MARSHY'S BAR-B-Q & GRILL ~ Ottawa, On

After an anonymous reader left me a message here, about All-You-Can-Eat (AYCE) Wings at a place called Marshy's in Ottawa, I knew I was going to have to try them. LJ took a Thursday night off and travelled to the Centrepointe location (there is also one at the Scotiabank Place arena where the Ottawa Senators play hockey).

Going there, I had no idea who Brad Marsh was. Immediately entering the place, I could see he was a hockey player, and I was pretty sure from the wall to wall Ottawa Senators memorabilia he played for Ottawa. Wikipedia states he:

is a professional ice hockey player who played the position of defenceman.
Originally selected by the Atlanta Flames in the 1978 NHL Entry Draft, Marsh played with the Flames and followed the organization when they relocated to Calgary. He also played with the Philadelphia Flyers, Toronto Maple Leafs, Detroit Red Wings, and Ottawa Senators. His number has been retired by his junior team, the London Knights.

Also:

He scored 23 goals and added 175 assists in 1086 NHL games, which is a
record for fewest goals scored by a player who played at least 1000 games.

Wow, clearly a hockey hero. But I don't care for hockey, so none of this mattered. What matters is the place not the man. The place inside, as mentioned before, is clearly decked out like a sports bar. Pennants, flat screen tvs with the game on (even booths here have tv's in them) and jersey's are all around. There were lots of servers running around which made service prompt and friendly. The crowd was a strange mix: men in suits, multi-generational families. I was getting mixed vibes all around about the nature of this place.

Of course, LJ and I came for the AYCE wings. A big sign outside say they are "simply the best and biggest wings in Ottawa" which is a pretty big claim. We would see. We ordered some fries (they were frozen fries, but they were big, not bad for frozen, but nothing special), and went on to sample various flavours of wings . . .

2008 THE SCORE 3.0: Marshy’s Bar-B-Que - Ottawa

STYLE:	Breaded, deep fried
PRICE:	$10.99 for 1lb $20.99 for 2lb
SAUCES:	BBQ medium/hot/suicide honey garlic dry spice	1/1
HEAT:	Tingle for the suicide
SIZE:	Medium with breading	1/3
WETNAP FACTOR:	Wet – a nice amount of sauce	2/3
CRISPINESS:	crisp – the breading gives it a slight crunch	2/3
FLAVOUR:	Terrible – 4 out of 5 sauces tasted were not good	0/3
SIDES:	Veggies, and sour cream dip	2/3
CLEAN UP:	Napkins and wetnaps	2/3
WING NIGHT:	Thursdays AYCE $11.95 with drink purchase	1/1
OTHER:	Free refills on pop, buffalo shrimp
TOTAL:	Good chicken and breading, terrible tasting sauces	11/20

The first batches of wings LJ & I got came in an order of 14. 14 is a big number! LJ was done after this, but I went on to try more flavours in multiples of 6. The wings are a small medium, but they grow because of the breading. They are meaty and fall off the bone. As the chicken itself goes, these were a well done wing. However, Local Heroes clearly serves a bigger wing.

Now to evaluate the sauce, lets look at them on their own:

HOT

LJ's first and only batch. She got hot, but they were not. They tasted like regular hot sauce on a wing, but something was off. I think there was too much butter in the mix because it tasted heavy and gave a churn in the stomach that was not heat related.

SUICIDE

They looked so good when they came out: lots of chili's and a dark red complection, I thought I was in for a heat treat. However, I did not feel like I was taking my life with these. In fact, I quickly began to dislike the pepper flake flavour that did nothing for taste.

BBQ

These were my absolute least favourite. Their signature sauce, was simply gross. I actually forced myself to finish these. It was a strange sweet sauce with an Asian flare added in that made for a mess. How do you mess up BBQ?

DRY SPICE

This was my favourite, and the last of my options. Very crispy with a salty, granualar version of KFC chicken. I wouldn't eat more than 12 without adding some sort of sauce, but after the BBQ, this redeemed Marshy wings.

FINAL SCORE:
So much about this place. Hockey atmosphere with strange patrons. Plain frozen fries, veggies and dip (and by the by, why is sour cream a dip? I know sour cream helps cuts the pain from heat, but it tastes terrible as a dip!). While the wings were not that big, they were well breaded, cooked with the right amount of meat that fell off the bone.

