PATTY BOLAND'S IRISH PUB & EATERY - Ottawa ON

- RIP - Patty Boland's is NOW CLOSED -

Last week I was doing some birthday feasting. It was Monday night, which is the wing night in the city. It's also the hardest night of the week for me to get out for wing night. But it was my birthday so LJ taking me out, so the only question was, what wing night was I going to take advantage of? Well, I really wanted to go back to Patty Bolands.

I was shocked that I had not done a full review of Patty Boland's in the Byward Market. I've been there a few times, but never wrote about my experience. The closest it seems was advertising their 1 Cent Wing Night in September 2017, and then I just posted my Instagram post from January of 2017 when I actually did go. Weird.

So we arrive on Monday night. The sign says seat yourself, so we grab a lone table in the front window where there will be good light, some privacy, and a view of the street. The atmosphere inside is Irish Pub and the place is clad in wood. It's dark, it's got character; I like it.

Our server Carley was friendly and took good care of us. We kind of laughed because she brought us the specials menu, but not the whole menu. Maybe they only serve their specials on Monday?

As you can see, Monday night is all about the wings. Yes they have fries and poutine and burgers, but wings are where its at. Oh and fried cauliflower 'wings'. There are a lot of sauces to choose from, but their wing night advertisements are a little sketchy. See they say its $0.35 wing night, but only 3 of the basic flavours are at that price; the rest are $0.55. But they aren't really $0.55 either - you have to order them in batches of 8, making the Classic wings $2.80 and the Signature wings are $4.40. Those are still good deals by a long shot. Why they gotta fudge the truth?

Also, my Diet Coke was $5. It was free refills, but $5 is pretty steep for pop. Not sure if this is every night or just wing night. But FYI.

So while we were getting a bunch of wings to try, LJ wanted something more to actually make up the meal. She went with the $3 hamburger and added cheese for $1.50. The toppings came on the side, a neat little pile of shredded lettuce, tomato, and pickle and ketchup and mustard on the table. While I liked the stretchy cheese game going on, I thought that this was going to be a burger that tasted like you get what you pay for (cheap). But LJ tried a bite and said it was good. I tried a bite and I was impressed. It had a great beefy flavour. It was simple but just tasted good. LJ was craving it (and the price) a few days later!

So the burger was a hit, but how would the wings fare?

I can't speak for wings on a regular night. They might come with veggies and dip? They do come with fries though; wing night wings do not. I don't know how many wing you get for sure on a regular night, but on wing night you get 8 in an order. We also got a side plate (for bones) and napkins.

These wings were not very big, length wise. They were pretty uniform in size, but they were in the small/medium zone. But while they weren't long, they were a very meaty wing. They were also dusted and fried crispy - almost perfect. The meat was tender inside too. If the chicken was just a bit bigger these would be top notch.

With it being wing night, we took advantage of trying a bunch of sauces and flavours. When the wings came, the sauced wings were very saucy, and the dry rubbed wings had lots of seasoning. I like that. I like that a lot.

40 CREEK WHISKEY BBQ

The BBQ sauce was sweet and savory. It was a bit sticky, but it wasn't uber sweet. Just a nice balance. I would totally get these again.

CAJUN

These dry seasoned wings came out crispy and hot. The seasoning mix was pretty standard Cajun spice rub - garlicky, salty, spicy. It worked well with the fried wing.

MEDIUM

We got a side of medium so the dry Cajun wings could be dipped if needed. This was $1 extra. It's a good sauce, partially sweet, partially spicy. A true medium.

TEQUILA LIME

These were the hit of the night. These wings were saucy, sticky, sweet and spicy (the four s's). It's like a BBQ sauce, with a little hint of zingy lime. Sweet and sour is what I'm saying here. So very good.

Now we had a good feast, but I didn't want to end there. It was my birthday, so I wanted a challenge. And I took it and got their Carolina Reaper Wings.

If you are not aware, the Carolina Reaper is the world's hottest chili pepper. One pepper is over 2 million Scoville units. I didn't buy it, and I felt pretty confident about doing this. LJ did not. She was not happy because she remembers vividly what happened when I did a ghost pepper challenge the last time, and I suffered. I suffered a lot. But I didn't think it would be that bad.

They pulled out a waiver. It looked pretty official - I've filled out quite a few waivers and many are goofy or intended for fun. This one seemed serious. I still wasn't worried.

Carley didn't even try to talk me out of it. That made me feel even more confident about ordering them. I asked later on if many people ordered them and she said at least once every Monday night. Most people fail. Hmmm.

