THE BULL & BOAR SMOKEHOUSE GRILL ~ Belleville ON

RIP - THE BULL & BOAR is NOW CLOSED

I'm still catching up from the begining of November when I was in Ottawa. Well this particular story was when I went to Ottawa and then went to Belleville for the day. For lunch I went to one BBQ joint, and then once LJ was done work, we went to another.

If you told me Belleville had one BBQ joint, I'd be surprised. But to have TWO BBQ joints in town is down right amazing in a country that is just starting to embrace this culinary technique. Well I was told about it, which was by an excellent review by the Oshawa Ogre. Although I hadn't read the review in a while, it seemed like a good spot to stop for food.

The Bull and Boar is much more like a family/causual restaurant with lots of booths and table seating. It was kind of dark inside, and for a Thursday it seemed a bit quiet. Our server was Kristopher, who was friendly and informative about any questions I had about the BBQ or the wings.

LJ didn't have lunch, so both of us were really hungry. We decided to to a big sampling feast:

We started off with the Iron Skillet Sour Dough, which is "a sour dough loaf dripping in chipotle garlic butter with a sprinkle of parmesan cheese" ($6.99) with cheese (+$0.99). We both love sour dough loafs, but the presentation of this one is quite different than I had seen before. Usually they are a whole loaf that you tear apart (and after going back to Oshawa Ogre's review, seems to have changed) but is now slices with the cheese melted over. The melted butter, cheese and soft bread just make this wonderful.

Going to a BBQ joint means I want to do a lot of sampling. We shared "The Trough" ($18.99): "Belly up; everything including the kitchen sink is here in true Southern BBQ Style. It's loaded with all you favourite including ribs, brisket, pulled pork, BBQ chicken and sausage. We're not finished yet, it also comes with beans, slaw, fries and cornbread."

What a combo!

1. The bun. Generic. I would like it to be more fresh.
2. The Sausage. Kristopher informed me it was a pork/beef mix. The skin was crispy, the meat was tasty - this was probably my favourite part of the trough. 
3. Brisket. Sliced thin. It was a bit cold. Was better dipped in BBQ sauce.
4. BBQ chicken. Liked the skin where most of the taste lie. The chicken was a bit tough. 
5. Ribs. had a bit of pull (which is good). There was a mild pork/smoke taste. Not bad, but not great.
6. Smokin' Bull BBQ Sauce. Darker, smokeir sauce - not that sweet. Great for dipping the que into.
   
   

7. Coleslaw. It left no impressions on me.
8.  Pulled Pork: Tender, but no flavour. BBQ sauce was a must.

9. Beans. They came out in this awesome little cast iron-like pot. But the beans really turned me off. I was expecting a rich, thick, savoury bean. Instead they tasted like it was beans mixed with salsa. Maybe this is more my hang up because I expected something else, but I just didn't care for them.

Not shown are the french fries. Crispy, fluffy inside, seasoned well. Good fries.

Oh, our sampling didn't end there. We also had the Fiesta Platter ($18.99).  "Stuffed Jalapenos, Pig Skins, Deep Fried Pickles, Wings and a mound of Nachos with cheese, Pico, peppers, onions, jalapenos and baked beans."

i)   Deep Fried Pickles. Generic, but good.
ii)  Pig Skins. Standard potato skins with pulled pork and bbq sauce. I love potato skins, and if this was warm, it would have been great.

iii) Stuffed Jalapeno. Bacon wrapped jalapenos. They were cold. But it was still good. But would have                         been much better hot.
iv) Baked Beans. More salsa-like beans.

v) Nachos. Slathered on high. Lots of cheese, lots of toppings. Not a fan of pico cooked right on it, but oh well. The jalapenos actually had a nice kick.

Of course, the Fiesta Platter had wings.

The Fiesta Platter clearly doesn't represent a regular order of wings. On the platter, there are 3. I asked Kristopher how they are cooked and he said smoked, then deep fried and sauced. This is the way to do BBQ'd wings.

The big dissapointment with these wings were that they were cold when they came out. They looked great though and were nice and saucy.

