Wednesday, 20 November 2019
Monday, 18 November 2019
Sunday, 17 November 2019
Friday, 15 November 2019
Thursday, 14 November 2019
PUB ST-PATRICK, Quebec City QC
This is another #lotwsummercatchup review
For the last long weekend of the summer, LJ and I took her dad to Quebec City for the weekend. We did a bit of touring of some historic sites, waterfalls, and took a little time to explore the walled part of the city. The place is over 400 years old and it feels like going back in time to the old world. There really is no other city like it in North America.
While you are in the old part of the city, you are going to get hungry. There are a ton of restaurants to choose from, and on a long weekend, you are going to have to struggle with tourist crowds. I did a quick internet search and found Pub St-Patrick as a promising and well reviewed place to eat. We were looking for something different then all the poutine and smoked meat that seemed to be what most of the places we had been served. So an Irish pub in old Quebec seemed to fit the bill.
The place was PACKED, but then every restaurant was on this weekend eve. We checked in with the hostess and was told it would be about a 30 minute wait. We put our names down and in about 20 minutes we had a table.
The place is a maze. It's in a building that's over 200 years old and the restaurant is not only on the main street level, and the patio, with multiple entrances, but also goes deep into the basement. That's where we were seated. It was dark and just really cool because you could feel the history. We waited a little bit for our waitress, as it was busy, but she came around and took our drink orders and brought us the menu.
As an Anglophone, I find it difficult to adjust to Quebec's language laws that says French must always come first before the English. That's not their fault - it's their province and culture, I'm just visiting. I'm just happy there is English. But the first thing that came up as a question to me was the translation for "Les Tites Z'Ailes" is; Ailes is wings in French, but Tites doesn't seem to have a translation. I also questioned the pricing - 6 wings for $9? Surely these were whole wings right?
Our waitress came back with our drinks, waters all around and a Diet Pepsi for me (although it tasted terrible) and took our orders.
We had been there a while, so I had to run out and put some more money in the parking meter. When I got back, our appetizer of Beef Tartar with Bacon & Guinness had arrived. LJ loves tartar, and I don't mind it. But this was really good. It was spicy and salty and flavorful. The meat was fresh and very tasty. My only complaint would be that 5 pieces of crostini is not enough.
Then the real problem began. We waited for our main course. We waited and waited. We waited over an hour. It was unreal. Yes the restaurant was busy but it was ridiculous. We flagged down our waitress, and she said it should be coming soon and she would check. Then she didn't come back. My dining companions were ready to go, but we decided to wait (as we would have to wait in line at any other restaurant just to get in). She came back and said it would be 10 minutes. 10 minutes went by and still nothing.
Finally the food arrived but there were more problems. LJ, who was pretty angry by this point, got here Saint-Partick burger, but it had all the ingredients that she had requested NOT to come on the burger. That would have been ok to just take them off, but the burger was cold and had clearly sat out. Her fries were also dreadful - overcooked and had clearly been sitting in a warming drawer. Joey's fries with his fish and chips were the same. Frustrated, LJ left to get some air. While she left, another server brought her correct burger (we didn't even see our waitress after she dropped off the food) and he was confused as to the first burger. So he took the one he brought away. LJ didn't eat her burger or fries. Joey ate his fish (I never even saw it), but he said it was good but cold.
As for my meal, my wings came out, and they came out in a frying pan.
So the first thing I noticed was that the wings came in a frying pan. Interesting. It was a unique serving vessel I guess. Then I noticed that while I had asked for the wings with Buffalo sauce on them and a side of the Red Ale BBQ, they just put both sauces on the side. Ok. Then I noticed that there was no blue cheese dip as the menu stated. Then, I just noticed as I was writing this that I only count 10 wings in the pan. The orders come 6 or 12 and I got more than 6, but less than 12. Hmmph.
The wings were small. They were pretty meaty for their small size, but they were still small. Crazy to be that small at that price. I don't think I have ever had anything but small wings when going to Quebec. They were served very hot and very crispy at least.
It was nice that the skin was crispy, and the meat was relatively tender underneath.
As mentioned above, the wings came out naked with the sauce on the side, so the skin stayed crispy ... well until I gave them a little bath. I needed too because the wings didn't have much flavour on their own.