In no time they came out and I had 8 glorious deep fried wings in front of me. LJ and I were both surprised that these were a dry rubbed wing and not a sauce concoction. They were unevenly coated, but I didn't notice that until looking at the photos later. I just saw 8 freshly fried wings that smelled like heat. I was ready for a little pain and dove into these wings.

Nope.

I ate one wing. ONE. That is all I could take.

I ripped open the wingette and pulled out a bone. I bit into it and it immediately attached my throat, my lips, my tongue. It was a dry, sharp, peppery, white heat. My stomach stopped me and went "WTF?" My nose started to run. My eyes were almost starting to water. My stomach caused a few warning hiccups (this happens since that 2011 incident when I get anywhere NEAR really spicy food).

I must be getting old, because 1) I can't take the heat and 2) I am a little less reckless. Yes, I could have powered through the extreme pain, but I was going to be in serious pain later. And in the moment. I didn't want to go through that. I didn't want to be sick. The glory of eating these wings was not worth it. Sometimes getting older and wiser isn't as fun, but damn I feel a lot better in the morning!

FINAL SCORE:

This was exactly what I wanted for my birthday. Copious amounts of cheap, tasty wings. The burger was good, the atmosphere was right, and the service was spot on. The wings were great. Crispy, fried so well, and fresh tasting. The wings were saucy, and the flavours were really good. I would get all of these flavours again. And the Carolina Reaper dry wings UBER HOT. These were no joke and they deserve mad respect for making a killer product. So good. Wing night rocks here - the whole bill was under $45 for 32 wings, some sauce, a burger, a beer and a pop. 11/15

Patty Boland's Irish Pub & Eatery
101 Clarence Street, Ottawa ON
pattybolands.com

Peter Eats Too Many Hot Wings

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Peter complains about eating too much hot wings in s13e11 "Encyclopedia Griffin" of Family Guy. Sadly, this has happened to me... #lordofthewingsblog #lordofthewings #wings #chickenwings #hotwings #wingsontv #familyguy #encyclopediagriffin #petergriffin

A post shared by LORD of the WINGS (@lotw_wingking) on Oct 9, 2018 at 4:19pm PDT

900th Instagram Post

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My 900th Instagram post. Crazy. #lordofthewingsblog #lordofthewings #wings #chickenwings #breadedwings

A post shared by LORD of the WINGS (@lotw_wingking) on Oct 6, 2018 at 7:05pm PDT

That's a lot of chicken wings ...

HAPPY THANKSGIVING 2018

So thankful for so much: my followers, my family, my wife. For the opportunity to eat so many wings. Health and life in general is good.

Thanks and I wish you all the best as well.

Wing Long & Prosper

Wing King Lord of the Wings

#fryday = Return of Popeye's Ghost Pepper Wings

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#fryday = Ghost Pepper Wings are back @popeyesca !!! These are not killer heat wings; instead you are getting the flavour of the pepper in these super crunchy wings. I thought they were burnt because they were so dark but they weren't & they were really juicy. And for 6 wings, onion rings, bisquit & a drink for $8.46 it was a good deal. #lordofthewingsblog #lordofthewings #chickenwings #wings #hotwings #breadedwings #ghostpepperwings #popeyeswings #ghostpepper #popeyes #popeyeschicken #tgif #friday

A post shared by LORD of the WINGS (@lotw_wingking) on Oct 5, 2018 at 7:54pm PDT

These wings don't look amazing, but I love the execution. They are crunchy wings - they really have a great texture. But when I bit into them, they were super juicy. The flavour (and what heat there is) is on the inside due to the marination. But it is not a bold flavour; it's very subtle and if you blink you miss it. The ranch is a nice dip on the side. I did a full review last year and it's pretty much the same.

#tbt & LOST REVIEW: Return to GABBY'S 2013 & 2016 ~ Toronto ON

It's #throwbackthursday & another LOST REVIEW!

Today we have 2 reviews of the same pub chain, Gabby's Bar & Grill, but in two different locations in different years. It's crazy I missed both of these. The last time I had reviewed Gabby's before was in 2006 when Dude came to visit. Gabby's was one of the first pubs I got wings at when I first moved to Toronto in 1999 and it was close to campus. The wings were always small, but tasty.


2013
The first section is from 2013 at the 192 Bloor Street Gabby's in Toronto. I was at a friend's birthday party, where they had reserved the basement party room. I think they had ordered some apps, but it was a Monday or Wednesday because I got 1/2 Price wings. Back then the wings from Gabby's always came in a basket, covered in a glass bone bowl, with a side of ranch (I think) and veggies.