In length they were about a medium, but they were very meaty chickens. The skin was crispy, and the meat was tender. After biting into them I wanted more than 3.

Sauce wise I went with their Hot BBQ. This was their  BBQ sauce described above mixed with a hot sauce. This was a nice blend that was going to be palatable and tasty to anyone no matter their heat level.  I also got a side of suicide on the side ($0.99). This was very fresh and had a good bite. It was full of chopped peppers and very juicy. Not exactly my favourite style of suicide, but lots of flavour and had a good kick.

The SCORE: I felt the Bull and Boar was all over the place. Some things were good, others ho-hum. Nothing was terrible, but the fact that both platters were half hot, half cooled down food made the experience less enjoyable. The BBQ was decent, but little stood out - I liked the ribs and the sausage. The wings were cold, and that was sad. At the same time, they were really good.  Kristopher was a good server, but I should have mentioned the temperature issues. Overall, I liked it there, and I would go back for the wings for sure. I just hope if I do, they are hotter. 6/10

The Bull & Boar Smokehouse Grill

13 Bell Blvd, Belleville ON

thebullandboar.ca

WWWWWW #51 - Mahalo Tristan Blash

Yes, World Wide Web Wacky Wing Wednesday. WWWWWW. This is where I will surf the Web, and find other people talking about chicken wings. The world is full of chicken wing stories, wacky and otherwise. Recipes, restaurant reviews, eating contests or whatever. Today's Blog relating to wings in some shape or form:

Mahalo: Learn Anything

This week we are looking at Mahalo, a website to, well, learn how to do stuff. More importantly, we are looking at Tristan Blash:

Tirstan is one of Mahalo's cooking experts:

"Tristan Blash is a chef and teacher at the San Diego branch of Hipcooks, a hands-on culinary school for adults. A graduate of Colorado University-Boulder, Blash has been a caterer and event planner in Scotland, New York City and Oregon. Blash left the food industry for a while to become a nutrition teacher, but she returned because she said she was "not able to keep her hands or brain off of food.""

She is also really into chicken wings. Go to the link on her name up above and you will see a ton of wing recipes that are simple to do. I started off excited, then came across some serious errors, which I will get to, but overall she is a great wing resource.

First off, she will totally teach you How to Brine Chicken Wings.

Want to bake chicken wings? Here's "How to Make the Best Baked Chicken Wings Ever"

Then I watched this video, and my Spidey-sense started tingling. "How to Make Classic Buffalo Hot Sauce for Chicken Wings." OK the sauce is pretty close - the addition of pepper and garlic powder is forgivable.

But then I saw "How to Make Restaurant Style Buffalo Chicken Wings" and I was like no. These look like well made 'Hot Wings', but Buffalo wings are NEVER tossed in flour with a load of ingredients. Deep fry right, sauce is soo close, but the chicken is never dusted or breaded.

And if you aren't using all your chicken, Tristan teaches you "How to Store Leftover Chicken Wings."

So check out Tristan's videos (there's lots). I can forgive her for the "Buffalo Wing' snafu for her simple but effective videos. While the videos are almost (almost) unintentionally funny (like how some internet cooks are sad to watch like those on infomercials who aren't quite comfortable) but she isn't so pretentious like tv chef's who ooh and ahh about their own dishes. She's down to Earth, clear and she seems to like wings. That's a good combo to me.

SMOKEHOUSE BLUES ~ Belleville ON

RIP - Smokehouse Blues is NOW CLOSED

While visiting LJ in Ottawa, she had to travel to Belleville for work. So I decided to tag along and look into some local history. First I went to the Belleville Chamber of Commerce and tourist info cabin. Then I went to the Canadian Forces Base Trenton which has the National Air Force Museum. After lunch I went to the Belleville Armory which has the Hastings & Prince Edward Regiment Military Museum. Then I went to Glanmore National Historic Site, a historic house restored from the 1800`s. It was an afternoon of history, learning and respect for those that sacrifice for our protection.

