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.

FOX & FIDDLE ~ London ON

Victoria Day Weekend!!!



First long weekend of the year, and in honour of Queen Victoria, I went to London. No not London England, London Ontario. 3/5ths of my high school crew (Ricky, Brad & Amanda) live in the Forrest City (Dude is in China, and I'm in Ottawa). Brad had heard about some a pub in London that someone had described as 'the best wings he had ever had' but when we went to go try the place out, it was jammed packed with people. Not giving up on pub food, or as it turns out the British theme, we headed to the Fox & Fiddle pub.



I took the gang there back in Toronto, and they always had tasty wings. Now it was their turn to take me to their outlet. However, this location just opened up. Having originally been an Elephant and Castle (another pub chain part of us went a while back) it converted and re-opened about a week ago.

The decor is probably the same with just a door sign refit. It's got all sorts of levels to sit at. We were sat near the front door, and while there was a table between us and the door, I felt exposed. Not the best room in the house.

Brad ordered up some vegetable samosas. I sampled one, but I couldn't really taste them. The deep fried taste of the pastry dominated the appetizer and the seasoning was just really weak.

There was also a share plate of sweet potato fries. Crisp and tasty they were great - clearly this is a dish that's replacing fries as the potato of choice. The dipping sauce was not to my liking. The menu says its honey mustard, and I can sort of taste honey mustard, but it is really oily and had the flavour of Italian salad dressing.

Rick's dish was the Fox Banquet Burger with his fries 'poutined'. Having spent time in Ottawa, I've come to understand the hatred of things labeled 'poutine' and not being so (shredded cheddar and mozzarella is not cheese curds. Poutine is fries with cheese curd and gravy.). Rick said he enjoyed his burger (boy that pickle and bacon looks good) but I don't think it was the best ever.

I had debated getting wings (I actually do debate, wing just often win the argument) or getting the "Ultimate Fiddler Fries". Brad got them, so I was able to sample them. Overall they were just disappointing. The wedge fries were pretty blah, the cheese was blah, even the 'chipotle gravy' was blah. There were jalapenos, but it just didn't do anything. Brad agreed it wasn't what he expected. A great concept I've seen elsewhere executed way better than here.

AJ went with the vegetarian burger done 'mushrooms & cheese'. Vegetarian burgers are set into two camps: patties that look like, or relatively like a burger, & patties that are full of vegetables (and in my opinion, look like vomit with chunks). This burger was the latter, and AJ, like most vegetarians I have heard do not enjoy chunks of carrots or corn or chunks of anything in their burger.

There were some new sauces since I was at the F&F last, I decided to do some wing sampling.

I was really hungry and in the mood for wings, so I went with a double order to do some sampling. These wings were not cheap, but hey, its the holidays, right? I decided on 'Buffalo Butter' with a side of 4 Alarm Sauce, and Ancho Chipotle BBQ.

The chicken was a sizable appendage, large, meaty and with a dusted coating made for a big bite. They came out strange, like they were baked, plated, sauced, then dumped onto a new plate so the top of the wing was not sauced, but the bottom was. Strange.

The big problem with the wings was the baking process. They were charred. While this can also be a flavourful charm, it was not. They were not so burnt that I would send them back, but the burnt flavour ended up blocking all the flavours I ordered.

BUFFALO BUTTER: Well, they came out saucey. But their 'signature' sauce was, well, plain. No heat. My guess is bottled sauce, like Laredo, with no actual cayenne and butter involved. No taste, no heat. But char was the dominating flavour.

4 ALARM: Wow, I don't know what the alarm system is, but there must be over 10 stages on the alarm because it was a medium heat. It did have a nice flavour and I ended up using it on all the wings.

ANCHO CHIPOTLE BBQ: What is the first thing thing that comes to mind when you hear Chipotle BBQ? Or the second thing? I think, Chipotle = spicy. I think, BBQ=BBQ. Well Fiddler thinks differently apparently. No heat. The sauce, sweet in a fruit relish like way, not in a BBQ way.

