The Dough Bros. - Orleans ON

This post is a #2020catchup from May 2020

The pandemic has changed everything. Many businesses, including restaurants, have been badly hit. So it takes a lot for a new restaurant to open in the middle of the pandemic. It also forces you to be something extra special, when you are opening a pizza joint. So how do you get noticed above the rest in 2020? Memes.

That's what the Dough Bros. in Orleans did, and it's how I heard about them in the first place. I gotta say, it worked well! In fact, not only did they do memes, they also used Cameo to have a few celebs shout out their new business (Screech & Bud Bundy!). I also saw a lot of hype coming from the Orleans Ontario Foodie Group, and the reviews were really good.

I decided to go and check them out myself. Since it was during the pandemic, everything is take-out, but this place would have been take-out either way. It's opened up in a shopping plaza that is pretty hard to miss if you aren't looking for it specifically.

Although I had done some research in advance, I went in pretending to know nothing. It looks like there will be some counter seating in the post-Covid future, but everything was take-away at this point. The place is clean and new, with a simple but classy black and white motif going on. They have a big chalk-board like menu, but I already noticed some differences between it and the printed paper menus available.

I was immediately greeted by I guy who I'm pretty sure is the owner (or at the very least, one of the Dough Bros.) because I've seen him in their social media. He was super friendly and made me feel really welcome. I said I had seen that Wednesday was a wing special and he confirmed.

I had seen the menu online and knew I was going with probably two orders of wings. I knew I was getting Hot, but wasn't sure about the second flavour. I went with Salt & Pepper just to give an idea of the wings themselves. Then Dough Bro asked me if I wanted another sauce on the side of the Salt & Pepper - wow! I was like sure and he asked if I wanted 3rd Degree. I was like, the ED Smith sauce (of which I am a #3rdDegreeaddict) and he was like 'ya it's spicier and what I put on everything', so I was like ya! He did say they had a Buffalo, which I was curious about, and maybe should have gotten instead of Hot, but I didn't.

Dough Bro went straight to work getting my wings ready. I could hear them in the deep fryer sizzling, I could hear them hit the metal bowl, then that tossing sound. I was excited. They were packed into a paper lined styrofoam container, then doubled up into a paper bag and stapled. I brought them out to the car where they smelled really good.

I opened up the containers and guess what, the looked really good too!

The wings are sold by the number, 12 wings for $12. Of course I was paying $9 for it being wing day. Also, I got 15 wings in my order. Awesome!

 There were no sides with the wings, no dips, no veggies. There were no napkins in the bag, but they were available to grab in restaurant.

The size of the wings were a good medium/medium+ size wing. Some of the drums were really meaty, but most of the flats were just average.

The wings were very crispy: there was a nice crack when you bit into the skin. But the wet wings did absorb the sauce really quickly. The meat itself was not that tender, almost dried out, and it seems like the wings come from frozen. But they were still a good wing overall.

I went with one wet wing and one dry wing, and Dough Bro suggested an extra sauce for the dry wings. So I went with classic Hot, dry Salt & Pepper, with a side of 3rd Degree.

HOT

Classic cayenne based hot sauce. Probably Frank's, but there seemed to be more flavour in the wings. Maybe the wings were marinated? 

SALT & PEPPER

The first thing you notice with this wings is the crispy wing itself. Then, the salt really shines through, with the hint of pepper. It's a simple combination, and it works. Make sure you have a drink though!

3RD DEGREE

I mean, this is my go to sauce for making things zingier. It was good, it was spicy. It went well with the Salt & Pepper wings for sure.

FINAL SCORE:  

I liked these wings. Crispy, well sauced, flavourful wings. A little dried out, but overall good. And for an all day $9 wing day, that was great too. Plus such friendly service. I've read lots of great things about their pizza too, but haven't tried it. I wish them the best of luck! 9.5/14

The Dough Bros.
250 Centrum Blvd, Orleans Ontario
thedoughbros.ca

 

Wild Wing's BUCK-A-WING deal

Remember when chicken wings were dirt cheap? Seems like yesterday, but also so very long ago at the same time. The days of $0.25, $0.10 or $0.05 wings are pretty much long gone. In 2020, Wild Wing is doing "BUCK-A-WING."

