RETURN to LOCAL HEROES (2020) - Ottawa ON

This review is from Feb 2020 #lotwwintercatchup


I first went to Local Heroes back in 2006. LJ was coming to Ottawa to interview for positions, and I came along with her (she was living in Windsor, me in Toronto. It was my first real year of reviewing wings, and I was excited for the chance to go outside of Toronto for wings. And this was THE chicken wing place in Ottawa. They had done well for themselves, being rated best wings in magazines, expanding to at least 7 locations. But the self proclaimed King of Wings definitely took a hit over the years, and they are down to just their original location.

I've been back since 2006, in 2007, but even since then, but for some reason I didn't do a follow up review. Back in February I was jonesing for wings for lunch, and decided to take advantage of Local Heroes all day wing day on Tuesdays.

 The old location hasn't changed much since that first review in 2006. Other than the menu looks different, I couldn't tell you if anything had changed. If you haven't been, it's a sports pub. It's decked out with mainly Ottawa Senators sports paraphernalia, with lots of tv's showing sports shows and such. There are three-ish areas inside: the bar, the bar dining room, and the dining area which is mainly booths and bigger seats. 

I was told that I could sit where I want, so I tried to strategize where I could take some photos with light, not be near anyone, but also be able to stretch out to do some work while I sat. The place was busy-ish. I went to the dining side because of the light and it was a little more stretched out. The crowd was mixed from a big work lunch group, to a woman on a laptop working, to seniors to twenty-somethings.

My server was Kelsey, who was professional, super friendly, and helfpul. She took my drink order bringing me a water and my Diet Pepsi. She's the type that refilled both my drinks without prompting, which is just great in my opinion. Kelsey was also helpful in explaining the wing situation such as telling me that wings were 25% off today, and she was able to answer my wing questions. First off she explained the chicken itself. Local Heroes does two types of chicken wings:

1) Famous Local Wings - whole wings (that can be split on request) that are served unbreaded and are fried up.

2) Roaster Wings - smaller than the Local wings, these wings are breaded and are already split (tips removed) and deep fried.

I decided to get 2lbs, one order of Roaster and one of the Local. For the Local, she said I could get them split on request, and I did request.

She was also able to answer my sauce questions. I asked about the heats; I usually ask "what is the difference between say Hot or 911? Is it the same sauce just more spicy or what?"  Kelsey explained Hot is Frank's Hot and 911 of Frank's Xtra Hot. Ok got it. I also asked about their Dante's Inferno, a commercial sauce I've had before - it's really good and has a nice bite to it. The other was Sweet Julius Heat, which I've never heard of but she told me it was sweet and spicy.  They don't have a crazy amount of sauces (20) but they do have a nice balance of flavours to choose from.


 Oh and after she took my order I remembered that this was an Ottawa wing joint, so I was probably doomed to sour cream. When she passed by to check on another table, I asked her if it came with dip; she said yes, sour cream, but I could have blue cheese or ranch if I wanted. Uh ya I'll have blue cheese!!!

I didn't have to wait long until my wing feast arrived and I was already happy.

Before my order arrived Kelsey did bring me a bone bowl, napkins, wetnaps, and my blue cheese dip. There were a ton of napkins, and I used a ton of napkins. They were those cheap, super thin type that are usually given out at take-out pizza joints. This should not be the napkin of choice at a wing place.

The blue cheese was good - chunky, creamy, and just the right amount of sour. I got two dips because I had two orders of wings. Can't believe the default is sour cream though - thank goodness I asked!

The size of the wings is dramatically different between the Roaster and the Local, but enough that there is a number difference. Roaster = approx 9 wings where the Local = 6 (although I got an extra 7th one). It's only supposed to be six because the wings are usually whole, so 3 whole wings in an order, split into 6. Also, I love that I still get the tips left on. Little messier to eat but a little extra is great.

The Local wings are large; they are a bit longer. They are fried naked and the skin is nice and crispy.

The Roasters are about a Medium+. The Roasters are also breaded (although it seems more like a good dusting rather than a thick breading) which adds to the size of the wing a bit. This also gives them more of crunch compared to the crispier Locals.

