YEAR IN REVIEW - 2018

I'm back baby!

2018 was the year of The Return of the Lord of the Wings. This blog was back in action. How so? I had the highest number of posts EVER in the blog's history at 330. The next closest was 179 and that was in 2009, and the worst (aside from the 2 posts of the first year) was 2014 with 16 posts. That's almost a single post every single day.

It was also The Return because so many of the reviews were returning to pubs and restaurants I had reviewed 10 years ago. Some got better, some got worse.

Now in my return I haven't accomplished everything I wanted to do. I want more recipes, more reviews, more videos. I'm getting there, but 2018 was getting back to basics.

So I've broken the YIR down to 8 categories:

BEST OTTAWA WINGS of 2018
BEST NON-OTTAWA WINGS
BEST TAKE-OUT WINGS
BEST NON-WINGS
BEST HOMEMADE WINGS
MISC FROZEN WINGS, WING-SNACKS, SAUCE REVIEW
EVENTS
INSTAGRAM

As always, these aren't listed necessarily in any particular order, and are the best of what I reviewed, not necessarily the best EVER. Let's go take a look at some of the best of what I encountered and reviewed in 2018:

BEST OTTAWA WINGS of 2018

I struggled with sticking to my 2017 YIR method of best wings of all that I reviewed, but I decided to break everything down into categories more like the old days of what I inaccurately called the blogiversary reviews. Since I live in Ottawa Ontario, I sampled eateries in Ottawa the most, so by shear number, this needed it's own category.

PATTY BOLAND'S

Not only do the wings rock at Patty Boland's - fried crispy, awesome sauces, but they have probably the best wing night in Ottawa: Monday night $0.35 & $0.55 wings!!! Plus the Carolina Reaper challenge is wicked wicked hot!

Return to WHISPER's PUB - October

Whipser's Pub, the "friendliest little pub in Westboro" is both friendly and a great spot for wings. The wings are crispy, the sauces are good, and that Chef's Challenge suicide isn't the hottest, but it's peppery goodness. 

HOMETOWN SPORTS BAR

Dusted, crispy wings form a great base. Hot is good, 40 Creek BBQ is great. Suicide is 3rd Degree. Also they have wing night all day long on Tuesdays. If you like sports and you like wings, this is your place.

SUMMERHAYS GRILL

This place has wing night basically all the time, and that's awesome. These breaded wings are crunchy, but they also have all these unique sauces that don't taste like your same old pub wings.

HOOLEY'S PUB

You want to see busy, come to Hooley's on Monday for wing night. The place will be packed for these breaded wings. But what puts this place on the map is that they have over 30 different sauces! I went with simple sauces like Hot Honey Mustard and Creamy Dill, but they have Pepperoni Pizza wings, Butter Chicken or Maple Bacon Dry Rub.

BEST NON-OTTAWA WINGS

It's pretty self-explanatory, these are wings I got anywhere outside of Ottawa in 2018. 

MEATINGS BBQ - Orleans ON

I can't tell you how happily surprised I was when I came across the wings at this BBQ Joint. They were huge. They were smokey, they were tender. Finding tender smoked jumbo wings is VERY difficult. The BBQ sauces are awesome. Check them out on Wednesdays for $10 for 1lb. Oh, and get the free smoked popcorn too!

DINGALING`s - Kingston ON

I'm on the road driving past Kingston frequently so when I get a chance I love to stop in at Dingaling's. This mostly take-out wing place serves up meaty, crispy wings. I cannot get enough of their Butter Face wings - they're hot, buttery, and soo very good.

ZE KITCHEN - Cumberland ON

I took a chance one night by taking a trip to the little town of Cumberland on the possibility of good wings on Thursday wing night at Ze Kitchen, and I'm glad I did. Super breaded crunchy seasoned wings are what I found. Salt and Pepper and Hot were simple, but very tasty wing experiences.

BEST TAKE-OUT WINGS

These are wings that specifically came from take-out wing or pizza joints. In actuality, some of these would have been in the runner for best wings overall.

COMINO`s PIZZA & WINGS - Whitby ON

I found this place online looking for a different pizza place than our usual chain go-to's in Whitby, and yes I found good pizza, but I found great wings. This family run pizza joint makes all their wing sauces and serves them up on large crispy wings. Suicide has a BIG BITE to it, and the Buffalo Style Hot, while there`s nothing Buffalo about it, is freaking good.

