super crispy. It's granular so there are like little crispy pops with each bite and a little salty taste to them. The meat is also very tender. As a chicken wing, it was perfectly cooked in all aspects.

There was no description in the menu saying there was a sauce, but they came honey garlic. Now you know my stance on honey garlic, but I had to give these credit. The sauce was syrupy and a bit thin, with obvious honey and garlic flavour but one that was not overpowering or too sweet. I liked it, but I wouldn't choose it, but it was a nice change.

I asked about the pub style wings with Sherri-Lee who told me they do wings up with mild, medium, hot and honey garlic (which I assume is the same as these). There might be other flavours too. I can tell you hands down I would love try these wings with hot sauce on them.

FINAL SCORE:

Perfectly fried and breaded wings. They were amazing. I even liked them with the honey garlic, but really wish I had tried them with hot sauce. The fried rice and egg roll was good too. Very friendly place. I would make the trek back for sure 10/15

Mike's Pizzeria & Restaurant
7168 Bank Street, Metcalfe ON
mikespizzeriarestaurant.ca  (not up & running yet)