This doesn't sound like a great deal. $1 per wing, in the context of chicken wing history, is not a great deal. And on social media comment sections I saw people flaming the crap out of Wild Wing. But, it's also not 1995 and chicken wings are one of the most expensive cuts of chicken meat at the market. And when you consider that normally an order of Wild Wing chicken wings (about 8-10 wings) is $15, this isn't a bad deal. Mind you, that $15 does come with fries and veggies and dip, but still, it's relatively not bad.

LJ & I decided to go, and we actually went twice, to two different locations. The first is the Orleans Wild Wing (where most of the location photos come from) and the second is the Hog's Back Wild Wing in Ottawa. While the layouts of the two places are very different, they both have the wild west theme mixed with sports bar.

Both have you set up for wing eating. No regular napkins, just paper towel dispensers, attached to your condiment caddy (also filled with wet wipes for clean up). There's also a bone bucket. I love the bone bucket. At the Orleans location we were served by Ally and at Hog's Back we had Caitlin. Both took our orders, refilled drinks, answered questions, but Caitlin went the extra mile which we really appreciated.

So here is how it works:

• Your 1st order is 10 wings for $10 - they can be Traditional (breaded), Classic, or Boneless in a choice of 1 flavour. You also get a dip (blue cheese, ranch, or sour cream).
• Additional wings may be ordered in increments of 5 (at $1 each) (each 5 = 1 sauce)
• Dine-In Only: no delivery, no doggy bags

That sounded ok. I wish you could break up that first order of 10, but oh well.

The difficult part of Wild Wing's is choosing your flavour. I mean, there are 101 choices! To be honest, there's like 15 choices that just make up lots of combinations of the other flavours. But you do have a good choice of sauces and dry rubs.

We had 2 visits, and on visit #1, we got 2 rounds. It's not AYCE, so we had to be pretty picky about what we were going to have.

On both visits we also got a side just to break up the wing eating. On Visit #1 we got a single side of fries. Wild Wing fries are garbage. Ok maybe not garbage, but they are pretty sh*#@y. They look good in that photo, but they are frozen, fake-fresh cut, over cooked, flavourless (even with some spice seasoning on them). We did not finish these.

On visit #2 we learned our lesson and went with the onion rings. Much better. These were crispy with tender onion, but they were a bit oil soaked inside. But still, much better than the fries!

We also got veggie sticks with both orders and we both got Blue Cheese for dipping. It's a great blue cheese, creamy, tangy, but not off-puttingly pungent as some moldy cheese can be.

Before I get to the sauces, I wanted to point out that the wings are about a medium in length, but that they are very meaty pieces. They also came pretty evenly split flats and drums. They were all pretty well sauced/rubbed as well.

LJ and I both went with Traditional, which is breaded (I don't know why it's called traditional because wings are not traditionally breaded). These wings are very crispy/crunchy, came out hot, and were very tender. The bones pull away easily and I feel like they might be fresh wings. They used to be anyway years ago. So overall, very good, well fried pieces of chicken.

VISIT #1 - Orleans

On this trip we had a late lunch on a Saturday afternoon. We were starved, and we both ended up ordering 15 wings each. LJ didn't eat all of hers, so I ended up having more than 15. Round 1 we got Hot Dill & Sweatin' Bullets, and Round 2 we got Dry Spicy Garlic and Dry Ketchup.

Our first round was saucy and we both dove in happily.


ROUND 1

HOT DILL PICKLE

LJ in particular, loves the creamy wings here more than the other flavours. She went with Hot Dill, which I was happy to sample with her (as I would have ordered that myself if she didn't). It's a creamy dill sauce, mixed with hot sauce, and it is freaking good.

SWEATIN' BULLETS

I wanted something spicy, but not so much creamy. It`s interesting that with all their flavours, Wild Wing doesn`t have a good Buffalo or variation on it, just straight hot sauces, mixed with the others. Well I also like a good BBQ, so I went with Sweatin`Bullets, which is Smokey BBQ Sauce + Xtra Hot (Frank`s Xtra Hot) + Spontaneous Combustion (I don`t know what this is and can`t find it independently on the menu). This is a great sauce because it has heat, like I feel a sting and cough, but the Smokey BBQ is dark, smokey, but a bit sweet. I was happy with these, LJ was afraid of the heat.