THE WING FACTORY - Mississauga ON

Wow. That`s what I said when I had The Wing Factory Wings, These were HUGE wings. Massively meaty wings covered in breading and deep fried. The meat was almost too much, but fortunately they were able to fry the wing to make sure all the meat was cooked, without overcooking the breading. Also, the sauces were great - LOVED Gutter Butter (Buffalo-style sauce) and Smokey BBQ was spot on. One of the highest rated wings of the year!

PALERMO`s PIZZA - Ottawa ON

I came across this pizza joint by accident and I'm glad I did. These take-out wings are classically crispy fried wings that are a decent size. Buffalo didn't taste like Buffalo at all (I couldn't tell which sauce was which at first) but it was good and not like your regular commercial hot sauce, but the Suicide, this sauce was super flavourful and had a nice spice to it. Great take-out wings!

FAMOUS MOE`s - Ottawa ON

I keep coming back for these take-out wings. They are large and very meaty wings, but the meat can be tough. Also I'm not sure why, but they can sometimes taste burnt. That being said, the sauces on these wings are unlike all the other joints. I've liked what they serve, but I now always get my favourite - Suicide and BBQ mixed together. So good!

HOLLY`S HOT CHICKEN - Ottawa ON

This is unique because Holly's Nashville Hot Chicken is a pop-up shop so you never know for sure where she will pop up. At the time I did the review, it was out of Bar Lupulus on Friday & Saturday nights, but as of this posting she isn't doing the chicken thing right now but desserts at other locations. But when I did have it, these Nashville Hot Wings were medium but meaty wings, dredged in spices and fried, served on top of white bread and pickles on top. Oily and dry spiced, you are going to need a napkin. It's a peppery kick that will kick you hard!

BEST NON-WING REVIEWS

I don`t just review wing you know (#itsnotjustaboutwings). - Here are some of the best non-wing food items (that might be wing related) from fingers to burgers and sandwiches!

DQ - various locations - HONEY HOT TOSSED & SAUCED FINGERS

I'm not crazy about the hot food at Dairy Queen, but my curiosity for these Honey Hot fingers got the best of me. These were actually, really good. The chicken strips are lightly breaded and fried nicely, and are good fingers on their own. Then they add the sauce which is a very high fructose honey syrup mixed with Frank's Red Hot, creating a runny, sticky, slightly spicy experience. So good. And they give a LOT of sauce.

HINTONBURGER - Ottawa ON - HINTONBURGER

I went for their Free Fry Day, but I couldn't pass up the signature Hintonburger at Hintonburger. One of my favourite burgers in the city, the Hintonburger is a 6oz homemade burger, cheese, bacon, and their signature smokey BBQ sauce. Made with the toppings I want, this is a great tasting burger. The fries are fresh cut and also very good. It's a pricey meal, but it's locally sourced, locally made, and is very very good.

SHERWOOD DELI - Ottawa ON - BBQ Chicken Bacon Sandwich

When a convenience store has a line-up almost out the door for sandwiches, they must be doing something right. I love their BBQ Chicken Bacon Sandwich (the most popular is the BBQ Chicken Avacado though) - egg bread, great deli chicken, fresh veggies, and the Sherwood Sauce is just so good. The sandwich is just so fresh and tasty. A must try.

REUBEN`s RESTAURANT DELI- Montreal QC - SMOKED MEAT SANDWICH

In Montreal you can find a lot of Smoked Meat Sandwiches, and so far I don't think I've had a bad one yet. Reuban's has been around for a long time, and they do a great Smoked Meat Sandwich special with the sandwich, fries, coleslaw, pickle and pop for $14. I upgraded my fries to a poutine, because well, Montreal. The sandwich was sliced thin, was juicy, and just melted in the mouth. Fatty is the way to go.

So not big enough for their own categories, this is a miscellaneous grouping of some topics that need shout outs:

• FROZEN WINGS 
• BEST SNACKS 
• BEST HOMEMADE 
• SAUCES REVIEWED 

BEST FROZEN WINGS REVIEWED - PC SMOKED

I sampled a number of frozen wings this past year, and most were a pass, but the PC Dry-Rubbed, Hardwood-Smoked Chicken Wings were pretty awesome. Not big, not crispy, but the meat was pretty tender, and the flavour of smoked wings was so there. The Maple BBQ sauce that came with it was not my thing, but the actually smoked wings were. If you don't have a smoker or a BBQ, this is the next best thing.