In that busy day, I went for lunch. LJ had to work through lunch, so I went to a place across the street from where she was. I immediately remembered Signature Blues from Wilfred Reinke, the Oshawa Ogre who reviewed it on his blog earlier this year. I was hungry and I could definitely go for some BBQ.

This is mostly a take-out joint that has a few tables and high-counter seating. I was surprised how quiet it was at lunch, but they were getting phone-in orders. The smell of BBQ was in the air, and I really had to take in the whole menu.

I was hungry, wanted to do some sampling, but not spend too much. They have your standard ribs and brisket, chicken etc, but unique items like potato nachos, sandwiches and their Pulled Pork Parfait were also tempting tasting grounds.

The good news was that I was going to be able to add whatever sauce I wanted on after I was served, because the tables all have extra sauce bottles for sampling!

Then I found the perfect combo for me: Combo Plate A

1 Pork Wing, 4 Chicken Wings, and 1 side for $13.99. 

There were lots of tasty sides to choose from:  fries (both potato and sweet potato) slaw, cornbread, etc but I thought beanse were the way to go. And boy was I right. These beans were smokey, tomato sweet, thick, mushy etc.  Hands down one of the best beans I've ever had. Perfect on a slightly cool day.

Pig Wings. Brilliant idea.

What is a pig wing? Take a meaty pork shank (part of the leg), smoke or braise it, then deep fry it and toss it in sauce. Smokehouse Blues gets their Pig Wings packaged and then just deep fry for service.

I got my Pig Wing tossed in Smokey BBQ Sauce, which is a "Kansas City style traditional BBQ Sauce with a hint of Guinness Beer".

The Pig Wing was super tender and meaty. The sauce had a nice hint of smoke, and not too sweet. This was a great wing concept and well executed.

A normal order of wings is about a pound, but I was ordering Combo Plate A where there were just 4 in an order.

The wings were smoked and then tossed in sauce. The wings looked absolutely gorgeous. Nice and saucy. too

These were pretty big wings. Very meaty. They were not crispy though. This is a challenge for BBQ smoked wings. It also lead to some very tough wings. Each bite was a difficult and I had a hard time pulling the bone from the wing. This was the only downside to these wings.

HOUSE HOT

I went with the House Hot for the chicken wings. "Our House Sauce with some heat. Starts Sweet, finishes Med Hot." This was an accurate description of the sauce. It wasn't too spicy, really a medium heat like they state. Before ordering the wings my server let me sample the sauces, and when I sampled House Hot, it had a lot more flavour, but on the wings they didn't stand out.

XXX

I also squited on some XXX on after. "Our own Fiery Hot Sauce powered with Naga Jolokia peppers." Yes, this was a spicy sauce. It too started sweet, but had a strong kick from my old nemesis the Naga Jolokia. It had multiple levels of heat.

HOUSE
I squirted a little on another wing as well. "Our own sweet, tomato based North Carolina style BBQ sauce."
They said it was sweet, and yes it was. Too sweet, too sugary for my liking.

FINAL SCORE: Smokehouse Blues is a great little BBQ joint. Staff was friendly, the food was good. I was really impressed with the Pig Wings and the beans. The wings had a good flavour, but they were tough. I liked some of the sauces, and not others, but that's ok. Next time I would have the Pig Wings for sure, but I'd like to sample some other options. 4.5/9

Plus, Belleville is a nice town with a lot of history. Go check it out.

Smokehouse Blues

300 North Front Street, Belleville ON

smokehouseblues.ca

TADVALKARS ~ Ottawa ON

RIP - TADAVALKARS is NOW CLOSED

Funny story (ok not funny ha ha, more interesting). So a couple of years ago I was living in Ottawa, and at one of the cinemas I attend, they built in the parking lot a Shoeless Joes. I like Shoeless Joes when I've been there in the past, but never went to the Ottawa location. Now in 2011 I visit Ottawa and Shoeless Joes is gone and in its place is Tadavalkars. 

I don't know what happened, I don't know who Tadavalkar is or what the deal is, but I thought it was worth going in and seeing what they are all about.