The sauces however, well, they seem to get as many goals as Brad. And for AYCE, 11.95 is not that cheap: I ate enough to make them $0.45 a piece. LJ got the wings down to about $0.85 a piece, which is more than you would normally pay for wings. Moral of the story: eat eat eat to make it worth while, but it makes it worth while when sampling flavours. In the end, I really liked the chicken, but the sauces sucked. I might try them again, but there's more wings in Ottawa to discover. 11/20

Marshy's Bar-B-Q & Grill
117 Centrepointe Drive, Ottawa (Nepean technically)
marshys.com (warning: website does not work with Firefox properly, use IE)

#TBT - Marshy's BBQ & Grill

#tbt to April 2008 & Thursday Wing Night at Marshy's BBQ & Grill which closed several years ago. Breaded meaty wings were AYCE for $11.95 back then. Wasn't crazy about the sauces but the chicken was good. Ps in my wing review I was as confused & unhappy as I am today why sour cream is served with wings in Ottawa. #lordofthewingsblog #lordofthewings #chickenwings #wings #breadedwings #wingmemories #throwbackthursday #ottawawings #613wings

A post shared by LORD of the WINGS (@lotw_wingking) on Apr 19, 2018 at 7:18pm PDT

Go HERE to see the original post.

ROYAL OAK - Centerpointe, OTTAWA ON

This is part of my #lotwsummercatchup from back in June.

Part of that summer catch up isn't just being late on reviews, but continues my trend of returning to places I reviewed like 10 years ago. In this case, I was going back to the Royal Oak, a pub chain you can find all over the city. The last time I had wings at a Royal Oak was back in 2008, and I was not impressed. But a few months ago, fellow wingstagrammer @ottawawings posted about the Royal Oak, and I was surprised there had been some upgrades since I was there over 10 years ago. Ever since I have been tempted to go back.

So I did, but not to the Westboro location. I checked out the Centrepointe location. The place looked familiar, and then I realized, this was formerly Marshy's - an old sports bar that had AYCE wings. I went in, and it looked exactly the same as I remembered it. Well almost.

At the time, they were having a Lobsterfest event on and they had decorated an under the sea theme to the place. It was a beautiful start to summer, so the patio was packed. I went inside and the bar area was busy, but the pack portion of the pub was empty. My server was the bartender, and he was busy but told me to grab a seat where I wanted. I took a booth with a nice view.

I had done some research and knew that on this day it was wing night. and I was happy to see it reinforced on a card at my table. But the bartender, who was always in a hurry, didn't mention it. He went through the Lobsterfest spiel and drinks specials, but nothing about the wings. He took my drink order and then he was gone for a while.

When he came back finally,  I asked to confirm about wing night and he said yes. He asked if I wanted breaded or not. I asked for an order of Hot, and he tried to go. I then said I also wanted an order of Cajun, and he tried to leave. I finally got in the side of Extreme, but he left before I could ask for House dip instead of sour cream. Oh well.

I was also excited to see advertisement for Hot Ones wings and trivia. It seemed like a cool event; I only wish I could have gone. I wasn't there long when another server brought me my wing fest and I could get started.

When I had Royal Oak wings back in 2008, they were small, scrawny, and not great. I was pleasantly surprised to see things had improved.

Wings come in orders by the pound, with there being about 9 wings in an order. There is a fairly equal split between flats and drums. No veggies or sides came with the wings, but there was dip. As mentioned above, I didn't get a chance to ask for my own choice, so they brought out the sour cream. I'm very curious what the House dip would have been.

The wings had definitely been upgraded since 2008. These wings were breaded and deep fried, giving them a very crunchy coating. They were a medium in length, a nice size, and were relatively meaty to their size.

The skin was nice and crispy, but the meat was a bit dried out unfortunately. They were a bit of work to eat, and to tear apart the bones.

I went with my go-to double order, Hot, Cajun Dusted, side of Suicide (or in this case, Extreme). The hot wings were clearly tossed in sauce, but it was partially absorbed into the breading and didn't leave any excess wetness, but the Cajun was dusted well.

HOT

This wasn't a wet wing or a dry wing. You could tell there was a simple hot sauce in there, but it wasn't bold or anything exciting. Decent hot wings. I would ask for extra sauce next time.

CAJUN DUSTED

These were seasoned very well, and they weren't just using a commercial Cajun mix. This rub was full of chilis, spices, garlic etc.

They must have been tossed in a bit of oil with the spices which was great. I like that extra love. These were tasty, spice flavoured, and garlicky. It was good, but wouldn't want just an order of these on their own without side sauce or dip. I would dip them in the Extreme, and then into the sour cream, which wasn't a bad combo.

EXTREME

This was 3rd Degree sauce - good old reliable 3rd Degree suicide. Nice bite, but nothing homemade either.

FINAL SCORE:

Well, the Royal Oak has certainly upped their wing game over the years. There's a bit more love, but it's not all love. The wings are bigger, breaded, and there's some interesting flavours here. The wings were on the verge of being too tough, but I still had a good meal. Everything is overpriced on the menu, including the wings, but with two wing nights, it makes up for it.

Royal Oak
117 Centrepointe Dr (and other locations)
royaloakpubs.com