#lotwwintercatchup
Please Note: for this review the location lighting was extremely low and my photos turned out blurry and dark. Sorry!
Social media has been great for me to find out about new wing places and wing deals. Fellow food reviewer Eat This Town (if you aren't following him, do! on his blog http://ottawa.eatthistown.ca/ or @eatthistown ) sent me a heads up that Pour Boy has a Monday wing night. I wasn't following Pour Boy before (I am now) and was excited to try out their wings.
Located in Centretown, I thought this place was familiar to me before, and it was. Turns out Pour Boy is what used to be the second location of Jean Albert's that I reviewed back in 2011. It's an old house that has been totally converted into various restaurants over the years. It's hard to miss these days with their giant mural of Bob Dylan out front that at one point the city tried to have removed.
They have all sorts of specials throughout the week, but I was glad to see confirmation that Monday was indeed wing night. I went inside and the place has a cozy, bohemian feel to it. The crowd was a mix of students, millennials, and a few old guys all enjoying libations and grub. There's one flat screen tv, but nobody was watching it. They were also hosting some sort of event on the second floor (which I had to quickly crash as the washrooms are on the second floor).
My server was Anthony, who I found out later is the owner himself of Pour Boy! He was friendly and attentive and I really appreciate his hands on approach to his establishment. He took my drink order, and confirmed that it was wing night. I asked him about their sauces, specifically if Hot was just Frank's hot. He said ya, but that they could add some sriracha and spice it up. I thought that was awesome, but I went a different way with my wing order.
I didn't have a long wait and my plate of wings were hot and hot from the fryer.
The wings at Pour Boy don't indicate the size of the wings on the menu, but on their social media they indicate it's a pound. That works out to be about 8 wings. Of those 8 wings I'm pretty sure it was even steven 4 flats and 4 drums. For cleanup I was given napkins and wetnaps.
The menu says that the wings come "on a bed of fries" and I had no fries, but I did have two carrot coins. I'm assuming this is because of the wing special and that if I had ordered them on a Tuesday, they would have come with fries.
The wings were on average a medium+ to a medium in length, and they were medium in meatiness too. So not huge wings.
So while the wings may not have been big, this allowed them to be deep fried perfectly. The skin was crispy and just rendered so well. The meat itself was also pretty tender, with the meat pulling away from the bones without much resistance.
While I didn't go with the modified hot that Anthony had offered, I did get the wings served in Spicy Dry Rub, with a side of the Regan's Suicide Sauce.
SPICY DRY RUB
I had debated between getting my go to Cajun dry wings, but the spicy just sounded more my thing. The wings were pretty well coated in the dry rub - you could feel the grit of seasoning when you picked up the wings. It was good, and paired well with the crispy skin. It was salty, a little garlicky, but I noticed that it wasn't spicy. As in hot burn spicy. It was season spicy, but not heat spicy.
REGAN's SUICIDE SAUCE
When I saw my side bowl of dark red sauce, I knew it was going to be hot. I could smell it. It was thick. It was clearly homemade. It smelt like chipotle in adobo sauce. I dove in.
I took a bite and thought it was good but not that spicy, but then, then the heat came at me bro. This was a real suicide sauce. Like I needed a drink it was nice and hot but it was also tasty. Just right. I asked Anthony about it and he said the basis was ghost pepper. Well that made sense where the heat was coming from. He said there was also a mix of chilies and spices as well. These were definitely hot, but I could still enjoy them.
FINAL SCORE:
Wow, these were some good wings. Perfectly crispy, tender, and flavour in both the rub and the suicide. I don't know who Regan is, but boy they do not mess around. I really liked the wings and will definitely back again on wing night. Next time I might just try their modified hot but I will be getting another side of Regan suicide sauce for sure. I'll also try and take better photos too. 11/15
Pour Boy
495 Somerset St, Ottawa ON
pourboypub.com
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