FINAL SCORE: Well, I'm just totally trashing the place. The wings are big and meaty and that was good. But the burnt taste was just too much. I can only hope that these are problems because the place just opened up. The service was friendly here, but the food just didn't rate in my opinion. I hope the F&F in Toronto isn't like this, but when a chain has the same menu, its hard to say. 4/10

Fox & Fiddle

355 Wellington Street (London Citi Plaza Mall), London ON

foxandfiddle.com

WINGS UP! Kitchener, On

Back to the K/W region for a brief mission, I decided to grab some lunch at another chicken wing chain that has popped up in Ontario. Known as Wing Up!, this chain is so far just in South Western Ontario and they have a cautionary advisement on their webpage: "Warning -These are the best wings you'll ever taste." Wow, that's a pretty big claim.

This location (and my guess is all of them) is a take-out/delivery only. There are a few chairs for waiting, but nothing to actually eat at. The menu is simple - wings and deep fried other goodies. Obviously I was getting wings, but I was trying to find and combos that I could get to split the sauces available. All the combos were big and expensive. I asked the guy behind the counter how many wings approx in a pound and if a pound could be split. 8-10 wings approx in a pound, and 30 wings is where they were 'able' to split, otherwise it was too difficult. I looked at him with a skeptical look, and I ordered 2, 1/2 pound orders. Now I'm no mathemagician, but 2 - 1/2 pound orders is equal to 1 pound in wings. I don't care for this charging, but it is not uncommon in wing-specific restaurants.

Having no place to eat, I took my wings to the road and found a nearby park. I found this . . . table? No its not an illusion or photoshoped . . . its half a picnic table. It was great to me, but it was a little weird in this park. This is something that would be really useful in busy urban parks for business people on lunch break, not solitary by a pool and a sports field. But whatever.

The wings did come with sides: 2 celery chunks and 2 carrot coins. The celery chunks were only a few centimetres, and the carrot coins were a unique contribution to veggies and dip. Its diameter was pretty big as well.

It came with Wings Up!'s own blue cheese dip. A lot of dip (considering the 4 pieces of veggies) with one big problem. If you look at the above picture, on the left the label says "Chunky Blue Cheese" but the photo on the right shows the blue cheese sans chunks. I had two containers of blue cheese that had zero chunks in it. That's pretty ballsy to say one thing and produce another. That's also called lying where I come from. Despite the lack of actual chunks of blue cheese, it was tasty.

Everything came in cardboard boxes, and I was only seconds away from seeing if these were in fact the best wings I had ever tasted.

The two half orders, 5 wings each, had separate boxes with their own veggies and dip. I had the option of having the wings naked or breaded, and I went with breaded. You just get a little more wing with breading, and in theory a good crunch.

These were meaty wings for sure, but pretty much a medium sized wing. On the website they call them humongous, but they really are not.

The wings have to be frozen, and I'm pretty sure when they get them from the bag they are already breaded. I could be wrong, but these seem prefabricated. They remained relatively crispy after the drive to the park and coated in sauce (you can get your wings 'slightly sloppy' for another $0.39 but really, these wings are wet enough as they are).

SWEAT'N BULLETS:

I wanted to try their hottest sauce, with their chili scale going up to four, this sauce should be smokin.

I went to town on the first one . . . there was a good spicy flavour . . . but nothing was really burning or tingling. But after a few wings, the heat began to build until I needed to take a drink. It attacked more the back of the mouth rather than the lips. The sauce was a sweet heat and was certainly a unique sauce.

HONEY MUSTARD:

When I looked at these wings I was scared. They were so thick in the yellow sauce that I was imagining a wall of mustard sting. I actually got the opposite reaction. The flavour was almost all honey with just a hint of mustard. So it wasn't offensive the way I thought it would be, but it ended up being too sweet. No edge at all. I ate most of these right away just to get back to the SB wings.

FINAL SCORE: To put it mildly, Wings Up! are friggen liars.

1. They say "humongous" wings, they are not. They aren't small, but humongous? Come on?
2. They say "chunky blue cheese" and there are no chunks. Come on!
3. They say "best wings you'll ever taste". Come on!