Oh, the above photo also shows were my blue cheese dip wasn't. That dip would have been great to have.
BUFFALO (REGULAR)
I didn't really understand until writing this review that I was duped. See their menu says that these are Buffalo wings. They are not. They are just fried wings with hot sauce on the side. It's a nice hot sauce, cayenne based, but it had no butter in it to make it Buffalo. That's why the sauce is listed as Regular. They think chicken wings are Buffalo wings when in fact, it is a flavour. So while they were decent wings, they were not as advertised.
RED ALE BBQ
Now this was an interesting sauce on the side, but I had a feeling it would be when I ordered it. It was very much like the texture of a tomato chili sauce, thick, sweet, fruity and yet tangy. Very much homemade.
FINAL SCORE:
Things did not run smoothly at Pub St-Patrick. Crazy wait times for our food, we were only given excuses when we prompted, and the food came out incorrect, cold, or inedible. In the end they didn't charge us for LJ's dinner, and while my wings were decent, the experience left a real sour spot in our mouths. The wings were ok, but they were tiny and expensive for what they were. The pub has a cool atmosphere, but it was just a disappointing meal. We don't go to Quebec City very often, but we won't be back next time for sure. 6.5/15
Pub St-Patrick
1200 Rue Saint-Jean, Quebec City Quebec
pubsaintpatrick.ca
Wednesday, 13 November 2019
Big Bone BBQ & Wicked Wings - Kanata ON
Still doing #lotwsummercatchup
Picture it, Ontario, July, National Chicken Wing Day 2019. I had a lunch feast of wings at St Louis, but wanted to celebrate with more wings someplace different. I was also going to be celebrating with LJ. There's a BBQ joint out in Kanata I've been wanting to check out for a while, and it being a Monday and all I knew they had a Monday Madness special that involved wings. So off we went!
Big Bone BBQ and Wicked Wings is a chain of 9 BBQ joints that exists mainly around Toronto (not in Toronto mind you) with this location being the farthest away. When I was last living in Toronto I had wanted to go check them out, but never did. So this was the perfect opportunity. I mean, the place is a BBQ joint (love BBQ) AND they are about wings! How could you go wrong?
This place is located in a strip mall, surrounded by businesses like an Asian take-away and a music store. Inside it very much has a BBQ feel. There's the smell of BBQ smoke. There's all sorts of kitschy BBQ stuff on the walls and some good blues and rock and roll on the stereo. We got there sometime after 5pm, but the place was pretty busy and continued to be busy the whole time, which is pretty good for a Monday night.
There's a big ordering counter, and we weren't sure if you order and sit, or just sit and someone takes your order. The waitress came out (she was the only one, and it seemed like there was just one guy in the back cooking as far as I could tell) and she told us to find a seat since we were dining in, and she brought us our menus.
Now Big Bone's wasn't celebrating National Wing Day, but I was aware of their Monday Mania special. It's the closest thing they have for a wing night. It's $28.25 (taxes in) for 1 rack of ribs, 1lb of wings, with a large fries or salad. It sounded good, but we didn't go this route after all. We decided to get 2lb's of wings so that we could try more wings. But to get some more BBQ in there, we took a look at one of their other specials:
They were highlighting their homemade sausages, and that just sounded good to both of us. We went for the Sausage Dinner with 3 links and sides.
When it came to the wings, we had a lot more decisions to make. First, Big Bone does wings 2 different ways. Smoked, and fried. Fried is my fave, but I do love a smoked wing. Since were were getting two pounds, we figured we'd get one order fried and the other smoked. But then, you have to choose the sauce, and that's not easy because there are 23 flavours. How do you choose?!
So here's what went down. The waitress, who was friendly, but also no-nonsense, stopped us before we started to order the wings to explain the wings. She explained that the Smoked wings are marinated, then smoked, then thrown on the grill in their Signature BBQ sauce, so any sauce you order for them is on the side. So we ordered 1lb Smoked wings with their Alabama Slamma on the side (she said she likes it because it has a kick, but isn't too spicy) and an order of Fried wings in Wicked Hot.
