Return to the King Eddy

Back with the gang in London, we agreed to make a trip to nearby Ilderton to go back to the King Edward Pub. Last year we enjoyed the food, the service and the atmosphere. A few months later Rich, owner of the King Eddy with his wife Deborah, invited me back when their new chicken wing menu came out. How can you pass on that?

Rich came by our table to talk wings and the King Eddy. Leaving a career of engineering, Rich talked about moving to the small but growing town, city adjacent area with a historic building with an existing pub that they could turn over and make into the great pub that it is today.

Wings were the main discussion - with the focus being their new 40 sauce menu. He tested around 100 recipes for sauces, but felt too many would be sacrificing flavour and quality, so he only kept the best. I asked what the most popular order was, and he kind of scoffed. "Honey Garlic" he said. Having gone on the radio, a lot of people were excited by the large choice of wing flavours, but when it came to ordering, people went with "the old standbys".

"Be adventurous!" the chef said, and I agree. Liquid Gold, the honey-mustard sauce is another favourite, and Rich admits you never know what people are going to like: a bunch of bikers came in and instead of ordering a 'manly' hot sauce, went with the Parmesan wings. One guy was interested in the Canadien sauce (honey garlic with Montreal steak spice) but refused to get it because of the Montreal Canadien's hockey logo on the menu - he just couldn't 'support' another team, no matter how good it might be. I feel his frustration. You put your heart and soul, and people just can't break away to try new things. I asked him what his favourite sauce was, but he said all of them.

While we were waiting for our orders to come in, AJ was surfing the net using the King Eddy's Wifi to get some over-the-weekend work done. Brad and Rick both ordered beer, which is hand pulled, cask ale. Both of them enjoyed it and expressed their love of local breweries over the commercial stuff.

AJ ordered up the same as last time, the cannelloni. And she loved it just as much as last time. In fact, she ate slower than I have ever seen her, because she was savouring every bite. I teased her about not trying something new, but she related that as a 'vegetarian' when she finds a dish she loves, she doesn't stray far off.

Rick had a starter of the Santa Fe Chili. When asked how it tasted, all I got was "chili" but with black olives and a few other ingredients that set it apart.

For his main, he went with the Cottage Pie. Just the other day I had heard Cottage Pie reading a food blog when I looked at it and saw it as Sheppard's Pie. Confused, I researched and discovered that traditionally Sheppard's Pie is ground lamb, while Cottage Pie is with ground beef. So all these years I had Cottage Pie. Huh.

Brad was going to go with a lamb burger, but after finding out about feta in the burger (he does not enjoy feta), he went with wings. If I wasn't so interested in the wings, the feta lamb burger sounded pretty good to me! Brad went with the Bourbon Street wings.

Looking over all the flavours, I settled on two very different sauces: The Dragon, and Mesquite. When I started writing today, I looked back at what I thought I would want to try and it turned out I picked pretty much the same flavours!

BOURBON STREET: Described as "Cajun hints through smokey medium sauce kicked up with Jack's Old No.7" When Brad ordered these, our server Matt said he wanted to try them, but joked because of the alcohol content he couldn't while on duty.

I've come to detest alcohol based wing sauces, but I really liked this one. It was sweet and spicy with a twang. A 'bright' flavour if that makes any sense. Unfortunately, these wings destroyed Brad. The heat really got to him, and he died later that night.

THE DRAGON: "Fiery Szechwan style" was all I needed to hear. Sichuan province in China is famous for their spicy cuisine and I was in the mood for an Asian flavour.

I wasn't knocked over in heat, but these saucy wings had a nice flavour. The sauce was oily with chilies made for a unique flavour.

MESQUITE: "Smokey BBQ, slightly sweet". A good, high quality BBQ sauce.

This is the kind of BBQ sauce I really like on my wings. Its thick, smokey and just a little bit sweet. I think this was the table favourite. It was mine for sure.

It was great coming back to the King Eddy. We all agreed it was a good time and it was starting to feel like 'our place'. It was great that we could talk with Rich and Matt (and Deborah the last time) and have a sense of belonging. Good food, good times.