BEST SNACK REVIEWED - DUNN`s DILL PICKLE CHIPS

I love dill pickle chips. So when I saw Dunn's Deli's Dill Pickle Chips at Costco, I knew I needed to try them. This giant bag (like everything at Costco), releases that pungent, sour, dill smell that I could get high of off. The chips are wavy ruffled type that are very stiff and crunchy. They are sour, salty and dilly. They are ideally suited for dipping. Unfortunately I haven't seen them at Costco anymore, so you may never get to try these if you didn't already.

BEST #LOTWTESTKITCHEN WING RECIPE - BACON WRAPPED INJECTED WINGS

Now technically, technically, I made these wings before 2018, but I didn't post the recipe until 2018. I have to say, this is one of my favourite things to come out of the #lotwtestkitchen. Bacon wrapped wings that are fried, dusted, then sauced via injector, ON THE INSIDE. Not only is it an experience, it's also delicious.

HONOURABLE MENTION  #LOTWTESTKITCHEN WING RECIPE - GRIL-FRIED KETCHUP DRY RUBBED WINGS

I didn't post a lot of wing experiments I did, but this one was super unique, and turned out pretty fantastic. I grill-fried seasoned wings, then tossed them in ketchup pop-corn seasoning. It may sound weird but it turned out really good. It does not taste like actual ketchup, but more of a sweet BBQ sauce. Mixed with the smell of the charcoal, it was aces.

BEST SAUCE REVIEWED - OUT OF THE BOX GOURMET HOT SAUCES

Out of the Box sent me their signature sauces for me to try. I was house/dog sitting at the time and took advantage of the BBQ, grill-fried some wings, and went to town. These are gourmet hot sauces and some really unique flavours. Cucumber Habanero? Pina Colada? Yes there is a traditional Scotch Bonnet Hot, but they also had Pineapple Mango. These were all really fresh, really tasty sauces and they were truly, out of the box!

BEST WING SAUCE REVIEWED - PC CAYENNE & SCOTCH BONNET WING SAUCE

I also didn't do a lot of sauce reviews in 2018, but I really wanted to highlight this President's Choice Cayenne & Scotch Bonnet Wing Sauce. Wow - this sauce had some serious heat, and serious flavour. I grill-fried some seasoned wings, then I melted butter in a cast iron pot on the grill, and made a buttery-suicide wing sauce, both brushing the grilled wings and tossing them after. The charred and smokey wings went very well with the sauce that has good flavour, but also a really nice bite. 

EVENTS

2018 wasn't the best year for big events, only 2 wing related ones and I didn't even really post about them. The other two were big life events.

WINGSANITY @ St Louis Bar & Grill

So I'm a bit embarrassed. I went to Wingsanity, St Louis' all you can eat wing event. I had lots of wings, I took photos, and I never posted this review. $20 for AYCE may not sound great, but considering  1lb of wings is nearly $15, if you have two orders you are doing well. I did a bunch of flavours and I want to tell you all about it, but I've lost the info. I will try not to let this happen again!

KELSEY'S HOT WING CHALLENGE

So I'm embarrassed again. See back in March I went to Kelsey's event where you could win free wings for a year - a hot wing eating challenge where if you won at your local Kelseys, you would win free wings for a year. I was totally on board, however the rules, times and events were very different at the 3 Kelsey's I contacted. I went with the one I had the best chance of winning. I went and went up against about 8 other folks. I gotta say I was impressed because while I didn't win, I was impressed everyone stayed to the end in the competition. They did 9 rounds with different heated wings. It was fun, a little awkward, and I got to eat a lot of wings. I actually slowed down not because of the heat, but the actual eating of wings. I'm getting old. Anyways, I did have the event video taped and I was going to do a full video and posting, but it was around this time my laptop died, along with my editing software. One day maybe ...

GRAM PASSING

Two major life events happened towards the end of 2018, one sad and one happy. The sad one was that my Gramma passed away. Doreen Brown was a wonderful gram, always looking out for me, always kind, always making something delicious. The photo above is from wing night (she didn't know I was taking a photo). I really miss her, a lot.

NEW #LOTWTESTKITCHEN

The other major event was my wife and I bought a house. Yes, after searching for almost 2 years, we moved out of our tiny apartment into a very spacious place to put down our roots. And more excitingly, a new #lotwtestkitchen. Functioning oven, place to deep fry, eventual BBQ set up, and hopefully I can get WingKingTV back up and running. As for now, we are still drowning in boxes, but it's so good to have the home we've always wanted.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

INSTAGRAM

One thing has has changed everything about my Lord of the Wing experiences has been Instagram. I love it. It's simple, easy to use, and can really expose my food photography to a much large audience. And I have connected with so many other wing lovers, or Wingstagramers as well. It changed how I post to the blog and how often I post. I love it.


