SIZZLE N'GRILL - Barrhaven ON

This review is from back in January.

Back in the fall, I had to go to Barrhaven (one of the surrounding towns outside of Ottawa) to run some errands, and I had decided to go and check out what kind of wings they had to offer. I was checking out what Google had to offer and I came across Sizzle N' Grill. 

This is Ali A's photo from 2018

Wow those wings looked dusted, crispy, and sauced so well! Don't they look great? So it was settled, I was going to stop in for lunch. Only they were closed. Their info on the door and online said they were supposed to be open, but alas the lights were off and the door was locked. So I went to my second choice, Juluca's, and reviewed them.

But I said I would return ... and I did. In 2020. And they were open this time.

Sizzle N'Grill is located not far from the 417 highway passed the Costco shopping plaza. It's in it's own plaza with three mixed use towers surrounded by suburbia. The bottom two levels are businesses while the top level is housing. There are a bunch of eateries (Gabriel's Pizza, Burger & Shakes, Cafe Crystal) but I was interested Sizzles.

Originally there was a restaurant called Delish Grill, but Sizzle N'Grill replaced it around 2018 I think. Inside the place still looks brand new. It's clean, it's bright. I like it. While it seems like more like a take-out joint, there are several tables and booths to sit at.

When I came, there were just two women dining at the booth beside me. By the time I left there were a few take-out orders, but it was pretty quiet. There was one guy working the counter, let's call him Sizzle Dude. Sizzle Dude looked like a cool guy, who didn't emote any emotion or enthusiasm for anything. He worked hard, he just seemed soo not into things.

It's kind of hard to nail down the cuisine here: it's kind of Mediterranean/Middle Eastern with wraps of kebabs and gyros, but then they also do burgers, poutine. Of course I was interested in the wings on the menu.

I asked Sizzle Dude about the wings, and then he said he had to check to see if they had them. This kind of surprised me. It's a Friday, and they may not have wings? I mean, I know wings isn't their main focus, but I would think you get more people ordering wings on a weekend than a weekday. Anyways, they had wings.

I could hear them in the deep fryer. That's a magical sound. Then I heard them come out of their oil bath and into a metal bowl. I love tinging sound they make hitting the bowl. Sizzle Dude sauced and tossed the wings. He took a heavy white plate, put the classic wing food paper down, then plated the wings. Then more hot sauce was applied to the wings. I was ready to eat!

Wings come in orders of 12, 24, 36 etc. There are no sides or dips that come with the wings. They were pretty evenly split between flats and drums.

There were no special clean up items for me other than napkins. But the napkins are the cheapest, thinnest possible napkins you can get. I'm not that messy an eater and usually get through maybe 2 napkins a wing sitting, but I needed a ton of these especially with such saucy wings.

The size of the wings were pretty decent. The length on these were a medium-medium+ but the height on these were large. They made for stubby looking wings because of this. They were also pretty meaty so a good width on them as well.

The wings were dusted before frying, giving the skin a very nice crispiness to them. They didn't look as nice as the photo Ali A took on Google, but they were crispy enough. The chicken was from frozen I'm pretty sure, but the meat was still relatively tender. Actually, a few wings were almost not cooked long enough and a bit red, but they were still ok to eat.

The wings were very well sauced. As mentioned above, they were tossed in sauce, then had even more sauce poured over top. I was happy to have lots of sauce to work with. The extra sauce did break down the crispiness of the wings in time, but the texture was still good.

The sauce was your standard cayenne based hot sauce. Probably Frank's. It was good. Nothing special, but good vinegary hot sauce.

FINAL SCORE:

The wings at Sizzle N'Grills were pretty good. Meaty, crispy, saucy. Size was a little unconventional, but still good. Tender enough too. While I wouldn't make the trek down to Barrhaven just for these wings, if I was local I would have them again for sure. 8/14

Sizzle N'Grill
200 Kennevale Drive, Barrhaven ON
sizzlengrill.com