Inside looks like every Shoeless Joe's I've been to: kind of a classier sports pub vibe. It was pretty quiet at lunch, and while there were some in the dining room, I was seated in the bar area with a big booth to myself. There was what looked like some business guys there for lunch, and more eventually joined at another booth and another guy at the bar with the giant tv. The music was top 40. My server was an older gentleman - the bartender, host, waiter and I'm willing to bet manager. I never caught his name but he was friendly, joking around a bit, and filling my drink as necessary.

I ordered wings, which are usually enough for me, but I saw lattice fries on the menu, and I'm a huge fan. I love lattice fries because they are crispy, but full of potato. They are also great because they hold well for dipping and for piling on (like as a nacho base). These were good - and I dipped them in ketchup, I dipped them in ranch, and I dipped them in BBQ sauce.

On the side of my wings was some ranch dressing. That's all I have to report. Ranch.

Wings come by the pound, which works out to be about 8 or so wings. They come breaded or not, and I didn't specify, so they came out non-breaded. As I said there is ranch on the side (thankfully not sour cream) but no veggies.

The wings are also listed as capon wings, which means they are castrated rooster wings. I didn't notice a difference between capon and hen wings, but they were a pretty good quality.

The wing size varied from medium to large, and medium meatiness to very meaty. The wings were a decent level of crispiness, but because they were pretty wet, they lost that crunch soon. That didn't ruin the wings, but  it didn't make them better.

There were some interesting flavours, but I chose two on my order. Oh, and it turned out on Tuesdays it's 1/2 price wings, so I got a much cheaper lunch than I was expecting (should have ordered more!)

BLAZING HOT

OK so the above photo says HOT, but they are actually Blazing Hot. I felt pretty confident that this wasn't going to be very hot. I was right, but it was a decent Hot. So I guess the above photo was correct.

Either way, it was good classic cayenne based hot sauce. I could eat a ton of these.

SOUTHERN BBQ

This was a weird one. I mean it was tasty, but it looked like baby food. It was thick and oily looking.

The flavour was sweet but a bit smokey too. My server asked how it was, but volunteered that he had no idea what was in it because it changed with whoever was making it in the back. I would have it again for sure, but it sounds like I might get something different next time.

FINAL SCORE: The wings were a decent size, with good flavours. And all day 1/2 price wings is great. Shoeless Joe's may not have been able to stay in this location, but hopefully this now local place can. Plus I love their lattice fries. 6/10

Tadvalkars Lounge and Restaurant

3094 Carling Ave, Ottawa ON

tadvalkars.com

LOTW Interviewed on CKCU 93.1 FM

In October I received an e-mail from Candice Su, a journalism student at Carleton U who was interested in interviewing me for a segment on "Weeks End" for CKCU 93.1 FM, about chicken wings. It was meant to be a phone interview, but I happened to be in Ottawa. So we met up, chatted for a long time about wings, and the interview was complete.

I missed the initial airing, but have listening since.You can listen to the edited version HERE on CKCU's website. Candice sent me a copy of the full interview, and to upload it to the blog, I added it to WingKingTV and made a low quality video to go along with it:

I had a lot of fun and don't feel I sounded too dorky. Actually I sounded really serious, but I was smiling a lot in real life.

Thanks Candice for the interview!

JEAN ALBERT's ~ Ottawa ON

RIP - JEAN ALBERT's is NOW CLOSED

I've been to Ottawa a few times in the past couple of weeks. One night when LJ was at a work function, I decided to try out a new/old haunt. How can it be new/old? Well the place was Jean Albert's which used to be in Hallville On, but they moved to Ottawa's Chinatown since I left Ottawa. It had been a couple of years since I had been to Jean Albert's, so they were due a visit.

In early October I had gone in and finally got to sample their wings. I spent a good chunk of time talking to owner LeRoy. We talked about the move, the difficulty that comes up with know-it-all blogger/foodies (claiming his food isn't authentic, or when people says he serves certain items that are canned goods when he actually makes things from scratch) and the occasional racists that give him a hard time. It was great to chat because I don't usually get a one-on-one with an owner (although I didn't reveal my blogger status). While we talked I found out about their all-you-can-eat wing night, and said the next time I was in town I was definitely going.