To end everything off, here is my #2018bestofnine from Instagram, the most liked photos that I produced over the year. I'm always shocked at the most popular photos because, well they weren't even necessarily wing photos. My top Instagram post of all time was re-posting Low Cost Cosplays Street Fighter Chicken Wing post. Also really big is my wing memes. Yes I am the top Chicken Wing Memer on Instagram, for whatever that's worth.

That's it, that was 2018. It was a good year for me and a good year to be a wing blogger. I know things are going to be even better in 2019. Although I am late on this post once again (I was so close to having this done on New Years eve!!!) and I'm behind by 3 posts for 2019 already, I'm excited. I love writing reviews, seeing new places, meeting new people. I love it.

So happy new years, and happy new wing adventures to you. Oh, and I hope you like the new Lord of the Wing logos!

THE WING FACTORY - Mississauga ON

So I was in Mississauga the other week. Yes, if you have been noticing, I have been on the road lately and have been scrambling to finish all my reviews. But the good news is that means I have had the opportunity to sample more wings across the province. I was going to be having lunch and I did some research about wings in 'Sauga, and I came across Wing Factory.

I was a bit confused at first because the same address coming up for The Wingery, a small local chain that I have been to before (but didn't review) many years around. It turns out this location of the Wingery closed, but in it's ashed arose Wing Factory.

Now it seems to me that realistically, the folks at Wing Factory copied everything that The Wingery started in terms of the menu and the wings. But I haven't done enough sampling to say for sure. The Wing Factory is located in a strip mall nestled in between a pizza place and a convenience store.

Now this is a take-out place but they have gone all out inside to make this a restaurant experience. They have rustic/urban/fancy decor with two tables and TV's that one can watch a game and hang out. I really dug it. I debated getting my wings to go or staying in, but I opted to eat on the go.

Wings are obviously the focus here. There are 30 flavours of wings to choose from! Yes, you can get chicken burgers or salads or fries etc etc. but really, you really want the wings.

I went in and the Wing Dude at the counter was waiting for me and ready to answer all my questions. Checking out their website I knew going in there were a lot of sauces to choose from but several of the sauces had no descriptor. Wing Dude saw me scanning the menu and told me the best sellers are the Hot Honey BBQ (half Hot BBQ & half Honey Garlic) and Gutter Butter (their Buffalo style sauce). I asked about Colonel Frank (he said it was based on Frank's Xtra Hot) Factory Secret ( Colonel Frank & Caribbean Jerk, 'very flavourful and is a bit strong') Nightmare Alley ( 'One of our hot sauces, in top 3. Own recipe, has powders, cayenne, direct chili powder. It also has the Colonel Frank). There was quite a bit to choose from and in the end I went really simple (after making him give all those explanations!) with a Spicy BBQ and their Gutter Butter sauces.

Wing Dude went into the back and got everything prepared. He also asked me if I wanted Blue Cheese Dip, or something else? I said blue cheese but then asked what were my other options? He said there was also Ranch, Creamy Garic, Sour Cream and Dill. I was like, can I get 1 Blue Cheese and one Dill? He was like, yes you get two so we can mix. Awesome.

Shortly after I had my order. It came in a tall, not wide paper bag. At the top was lots of napkins and wetnaps (nice). Then there were two little boxes; I pulled them out and there was celery and carrot sticks and my two dips. The veggies were nice and fresh with a good snap on them. I tried the Dill dip and it was really dilly, like fresh dill taste. It was good, but just on the verge of being too watery. But then I had the blue cheese. It was so good. It was creamy, thick, and tasted so good. There were no chunks of actual blue cheese, but that's ok. It was so good I could drink it. Ok I did drink it. You would too; I'm not a monster.

Beneath those mini boxes were two larger boxes that I was very excited to break into.

 When I first entered Wing Factory, I saw the smallest order of wings was $8.49 for a 1/2 pound, and I asked the Wing Dude, how many wings roughly come in a 1/2 pound? He said 4 and he knew that that didn't sound like very much. He told me that their wings are much larger than average, and that the drummette alone can be the size of a drumstick.