King Edward Pub Update

Back in November, I joined the London Crew out for a dinner at a great little pub in Ilderton Ontario called The King Edward Pub. The wings here were so good, they were my Best Wings General Ontario for 2008 (ok to be fair, I didn't review any other wings in 2008 outside of Ottawa or Toronto, but KEP's would have been tops I'm sure).



Well, Rich Hunter, owner of the KEP contacted me to reveal their revamped wing menu. Our waitress the night I was there said they were going to be unleashing a huge menu of wing flavours, and I have a copy, which I'm sharing with you:

Page 1 items that sound good to me: The Dragon, Aztec, and Tequila Tango . . .

Page 1 items that really have my interest: Mesquite, Honey Mustard and Jerk. What would you try?

I can't wait to get back to the KEP and try these out. Also, Rich pointed out a mistake I made in a review about the UrBUN sauce, not UrBAN like I had thought, and gave its origin. Here's where I messed up:

"Note the spelling to, it started out with a customer, last name Urbshott ("Urby"), wanting medium and BBQ mixed on his wings, fair enough. I then added some Cajun spices, 'Urb' from Urby and the 'un' from Cajun."

Thanks Rich!

King Edward Pub Website

THE KING EDWARD PUB & RESTAURANT ~ Ilderton On

The London Gang (Bramanda, Ricky) were out on a crisp November day after celebrating scaring children the night before and consuming lots of candy. The day was a slow start, and not much was accomplished while there was still daylight, but by dinner, we were ready for a good meal. Ricky had been exposed to an advertisement for an interesting little pub in Ilderton Ontario (just North/West of London) and we decided we should definitely check it out. Ilderton was easy to navigate, and in no time we were parked outside this quaint little establishment.


Walking inside, one felt like you were walking back in time to an old fashion general store or saloon. I really expected to hear the sounds of spurs and a cowboy walking in through the front door.

We were a bit early for the supper crowd, so we had our pick of seats, but it didn't take long to fill up. One of the owners was walking around talking to everyone, and she mentioned that the next time if we came on a Friday or a Saturday again we should make reservations as it fills up quick, and she would hate for us to drive so far and have to wait.

I want to point out the great service in this place. Not only was our server Sarah friendly and attentive (if not a little overwhelmed with my wing questions) but the owners (I'm pretty sure she was the owner, because she teased me about 'stealing her recipes' when I was taking photos ) were walking around, checking on customers and being generally friendly. There are three elements to a great restaurant: food, comfort and service. So far, TKE was hitting all the right notes.

As for the food, Brad started everyone off with their 'curry bite' appetizer. I can't remember it's real name, but basically it was small chicken curry chunks with lettuce in a tortilla wrap, with ranch dipping sauce. It was certainly an interesting nibble.

Rick went with a pub classic 'bangers and mash'. When prompted how it was, I was given the indication that it was good. Everything looked a little blah to me (it looked like frozen peas and corn) but I didn't try and I didn't follow up with Rick like I should have.

Amanda went with the cheese cannelloni. And she would not stop talking about how good it was. The best she had ever had. One of the best meals she ever had. Amazing. And on and on and on. So it was good. Light but tomatoey sauce, cheese was goey and good and the pasta was cooked well. So she was VERY happy with her meal. Trust me.

Brad went for the lamb, which was one of the specials of the evening. It came with sauteed veggies and a 3 potato mash (3 different potatoes mixed in). He was very content with his meal and that's all I have to say about that.

Why, because I went for the wings. And I had lots to choose from. I scanned the menu and found wings pretty quick. There was lots to choose from, and I made my choices. Then I re-examined a flat screen tv that had an advert for their wings that Rick had pointed out earlier. I hadn't really read it and saw that there was a seperate wing menu. Sarah brought it over, and it was simply more detailed than the main one, with over 20 wing flavours. But we were informed that a new wing menu with over 40 flavours was coming out in a week or two (dang, just missed it).
But I had lots to choose from already and I went with the two most interesting offers on the menu.

