THE PEARSON PUB - Whitby ON

I am severely behind in my posting - this review was from back in May. Perfect for #TBT!

My wife and I were visiting her father who lives in Whitby Ontario, just East of Toronto. When we go, if we go out to eat, we have a few of the same places we always go, and I usually don't get wings at those places. Well on this trip, we decided to go try someplace new. And when we got there, it was crazy busy and no seating. So we left, not sure where to go, when my father-in-law suggest The Pearson Pub.

I was shocked actually; he's not really a pub kind of guy. I've always wanted to go because it looks like a cool converted house in downtown Whitby and I've seen it advertise wing specials. It's in the Pearson Lanes block of shopping, and it used to be the Tilted Kilt Pub about 10 years ago (not associated with the chain). I think it was a different pub years before that. Funny enough, LJ's uncles both worked at the pub years ago when they first came to Canada.

The pub is a nice, charming, Victorian home that looks more like a nice tea house than a pub. It has a great wrap around porch that has some seating, but the porch is sadly not really wide enough to accommodate a lot of seating that I'm sure would be greatly taken advantage of.

Inside looks like a standard pub. It's pretty spacious, with lots of seating, rooms etc. One space seems cleared out as a dance floor. Another is the bar. I don't even know if there is dining space upstairs. When we got there, it was pretty dead. There was one dad with his little girl having dinner, and that was it for the main dining space. The other people were all seated at the bar for a drink. I didn't catch our servers name, but she was friendly and attentive.

The menu was classic pub fare, fish and chips, burgers, wings etc. Well that's what we got. I was interested in the wings and super surprised by all the wing specials they have; Tuesdays are half price, Thursdays are $0.65 wings, Sundays are 2-4-1 and everyday is a Pint and Wing special. Unfortunately, I missed every one of those specials.

LJ went with the 8oz cheese burger with bacon, which comes topped with lettuce, tomato, pickle, and red onion. She said it was good, but just ok good. She also upgraded her potato fries to sweet potato fries which were lightly battered, crispy, but limp too that came with an aiole dip.

Her dad got the Fish and Chips, which were to battered haddock pieces with fries and coleslaw. He's not much of a talker about his food, but I think he liked it. I know I really liked the look of the batter on the fish.

I got the wings of course, but I took the option to add some fries on the side. I liked the look of my plate when it came out!

The wings come in one size of order, which is about 7 or 8 wings.

The wings come with celery, carrots and dip. That's the way it should be! The veggies were fresh, and the dip was dill dip, which is awesome choice.

For $1.50 more I was able to add fries to my wings. These are, I'm fairly sure, frozen breaded fries. They were crunchy and were ok, but nothing special.

The size of the wings was decent; in between a medium and a large wing. They come dusted and are fried which makes for a crispy skin, but due to the sauce, they lost their crisp factor pretty quick.

The wings were relatively tender and pulled apart not too badly. They were also fairly meaty. Sauce-wise, they were pretty wet.

For the sauce, I went with classic Hot, and then I got a side of Suicide.

Hot = standard cayenne hot sauce. Good, but nothing standing out here. You know what you are getting.

Suicide = a little spicy, a little fruity, a little smokey.

It was good, but definitely an on the side sauce situation.

FINAL SCORE:

These were pretty decent wings. Nice size, dusted, fried, crispy, then less crispy because they were nice and saucy. Hot was simple hot, and Suicide gave a nice flavour to have on the side. Love that it came with veggies and dill dip, and some crispy breaded fries. And boy are there a lot of wing specials. The other food was decent too. Certainly no gastro pub, but a descent little pub. 9.5/15

The Pearson Pub
101 St Mary Street, Whitby ON
https://www.facebook.com/thepearsonpubwhitby