The Local wings were tougher and more dried out. Pulling the bones apart was difficult because of this. While both orders came at the same time, the Locals were barely warm, suggesting they got made first and sat out a bit.

The Roasters were very tender and more moist on the inside. These pulled apart easily. These were also a bit more meaty than the Locals, especially the drums. Speaking of drums, there was a roughly equal distribution of flats and drums among the wings.

Both sets of wings came well sauced. Each wing was wet, with extra sauce on the plate. I had a slightly tough time choosing sauces but I went with classic Hot on the Locals, and tried something different, the Sweet Julius Heat for the Roasters.

HOT

I chose Hot for my Locals wings because I had a feeling that this was just going to be a good classic pub wing experience: deep fried wings and hot sauce.

And that's what it was. Nice and crispy fried chicken skin in Frank's Hot Sauce. Nothing above and beyond, but just a good flavour. And look at the extra sauce just sitting there for smearing a half bitten piece of chicken into, mmmm good.

SWEET JULIUS HEAT

I had never heard of this flavour, and assumed it must be some sort of commercial sauce like the Dante's Inferno it's listed with, but I cannot find any record of it. This tells me it's made in house. This sauce was a lot more sticky and thick than the Hot.

The flavour was very sweet, sour, with some light spice. My guess is that it's their Sweet Chili Thai sauce mixed with something else. It did go well with the breaded wings, and I liked it as it contrasted to my Hot wings. I don't think I would get an order of these by themselves.

FINAL SCORE:

After years of coming and going, Local Heroes still stands out as a good place for wings in Ottawa. I liked the simplicity of the Local wings that were crispy and tossed in Hot. The breaded/dusted Roaster wings were crunchy, tender and went well with the Sweet Julius Heat. Blue cheese was good, the napkin situation while plentiful, was woeful. And an all day wing day is always aces in my books. I had a really good lunch here, but I don't know if the crown for King of Wings is still at Local Heroes. They are still royalty though! 10/15

Local Heroes Bar & Grill
1400 Clyde Ave, Ottawa ON
localheroesrestaurants.com

CHARLEY RONICK's PUB & RESTAURANT - Whitby ON

#lotwwintercatchup

"Come in and enjoy the most delicious wings you’ve ever had. Everyone loves our wings and this is why we’re known as having the best wings!"

Back in January I had to travel to Whitby and back one weekday. My business was concluded after lunch, so I decided I was going to stop for lunch. It was a Thursday and after doing a quick search of the web for "Thursday Wing Nights Whitby ON"  I found that there was one place that fit the bill, Charley Ronicks.

I had never heard of this place before or even seen it before. I've been in the plaza before but never noticed it. All of the windows are frosted, which I find odd. It looks as if they are closed up or like a medical office. On the inside there's enough light coming in, but you can't see out. This place just doesn't seem that welcoming.

The inside looks like a chain pub/casual restaurant even though it's an independent establishment. The place is quite large on the inside with the restaurant kind of split into two sections; the bar side and the dining side. The bar side was quite busy, but the dining side was less so. I sat on the dining side and was given a two person booth.  Some of the booths have flat screens right in them for sports events I guess.

On their website they state their specials, but I was happy to see them posted not only on wipe boards around the restaurant, but also at your table. Charley's has a LOT of wing specials - basically it sucks if you come on a Wednesday (unless wings are included in the apps, but I don't think they are). Just to be clear, the wing specials are:

• All Day
• With a beverage purchase - no free refills
• No doggy bags
• No take-out
• No Coupons

All fairly reasonable. When I asked my server (Tanya) about this, the only part she mentioned was that I had to get a drink with EACH order of wings (ie if I was ordering 2 pounds of wings, I needed to buy 2 drinks). I later read about the no doggy bags, and I'm glad I did.

Wings are pretty prominent on their menu too taking up 1 page and a bit of another. There are a lot of flavours to choose from (25!) and I had a hard time figuring out what I wanted. I had to ask my waitress what the dealio was with the flavours. She tried to explain but just lacked an ability to explain. For example, I asked about the Mexican Hot and she told me it was "... with Mexican spices". Ok. Then I asked about the heats, and she said "Buffalo was a bit more hot, but the medium is pretty hot". I don't understand their/her heat scale at all.