ROUND 2

DRY SPICY GARLIC

LJ went the dry route and something different. Dry Spicy Garlic was just that; well it was mostly garlic with some cayenne? pepper thrown in? LJ was not a real fan. I liked it, but a) would not want a whole order of this b) would need some sauce or dip for these

DRY KETCHUP

I went with an old stand-by: I love potato chip seasoning and I love this ketchup one on wings. The problem is that the flavour is not full throtle. It's there, but you really have to pay attention. But it's tangy, sweet, ketchup goodness. It goes well with the breaded wings too. Funny enough, I hate ketchup sauce and chicken, but I love these.



VISIT #2 - Hog's Back

Fast forward a week or so and we decided to go back. Same kind of scenario, post lunch looking for a meal, but we weren't as hungry this time.

This time, Lesly got the Hot Dill Pickle again, so I'm not bothering to report on it again. I was looking for something different, not sure where to go. Then we saw Daisy Duke, and we both thought that would be interesting.

DAISY DUKE

Daisy Duke is regular BBQ + Medium + Dry Mango Chipotle. You can see the dry rub sprinkled on - the wings are a thing of beauty. I really liked the flavour here. Again, I like a nice spicy BBQ (not that Medium is spicy, but you know the gist of what I am saying), so the base was good. The Dry Mango Chipotle, while not strong, gave a mysterious flavour note to an already tasty wing. I would get these again for sure.

In the end, we both had pretty satisfying wing experiences. The wings are meaty, crispy/crunchy, tender with really good commercial sauces on them. Pass on the fries, get the onion rings, and stick to blue cheese for dipping. It may not be the cheapest deal in town, but it was worth it I think.

Wild Wings
3712 Innes Road, Orleans ON    &       1430 Prince of Wales Drive, Ottawa ON
wildwingsrestaurants.com

MEATHEADS GRILL - Orleans ON

Last review of 2019!!! #lotwwintercatchup

I am always on the hunt for not only new wing joints, but new restaurants with food that I love. You know, pizza, burgers, bbq. I also love independent joints. So I'm going through my Instagram and in the Explore section, I see Caleel Hall (@caleelh on Instagram) posted a photo of a giant burger:

That burger looks massive! That led me on a little investigation. Turns out he was in Orleans (a suburb of Ottawa, not to be confused with NEW Orleans in the US), and he was having this amazing burger at a new place called Meatheads Grill. That led me to a little rabbit hole of research on this new place. Turns out they just had their grand opening on November 30th, and we were now into December! As I checked out their Instagram (@meatheadsorleans) and I saw that there was wings on the menu. And as fate had it, I was headed to Orleans the next day! 

Now the next part of my review is mixed and I'm going to jump the story. In the month of December, I went twice. The first time for wings, the second to try the burger. But the structure of how I write my reviews doesn't fit for chronology. Just wanted to give you that heads up.

Meatheads is inside a Quickie convenience store, which seems crazy. There are signs up for Meatheads, but if you don't know this area (and I didn't) it may be hard to see. I had done some research, but didn't know where to go exactly until I saw the red Quickie mart sign.

Inside Quickie, in the back left corner is Meatheads. It looks kinda like a BBQ joint grew into the convenience store. I almost thought it could have been like a Subway or something originally based on the size. Actually I thought this was their first time/food venture, but after talking to one of the guys running the place, the owner/chef Jessie James was doing like a french fry thing before. I later found out they were doing that out of this same location.

Both times I went, the Meatheads crew have been busy, on the go, scrambling to make everything work. Deliveries are coming in, calls are coming in, customers are coming in. Each time I came in I'm told up front that something isn't available for the day (they are still working out inventory kinks). Eggs seemed to be out both times. The staff are friendly, as was owner Jessy who I would have love to chat with, but he was constantly on the go.

Everyone was ordering the pulled pork sandwiches. That seems to be what to get here. The other guy that was doing the front of house (didn't catch his name, might have been Neil?), gave me some of the lowdown of what was going on. He told me he wasn't the one cooking, he was just the taste tester (as he was eating part of a sandwich that Jessy brought him). He said they'd been up and running a couple of weeks; he asked if I was here because of the Orleans Ontario Foodie group, who did a lot of word-of-mouth promotion for their big opening.  He said the pulled pork was popular, as was the burgers, and teased me about getting the wings. The next time I went back for the burger.