I don't hate these wings. These are a decent wings. But the claims are just to outrageous. Would I get the from here again? If I lived nearby and was really jonesing for some wings. But I would have to really be jonesing. It felt more like an industry wing rather than wings made with love. Take out if you want, but freshly done from a restaurant or done at home will always be better than take-out. 4.5/10

Wings Up!

#1-2399 Kingsway Drive, Kitchener, On

wingsup.com

BOSTON PIZZA ~ Waterloo, On

"You're among friends at Boston Pizza"

I was in Waterloo on business and at the end of the day I was excited to meet up with my friends Juliana and Andrew. You may remember Juliana from being "On Notice" for flaunting an anti-chicken wing attitude back during the days of the Chestnut Report. Well, she still feels the same way about wings, but fortunately Andrew doesn't.

We met up at one of their restaurant standbys, Boston Pizza. I haven't been to a Boston Pizza in years so it was going to be chicken wing testing night for sure.

You may have seen the Boston Pizza commercials from the past. I remember first hearing about this chain when Howie Mandel was the spokesman. Then they had some ads with a Sasquatch. Lately its been their "Italy for Little-y" campaign with the highlight being the talking baby:







Boston Pizza actually has very little to do with Boston. In fact, its a Canadian chain from Alberta started by a Greek immigrant. Crazy! Their 'concept' is for a sports bar on one side, and family dining on the other. Pizza is the highlight, but the menu is full of Italian and other meal options through out.




On this Monday night was pretty empty, so we could sit pretty much where we wanted. We got a table that was TV adjacent to catch the hockey game. (note to Juliana: good call switching from the Leafs. They are never going to win anyway).



JuliAndrew (its just easier to combine the names, but this is not what I regularly call them . . . but may start) ordered some 'yam' fries with chipotle dip to nibble on (thanks guys, by the way). These 'sweet potato' fries were thin, crispy and super tasty. And the dip went really well with the sweet and yet a little salty fries, being creamy but still coming through with a chipotle kick.





Juliana ordered her usual, a, well I can't remember exactly what it was. I think, think, it was the Taco Salad with crispy chicken. It looks like a salad . . . and there is salsa and sour cream, and I knew there was chicken. I'm sure she liked it.

Andrew got the . . . Chicken and Mushroom Fettuccini, minus the mushrooms (again, I think that's what he got, I was really more focused on my wings and the conversation). It looked nice and cheesy especially with the added cheese on garlic toast.



Both of their meals looked pretty good, but my food attention was on my plate of wings.

I was hungry and wiped, and wanting to sample, so I went with a double order of wings split with BBQ and Hot sauces. The wings were medium in size, but very meaty. As a chain I'm willing to bet they are frozen wings, but that certainly doesn't come through in the taste of the chicken itself. The blue cheese dip on the side was also good.

The wings come in 2 different cooking methods: Breaded and fried (deep fried I'm sure) and Naked and baked. Baking rarely gets a wing crispy enough, and I don't mind breaded wings, so I went breaded. It was crisp, without being hard to chew. Just right for a breaded wing I think.

The wings came out very saucy. You are going to get your fingers sticky after having even just one. There is enough sauce on there to get the flavour but not so much your wings are drowning.

HOT: Nothing new here, just classic Buffalo-style sauce. It wasn't spicy, but had enough of a kick to keep inexperienced wing eaters alight. I would have liked hotter, but at least the flavour was there.

BBQ: sweet, spicy - an interesting mix. A gooey type BBQ that was definitely on the sweeter side but had something in there to give it a unique flavour. While I did like them, I think I would stick with the Hot or try something else in the future.

FINAL SCORE: Its been a long time since I've had the wings, let alone anything at Boston Pizza, and it was much better than I remembered it. The yam fries were great and the other food at the table looked tasty. Of course, my favourite part was hanging out with good friends that I haven't seen in a long time. But then again, that's Boston Pizza's slogan: "you're among friends at BP". Thanks Juliana and Andrew for coming out! 5.5/10*

*(that's the wing score, not me scoring my friends. Then its 10/10).

Boston Pizza
Waterloo
bostonpizza.com