We didn't wait long at all and our two platters arrived. The feast looked really good, but when she brought them, she put the wings down first stating "Here are your smoked wings, and fried wings with the Alabama Slamma". LJ and I looked at each other and were a bit confused, because that's not what we ordered, or at least, not the right combination of what we ordered.
But I'll come back to that.
On the Sausage Dinner, there were three very nice looking links waiting for us. I liked them, but LJ wasn't a fan. The texture was great - they had that crispy snapping skin when you bit into them, and the pork itself was tender and ground well. The flavour was, well, kind of mute, but then you got hit with this like maple syrupy sweet flavour. It tasted ok, but I'd much prefer a spicier sausage. They were ok, not bad, but we both would order them again.
The beans that came with them were pretty good. They taste like they are just canned beans with a bit of smoke and maybe bbq sauce, but mostly cold beans. The coleslaw came warm, which is not cool, especially since it's a creamy coleslaw. It was much better as leftovers the next day once it had sat in the fridge. Again it tasted creamy, but I think it had some apple cider vinegar in it for a sweet-tart kick. The fries that came with both of our orders are battered and crispy. Good texture but not much flavour. They came out hot at least. Finally, the platter came with a slice of corn bread, which was literally a slice from a corn bread loaf. It was ok - it wasn't sweet or really corn flavoured either. There was a hint of like granular sugar actually but it goes away quick. It was a really nice texture to it though.
So the other food was kind of hit or miss, but would the wing-mix up end up being ok?
So the wings come by the pound, with about 8-9 wings in that pound. Each order does come with fries but no other sides. We were brought a bone bowl, lots of napkins, and I'm pretty sure there was some wetnaps also included.
The size of most of the wings was medium to medium-small. This was both in length and width, and applied to the meatiness of each wing.
The fried wings were saucy, but they also came out cold and soggy. The lack of crispy skin was sad. The meat on the wings were also tough. After biting into them they seem to come from frozen stock, which is strange considering that they state the smoked wings are from fresh.
The smoked wings were a bit more tender. I find most smoked wings are tough and leathery but these were not thankfully.
So as stated before, I don't know if we got the right sauces or not. But the waitress said the fried wings had Alabama Slamma, and then there were just Smoked wings and no Wicked Hot was actually applied? I don't know for sure.
SMOKED & GRILLED
So the wings came out and they looked like they should with little bits of char coming from the smoking process. I'm not crazy about the texture of smoked wings on their own, so whether you deep fry them after or grill, they need something.
Now the wings as described to us both on the menu and in person was that the smoked wings are finished off with their Signature BBQ sauce. I don't know if that was what was on here, but it was clearly there was a residue of sauce leftover. It was not killer in heat. The flavour of the wings was overwhelmingly smokey, but it wasn't a nice Hickory smoke, more like some sort of fake smoke that tasted more like campfire. It was ok, I guess. I could look past them and found them ok but LJ did not like them.
FRIED with ALABAMA SLAMMA
So we ordered the Fried with the Wicked Hot. I don't know that this was the Wicked Hot or the Alabama Slamma for sure. It could have been the Wicked Hot because it was 3rd Degree sauce with a bit of sweetness, but then that's how our waitress described the Slamma. If it was Alabama Slamma, I was expecting a spicier Alabama BBQ sauce, a more creamy, white sauce. This was not that. The sauce was good, and I rubbed the smoked wings in it to boost their flavour. But since these wings came cold and soggy, I wasn't impressed. At least they were saucy?
FINAL SCORE:
By the end of the meal, neither LJ or I was full or satisfied. The place kept getting busier and busier and so waiting for the only waitress to get a bill and pay took forever. Not her fault, she's waitress, bartender, dealing with tables, take-out orders, and delivery orders. I don't know if it was an off night but it wasn't a great experience. Ok BBQ food, soggy cold fried wings, less than tasty smoked wings with sauces that we had no idea what was what. Here's the thing, I'd go back to try the wings again. I would like to sample more but I'm not in a rush to do so anytime soon, but I have faith they could be better. 6/15
Big Bone BBQ & Wicked Wings
701 Eagleson Rd, Kanata ON (and other locations)
bigbonebbq.ca
Thursday, 7 November 2019
TBT = A Month of Missing Posts
Hey - so October was crazy busy and I didn't get much posted on here, but here is a bunch of Instagram posts to try and catch up!
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