I ordered two pounds of wings, and while the special comes with fries, she said I could get onion rings. Normally I would not hesitate to switch my fries for onion rings but I was kind of craving fries. Then without missing a beat, she said she could do one order fries and one order of onion rings. Yes please! Thank you Tanya.

 She brought me out my first drink (they have Coke products), as well as a bone bowl, napkins and a wetnap for clean up. Things were off to a good start.

Then after a small wait, my food came out. I was both excited and a little worried - this was going to be a lot more food than I think my stomach was going to handle ... and there were no doggy bags allowed!

Each order came with a large carrot stick and celery stick, but no dip. Normally you can get Blue Cheese, Ranch or even Dill, but not with the wing special. This sucks because I don't really care for eating the veggies without the dip.

The sides were very plentiful. The fries were battered (I don't doubt a frozen product). They were hot and crispy, but pretty meh. I definitely salted & ketch-upped these. The onion rings were pretty big rings, and they were crispy enough, but the inside onion was soft and when you took a small bite, the whole onion came out.

The wings come by the pound, and there were about 8 wings in a pound. They were split pretty evenly between the flats and drums.

The wings were large (when you only get 8 in an order, they have to be bigger). They were long, tall and fairly meaty.

The chicken wings come dusted, then deep fried, giving a crispy skin. That crispy skin held up to the sauce pretty well. They were relatively tender - not super tender, there was a little effort in pulling apart the bones, but not difficult either.

I went with two flavours. I really debated because I knew I wanted a hot/Buffalo type wing, but they also had 4 flavours of BBQ, and I do like a BBQ. Plus they have a dry rub of Roasted Garlic? Or Cajun Ranch? In the end, I went with the Buffalo as well as the Mexican Hot.

The wings came nicely sauced. Not a lot of overflow sauce on the Mexican Hot, but lots on the Buffalo. Each wing was coated well though. I like that.

BUFFALO

My first taste of the Buffalo was that it was good. It was not hot (a medium at best) in spice. I can tell it is a commercial Buffalo hot sauce (not homemade) because there is an artificial taste to it, but as far as artificial (as in not home made hot sauce and butter) Buffalo sauce goes, this was good. It was rich, kind of buttery. It was really good ... until it wasn't. By the end of my meal, it just became too much. I at least could alternate between flavours, but it just got so strong by my last wings I wasn't digging it as much.

MEXICAN HOT

This was a nicely spiced sauce. I've had the flavour of this in a suicide sauce before, no idea what it is, but it was not hot like a suicide. A little more peppery in flavour. If I didn't know it was Mexican Hot I would not necessarily associate these with Mexican (ie I could detect a 'Mexican' spice to it), but it is full of flavour spice.

Also salt. It's a very salty sauce. And like the Buffalo, by the time I got to my last wings, the flavour was just too much. This would have really have been aided with a creamy dip for sure.

FINAL SCORE:

So Charley Ronick's (no idea who this is if anyone real) really brought their wing game to plate. Lots of wing specials to start. Big wings, crispy wings, saucy wings. The flavours are big - nice spicy flavoured Mexican Hot and rich Buffalo wings - that started off really good, but were a bit much by the end. I had to eat them all because of the no doggy bag rule on specials, but I didn't really want to.
 I would go back again to try some of those other flavours too. Too bad I'm not in Whitby that often to try more often.   11/15

Charley Ronick's Pub & Restaurant
3050 Garden Street, Whitby ON
charlieronicks.ca

LIAM MAGUIRES - Ottawa ON

Who is the Liam Maguire in Liam Maguire's?

I don't know. I just assumed it was a made up name for an Irish pub. There's no info on their website (there's almost NO information on their website). I did a little bit of web research and there is a guy named Liam Maguire in Ottawa. He's an NHL historian, writer, and radio broadcaster. So maybe he is the owner? No, but based on an interview with the Ottawa Sun several years ago, "He’s not the owner but he says he has a "business relationship" with the pub." I don't know what that means exactly. Who is this place named after?!?!