Well jump back to the beginning of November and it was the next time I was in town. This time LJ was free, so we went for wing night. There was a birthday crowd in, also taking advantage of AYCE wings. (note the photos were at the end of the night when we were the last customers of the evening, not when people were there). Other than that it was quiet, but also later than the regular dinner hour.

The atmosphere is similar to their Hallville location with all the Americana: portraits of Lincoln and Obama, old Pepsi signs, giant American flag etc. But they've traded in their picnic tables for real tables, plastic plates for real plates - and they have an upstairs that can be rented out for functions that looks kinda like an old speakeasy. Its cozy and warm inside, and you are always close to either LeRoy or his wife Jennifer with the main counter right in the main dinning room.

Jennifer was our server and she is super friendly. She helped LJ choose what to have and negotiated some of my wing questions. It wasn't long before an order of their sweet water corn bread came out - which are a little thicker than they used to be, but taste really good.

LJ went with the Chicken and Waffles - three pieces of fried chicken on a waffle. She had never had this before and wasn't sure how you eat it, so I told LJ to cut up the chicken with the waffle and dip it in the syrup, or the Frank's hot sauce on the table - and she really enjoyed it. In fact she ate the whole plate (she almost always has leftovers!).

As already stated, I went with the AYCE wings. The wings come in an order of about 8-10 wings in a pound, that are dusted/breaded in their own spice mix, then deep fried. There are no sides. You can get their special sauces on the side ($1.50) or baked in after the frying process ($2.50), but things change when you are ordering AYCE.

I love Jean Albert's and I really like the owners, but one thing that always seems strange is the money and cost of things. They are upfront about charges, but they seem to charge for a lot of extras or things that one wouldn't normally. For example, the wings come standard with Frank's hot sauce. Normally on wing night you get this sauce automatically, and if you want to try one of the homemade sauces, its the $1.50-2.50 extra. On this night, Jennifer said they were including one of the homemade sauces. However that is the sauce for all the AYCE, so when I wanted to try 2 different sauces, I had to pay $1.50 more. Basically, my first two orders of wings I had "Slap Yer Mamma" which was included in the price; when I had my third order of wings, I tried the Honey BBQ and it cost $1.50 more for a small dipping container. I was really hoping to try more of the homemade sauces, but wasn't willing to pay that much more.

The wings ranged in size from medium to large, with about a medium level of meatiness. Above is one of the larger wings. The chicken is super crispy, and the meat very tender (and comes out temperature hot!). I  easily ate many of the wings just plain with the tasty seasoning, but the others I removed the bones (came apart easily) and dunked the skin/meat in the sauces.

There are lots of extra sauces to choose from - most homemade.

Slap Yer Mamma

I've had this sauce before and I really like it. The pictures don't do the rich dark red sauce justice. This sauce is peppery, smokey and has a good kick. The more you eat the hotter it gets, but still has a lot of flavour. This is a great suicide sauce.

Honey BBQ

Out of all the BBQ sauces, I tried a classic honey bbq. This sauce was very sweet, but had a good depth of flavour. It worked on the wings, but I think it would be better on ribs.

I am curious how the standard hot sauce was like, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but the Honey Garlic Candy Coat sauce appeals to me (candy coating, it sounds soo intriguing).


FINAL SCORE:  I love Jean Alberts. The service has always been friendly and the food has always been good. Some of the food can be pricey and they are cooking from scratch, so the food takes a while, but I think its worth it. Wings are crispy, flavourful and fresh. I really recommend the `Slap Yer Mamma' sauce to go with them - but I'd stick to sauce on the side and not go for baked in. And how can you beat AYCE wing nights? 8.5/10

Jean Albert's American Style Soul Food

495 Somerset Street West, Ottawa ON

Urban Spoon has a copy of their menu HERE