He was right. One box had 4 wings and the other had 5, but man oh man were those wings HUGE. Jumbo. And to boot, the chicken was fresh and locally sourced. Wow. Did I mention these wings were giant? Length wise yes, but they were so meaty each one was heavy to lift. My pictures do not do them justice. I actually had a hard time holding some of them up with one hand.

The wings are also breaded and then deep fried. The breading is crumbly (in a good way) and held up to the sauces pretty well. The wings were also deep fried just right so that the skin/breading was crispy, but that the meat inside was cooked just right. This is really an art as when you have wings this meaty, to cook them enough you've got to fry them longer, which can lead to over-fried skin/breading, dried out meat, or over/under cooked meat. These were none of those things. The meat was on the verge of being tough though, but it didn't go over thankfully.

As for the sauce, the wings were very well sauced. Each wing was wet and sat in a small puddle of extra sauce.

In fact there was so much sauce that it was nearly impossible to eat cleanly. The walls of the box had so much sauce that my hands could not grab a wing without getting sauce on them to begin with. I'm cool with that, but neat freaks be warned.

With all the flavours to choose from, I went with two simple ones. I wanted to see if the basics were good, so I went with Gutter Butter and Spicy BBQ. Also, those are probably my favourite wing flavour profiles anyway.

GUTTER BUTTER

Wing Dude described this as their version of Buffalo sauce, and it tasted like everything you want Buffalo sauce to taste like.

It was rich and buttery, so that was awesome. But it also had a good bite to it. It had a sting and was actually hot. Spicy and buttery. It was just really really good.

SPICY BBQ

This was also really good. It was everything you want in a Spicy BBQ sauce. It had all the flavour, but it was also sticky, thick, not quite gooey, but oh so good.

There was a sweetness to it, but also had that dark savoriness. It had a hint of smoke. The texture, the flavour, oh this was a good sauce.

The wings were so good and I was very happy to get them. I was stuffed after lunch and went and napped afterward. Later when I met up with LJ she asked what I did for lunch and I told her about the wings. Her mouth watered at my tale. We continued on and had to decide what we were getting for supper. LJ said maybe we could get Wing Factory for dinner ...

Well, it was wing night, and after some convincing, I was in. We decided we get their Tuesday deal which is 3lbs of wings for $29.50 (normally $38) and we would chill in our hotel room and watch TV and eat wings. I called up and got the same Wing Dude as lunch. I asked if we could split the flavours and he said we could get 3 flavours. I asked if it came with veggies and he said no but you could add them for $2.99) and we also got some Mac & Cheese bites.

We went to The Wing Factory and I went in to pick up the order. It was Wing Dude #2, but I could hear the original Wing Dude in the back. Wing Dude #2 was like I'm just about to sauce your wings. He came out shortly with my big paper bag and we scooted back to begin our feast.

We got an order of Mac & Cheese Bites ($8.99) which didn't seem like a big order, but there was about 8 nugget sized pieces. They were cheesy and crispy, but I found they needed a dip for sure.

More veggie sticks (for health) and more blue cheese. This was great.

We went with 3 different flavours this time. We got Gutter Butter again, because it was awesome. We also went with Honey Mustard and Vampire Slayer. Ya!

VAMPIRE SLAYER

Cool name for some cool wings. These were the breaded wings tossed in a Dry Garlic Parmesan or DGP as they call it) and then thickly drizzled with Creamy Garlic sauce.

This was a great hybrid wing - part dry part wet. Now this did not put a stake through my heart; I was expecting a STRONG garlic flavour, but these weren't that strong. The Seasoning was nice, but mild, and the garlic sauce was nice and creamy, but again, mild. This was a nice wing but I wouldn't order it as my only choice - it was nice in our sampler box.

HONEY MUSTARD

This was exactly what you expect (or at least I expect) when you get Honey Mustard wing sauce. It tastes like honey and mustard.

The sauce is thick, it's honey sweet, with that slight mustard pungency. But it doesn't taste artificial like some HM sauces. I liked it but it was not LJ's fave.

FINAL SCORE:

I was super impressed with The Wing Factory. Fresh, local, jumbo chicken, breaded well and fried just right. The sauces are plentiful and flavourful. The wings were just outstanding. The chicken might be almost too big, but overall, you can tell these people really care about their wings. Well done Wing Factory, well done. Why can't you exist in my city?!  13/15

The Wing Factory
510 Driftcurrent Dr #10, Mississauga, ON
thewingfactory.ca