2008 THE SCORE 3.0: KING EDWARD PUB ~ Ilderton On

STYLE:	Deep fried, some dusted
PRICE:	$8.50 for 1lb (approx 8 wings) $14.50 for 2lb $6.95 for 6 wings (Chef’s Revenge)
SAUCES:	Over 40 – but a sample: Wuss/mild/medium/hot BBQ Cajun Salt Honey Garlic Urban (bbq & Cajun) Curry Thai Suicide Voodoo Ice (horseradish) Chef’s Revenge	1/1
HEAT:	Chef’s Revenge had a great kick
SIZE:	Medium to large	1.5/3
WETNAP FACTOR:	wet – a nice amount of sauce on both	2.5/3
CRISPINESS:	Crispy/crunchy – just right	3/3
FLAVOUR:	Good-great: both were interesting flavours	2.5/3
SIDES:	Add veggies and dip for $1.25	0/3
CLEAN UP:	Napkins, wetnaps, wing plate	3/3
WING NIGHT:	Tuesdays (approx $.35 ) the wing night was changing as were the sauces, so this might change as well.	1/1
OTHER:	Great ‘general store/saloon’ pub feel. Very friendly service! Free refills on Pepsi.
TOTAL:	Good food, good service – what more can you want?	14.5/20

The chicken wings themselves were a good size, not super big, but deep fried well. The skin was perfectly crispy, with a hot meaty interior.

CHEF's REVENGE:

As I scanned the initial menu, the hottest sauce listed was suicide. Then, lower on the menu was Chef's Revenge listed seperately from the rest of the wings. They only come out in 6 wings, in theory, because they are so hot. Brad took a little finger dab of the sauce: he was reaching for his beer in seconds. Amanda was feeling brave and took not even a full drop on her finger to taste - but she was out of pop, so she waited with her finger in the air until another arrived. She took her taste . . . and her eyes lit up with immense pain.

Rick and I, both able to handle heat took our tastes and came to relatively the same conclusions. The flavour was definitely 3rd Degree (which is what I assume their suicide must be) but there was certainly more heat, with a slight chemical after taste. This suggests that they add a pure capsicum/heat that has no taste of its own, but a lot of burn. Now this isn't the hottest sauce I've had, but there was a good burn there. It made you aware of your mouth, and I liked the taste.

URBAN:

There were a couple of flavours on the main menu I wasn't sure what they were. One was 'ICE', which could be combined with a number of sauces. I asked Sarah about Ice, and she informed us it was horseradish. An interesting flavour and heat to add in, but I personally hate horseradish, so I passed. Another sauce that caught my attention was Urban. This turned out to be a popular mix of BBQ and Cajun. Well I was thinking of going with BBQ, and I usually like dry Cajun salt, so this was a must mix for me.

The top wings were more dry and you could clearly see the Cajun seasoning on the crispy skin. But underneath was a hidden bbq sauce deposit. My first sauce taste I thought I was having a wing dunked in ketchup. I was disappointed. But I went in for another wing and waited to evaluate the flavours more clearly. It wasn't ketchup, but it was sweet - not smokey or bold - but sugary, in a good way. The more I had it, the more I enjoyed it.

Another big bonus was the suckers. No not Bramanda and Ricky, but the confection on a stick handed out with the bill. Lots of places give mints, or little candies, and even suckers, but TKE handed out quality lollipops. Rick and I went for the cherry red, and man it was allllright. A thick lollipop with that sweet cough syrup cherry that tastes just so good.

FINAL SCORE: What a great pub. Everyone enjoyed their meal (especially Amanda). My wings were a good size, nice and crispy, and while the Chef's Revenge was not the hottest I've had, they certainly seem to care about their wings. I can't wait to come back to London and try out their new wing menu! Sometimes you have to go off the beaten path to get really good grub. Good find Rick. 14.5/20

The King Edward Restaurant & Pub
13239 Ilderton Road, Ilderton, Ontario

thekingedward.com