This has been a pub in Ottawa that I've seen around for a long time, but never checked out. Never heard anything great about the pub, so never went out of my way to check it out. But back in May, I decided, hey, it's wing night, I'm on my own for dinner, let's go and see what's what.

When I went, I didn't know much about the pub or it's history. Now I know at one point it was a Hooter's, but I'm not sure when one closed and the other opened. I've driven past this place many times, but it wasn't until I actually decided to go that I noticed they have a good size patio at the front. I also saw a specials banner that mentioned 1/2 price wings, so I was glad to confirm it was wing night.

Inside, the place looks pretty big, and pretty dated. The crowd was mostly seniors, but there were a lot of them, and most seemed like regulars there. The patio and the inside was busy, so it's definitely doing well for a Monday. My waitress, Vera (the name on my bill anyway), was friendly, told me up front about their wing nights (Monday and Sunday), and answered all my wing questions.

After looking over the menu, the wing sauce section was full of interesting names, so I asked Vera about what some of those sauces were and here's what she said:

• Hot = 'Frank's Red Hot'
• Suicide = 'Frank's Xtra Hot'
• Insane = 'incredibly spicy: if you don't know if you can handle it, I recommend having it on the side & just dip to test it out so you don't start sweating everywhere!'
• Rootbeer BBQ = 'more of a rib sauce, not bitter, but not sweet at all'
• Whisky Bacon BBQ = 'also like a rib sauce, but more on the sweet side'
• Gunpowder = 'dry rub, hot & sweet combination - the sweet is the cinnamon'

Wow, it's nice to see some variety and some homemade mixes on a menu. I made my choices of doing Hot, Whisky Bacon BBQ, and a side of Insane.

Shortly Vera brought me a bone plate with some nice napkins and two wetnaps. She also brought me me my Diet Pepsi; it didn't taste like Diet Pepsi, more like a generic cola. It's free refills but I didn't bother. I also didn't bother to complain, so that's on me.

Not long later I was ready for my wing feast!

Wings are served by the pound, at $14.99 an order. You get about 8 or 9 wings in that order, and it's an equal mix of flats and drums. There are no veggies and no dips on the side.

The wings are not big - maybe a medium - in both length and width. They are kind of meaty for their size though. They are dusted and deep fried.

These wings were kind of crispy, but they were very overcooked. Very tough. Dried out very much. There was an old lady behind me who was not having a good experience; first she couldn't get wifi to work, then she got wings too and when Vera checked in on her, she said she did not like the wings. Vera asked if it was the sauce and the lady said no they were too tough. Vera asked if she wanted them replaced but the lady said no. Ya they were tough.

The wings may have been dried out, but they were sauced pretty well. All the wings had good sauce coverage. As I mentioned, I went with one order of Hot, with a side of Insane, and another order of the Whisky Bacon BBQ based on Vera's suggestions.

HOT

This was just classic Frank's Red Hot, but it actually tasted a little buttery and rich. So it was good, but nothing special.

WHISKY BACON BBQ

From my notes:  "... was good because it had this bacon taste, that smokey bacon flavour that's there, but then you've also got this like rich BBQ sauce that's not that sweet in my opinion, but it is a bit sweet ... it's a nice sauce, I liked it a lot!"  It was also thick and clung to the wings the way a good BBQ sauce should.

INSANE

Now you hear 'Insane' and you know there's already a Suicide on the menu, you should be in for something that kicks your ass a little. This did not. Actually I was a little surprised how not killer it was. It did have a nice peppery kick, a good flavour that I didn't love, but I did like. I wouldn't want a whole order of just this for my wings, but on the side it's a nice accompaniment for sure.

FINAL SCORE:

So Liam Maguires was ok. The atmosphere didn't really do anything for me. My waitress Vera on the other hand was great. I was sad about the wings because there was a lot of potential here. The wings may not have been big, but the sauces were good, the saucing was good, and the dusting should have made for a crispy wing, but they were so dried out and overcooked they were not that enjoyable. I don't know if this is just a wing night problem or an everyday issue, but it put a damper on my wing experience. I'd go back to see, but only on wing night though because of the price. 9/15

Liam Maguire's
1705 St Laurent Blvd, Ottawa ON
liammaguires.com