MUNCHEESE - Ottawa ON

"Satisfying your food crave"

This review is still coming from August and part of my #lotwsummercatchup.

Driving down Merivale, a busy commercial stretch of road with lots of businessess and eateries, I'm often on autopilot and don't notice much. But one day, something stood out as different. There was a new eatery opened up. I drove by quick all I could see was that the place was called MunCheese. When I got home I checked the web to see what's what, but got very little info, other than it was a new pizza joint. New pizza joint meant new wing place, so I wanted to check them out. I mean, this could be my new go-to for wings. Plus, I really liked the name MunCheese as a play on words. Was this to be a new late-night stoner eatery too?! 

Located in a little strip mall I've never really paid attention to in the past, I found parking a slight challenge coming South-West on Merivale as the parking is angled parking facing the North-East side. There was a car out front also blocking two spots. Out front was a sandwich sign advertising their slice specials, and in the window was a sign for shawarama. So far a lot going on.

Inside was a clean, fresh, new look going on. There's a decent amount of table seating, as well as window-counter seating as well. The giant mural across the front highlight the modern social media world we live in with various hashtags of food. Unfortunately nothing much is specific to MunCheese other than #homeofthemini - the only thing on the menu was a mini pizza special (and I don't know what the difference between a mini and a small is). The only thing on social media is for Mini Cooper dealers.

There was one dude eating his lunch at one of the tables - I didn't see what he was eating though. I walked up to the counter and there was a very young girl at the counter, she ran away quick when I came (I think she was the daughter of the guy working). He was very friendly and enthusiastic. Later after I had ordered we chatted about MunCheese. They opened up in July, he asked how I had heard about the place, he told me business was good but that he had been warned that that might just be the honeymoon phase. It's gotta be hard for a new business to strike out.

When I did order, I asked for 10 wings. He asked what kind of sauce I wanted and I asked back "What have you got?!" "Oh we got ... we got choices!" he replied. His response suggested some exciting flavours, especially since there were no flavours written down anywhere. Then he listed them off:
mild, medium, hot, honey garlic, plum sauce ... later on I also read online BBQ. I mean that's ok, but I guess I got too excited.

I heard him drop the wings in the fryer (love that sizzle), then after a small wait, heard those crispy wings hit the bowl and sauced (love that sound too). He passed me the to-go bag, said I hope I enjoyed them but I really needed to come back and try their wraps, and especially their burgers! As a pizza place, that already does shawarma as well, here was a big push for their burgers.

I was on the go for lunch so I ate in the car. I pulled open the styrofoam clamshell to reveal my wings ...

Wings come in orders of 10, 20 or 30 pieces; I went with just 10 wings. The order is evenly split between flats and drums. Nothing comes with the wings (no veggies, no dip), and the only clean-up is if you grab some napkins on the way out, which I didn't. Fortunately I have a vehicle stocked with napkins. The take-out wings were served in a styrofoam clam shell with the classic red checkered food paper liner.

The wings were small. I've seen much smaller, but they were still small. They weren't particularly meaty either. This is pretty standard across most Ottawa pizza places in my experience.

Now the wings were crispy, at least when I first got them. The skin had a nice crispness and were fried just right for this size of chicken wing. The meat was relatively tender.

The wings came saucy, with each wing coated in sauce. That sauce is just a straight up cayenne-based hot sauce, probably Frank's.

The flavour was alright. Nothing was wrong, but nothing was great either. The wings were fine enough for a quick lunch, but I was hoping for something special.

FINAL SCORE:

I really wanted the wings from MunCheese to be something special, but they aren't. They are small, standard sauces (aside from Plum Sauce?) but at least they were fried well. I really like the atmosphere and staff at MunCheese, and I'd go back to try their burger. But wings just aren't their thing. 6/14

MunCheese
1489 Merivale Rd Unit B, Ottawa ON
www.facebook.com/muncheesepizza/