I ordered the Meathead Delux ($14), which comes with no sides, but is a big, hefty burger. It came in a biodegradable small clam-shell, and barely fit in, and it felt heavy like a brick. I got the burger to go and when I was sitting there in my car, I thought, "how am I going to eat this thing without making a mess everywhere!"

And I did make a mess. It's a very messy burger.

The Meathead Delux is:

"Lettuce, Tomato, Crispy Onion Ring, Fried Onions, Sauteed Mushroom, Bacon, Cheese, House BBQ, Mayo"

I got mine without mushrooms because, well mushrooms are gross. This thing was teetering left and right and was impossible to hold single-handedly, which made photos hard to do. It's saucy, full of ingredients, and was hot to boot.

Everything on that burger tasted fresh and delicious. First, you have a nice soft, toasted fresh bun. Then the burger is fresh ground beef from a local butcher and ground in house; nice beefy flavour which went well with the cheese. The bacon is meaty and crispy and salty. I love the crispy onion ring in there. Then you have the fried onions adding their own smokey/caramelized attitude to the burger party. Finally, I love mayo and BBQ sauce on a burger, and this thing was oozing sauce. It was just a really good burger offering everything I pretty much want on a burger. But make sure you have napkins.

On the first visit however, I was here for the wings. When I ordered, Neil(?) asked Jessy & the cook in the back if they were good for wings. Jessy said they had wings "but we have to rinse them off and throw them in the fryer. They just thawed out overnight so they will take a few extra minutes" - I appreciate them being upfront about everything so I can make the best choice. I chose to wait because wings are worth waiting.

When Neil(?) asked about what sauce I wanted I asked if their Hot was just like Frank's. He said it was like a "regular, bbq wings hot,"  Jessy jumped in and said "it comes in the big jugs, we don't make the hot sauce itself, just the bbq sauce and the burger sauces." So I clearly went with the House BBQ; "Ya you'll like that" Neil(?) said proudly.

I did have to wait a while for the wings, but that was ok (and they told me they would take some time). When they were ready the packaged them up and asked me if I wanted sour cream. I asked if they had blue cheese or ranch and Neil(?) balked at me, 'Ranch, bah, they don't serve salad, ranch is banned from here'. So I got sour cream and headed out to the car.

The wings too are served in a biodegradable clamshell, and I have to give them props for using this instead of styrofoam. The wings come by the pound, and there are approx 8 wings in that pound, pretty evenly split flats and drums.

They even came with a garnish of a lettuce leaf and some pickle slices. I found it odd, but it was nice, especially having the tart, bright pickles to contrast the fried, bbq sauced wing. Plus it looks pretty!

Size wise were were looking at a medium wing in length and size, but the wings were pretty meaty.

Unfortunately, the wings were not very crispy at all, and the meat was a bit tough, and my eating time was moments from getting them to walking to my car. They said they had just thawed, and maybe the wings didn't spend enough time in the fryer?  Or maybe it was the sauce ...

... because these wings were saucy! Really wet, with every inch covered in sauce, with lots left behind in the container. So the sauce may have weakened the structural integrity of the crispy skin, but I still suspect not enough deep frying.

The flavour of the sauce was tasty. Zippy even? Its sweet, it's got a little bit of smoke, but still a light sauce. It's right in the sweet spot of texture being not too thick and not too thin. Jessy had asked me from the back if it was ok that the sauce had "a kick to it", I said Sure, ya cuz I'm into that, and he clarified that "it's not killer or anything." Unfortunately I didn't find it had a kick or any bite, but it was tasty.

This would be excellent on pork or other bbq meats. I can see the sweetness pairing well with the pulled pork for example, better than I think it does with a chicken wing.

FINAL SCORE:

I liked Meatheads a lot. It's the kind of quirky little shack you would find on Diners, Drive-In's and Dives. People oriented crew with a passion for their product. The food isn't cheap, but it's priced fairly and is definitely not mass produced fare. The wings were tasty, but I wish they were a lot more crispy. Next time I go I'll pass on the wings, but when you have an awesome burger like the Meathead Delux, why would you get the wings? 8/14

Meatheads Grill
415 Watters Road, Orleans Ontario (inside the Quickie mart)
grillmeatheadsgrill.godaddysites.com