From the photos it seems I may have gotten 2 pounds: Suicide and BBQ. I remember that the suicide was probably made from scotch bonnets and that while it was hot, it was sour. The BBQ was commercial bottled sauce that is common at many pubs. The wings seemed bigger than I was used to from Gabby's. I also like that party room - it's neat that they had a mural of the subway because literally the subway runs right past and you could feel the rumbling.

2016

It was 2016 and a rainy February night. It was again a Monday or Wednesday, and I had left a late work event that evening. I was starving, so I decided to get wings, and I remembered it was wing night at Gabby's. There was a Gabby's at 189 King Street East which was closer to my apartment at the time. It was crazy warm out - no snow - but lots of rain, which made finding a parking spot difficult. I sat in the front window and did some writing while I ate my wings. 

1lb of wings was $10.99, 2 for $20.99, but because it was wing night I was having 2 pounds for $10.99. I got Hot (Gabby's Hot is always vinegary and tasty), and I tried out the Korean BBQ wings, which didn't have a Korean flavour at all, but more of a sweet Thai chili. By the end of the wings, the sauces pooled together and formed a new Hot-Korean sauce. I don't know why I only took a few photos - I must not have planned to do a full re-review but just a wing porn update.

THE CAPTAIN's BOIL - Ottawa ON

My birthday was this week, and one of the ways that is important for me to celebrate is with food. Shocker, I know. Wings are always on the menu somehow, but I also like to try something different too. Last year I really wanted to try The Captain's Boil, but we ended up going elsewhere. So this year LJ and I decided to go after all.

I have been all over the US, but one place I haven't been is Louisiana, and I very much want to go. A big draw is the food to be honest. I've been fascinated for years after seeing seafood boils, specifically crawfish boils. This is usually a big family event where in a big outdoor pot you have crawfish, corn, sausages, potatoes etc boiling and seasoned with Old Bay which is dumped out on a table covered in either butcher or newspaper, add some lemon and hot sauce and everyone just goes to town.

That isn't done here, and I'm not going South anytime soon, so the Captain's Boil is the next best thing.

The Captain's Boil is inspired by the Cajun experience, with a Chinese twist. Some of the spices, even some of the ingredients (lotus root?) are not traditional, but they follow the basic premise of seafood boiled in seasoning, eaten with your hands. It's a chain that started in Toronto and has spread across the country. Ottawa has two locations, and we went to the one on Hunt Club.

The restaurant has a pirate theme; "Feast Like a Pirate, Dine Like a Captain" is the catch phrase around here. I half expected a parrot to fly around or a big mascot of the Captain to walk around. Inside is clean and simple - it's a fast food-like dining experience rather than fancy seafood place. Drinks are served in paper cups - we assume this was because real glassware would slip since you are eating with your hands.

The menu isn't all boil - we found chicken wings and considering we were feasting and it was for my birthday, we ordered some wings.

When it comes to the boil, it's a 4 step process:

1.  Choose Your Catch: pick from Lobster, Dungeness Crab, King Crab Legs, Snow Crab Legs, Shrimp, Mussels, Clams, Crawfish, or Chicken Slices. 
2.  Choose Your Flavour: pick Cajun, Garlic Sauce, Lemon Pepper, or Captain's Boil (all three)
3.  Choose Your Heat: Non-Spicy, Mild, Medium, Fire
4.  Choose Your Add-Ons: not necessary, but you can add on the side (or tossed in your bag) for an extra charge Corn, Okra, Lotus Root, Broccoli, Potatoes, Sausages, or Steamed rice.

LJ went with the Snow Crab ($22), Captain's Boil, Medium boil with Potatoes ($1.50). I went with Crawfish ($19), Captain's Boil, Fire heat, with corn ($1.25). As mentioned before, we also ordered a pound of wings, and a side of Cajun Fries ($6).  I should also mention or server Seryna who patiently explained the process to us - she was super friendly and great all around. She also moved us without us asking from a tiny little two seater table that was in between two 4 seater tables, to one of the 4 seater tables. That alone was just pure awesome.

The Cajun fries came out right away. We wish they had come out with the rest of the food but what can you do? The fries are battered and fried and tossed in seasoning. They are very crispy and were pretty good. They also came with a cup of ketchup, I guess to as to not clog up the table with a bottle.

Shortly thereafter the wings came out, followed by our seafood bags. There was also a shell/bone bowl and a small pail of a fork and scissors for LJ to open her crab. The table is also covered in butcher paper, with the idea that you can eat the food right off the table. We did ask for plates and forks to help make our experience a little easier, but most people don't do this.

Before I get to the seafood, I also added corn to my order. I wasn't sure how they were going to serve it, but it came out as a half cob. Kinda disappointing but not terribly so. I got it in the bag so it was soaked in Captain's Boil sauce. It was good corn. LJ got potatoes and they were just boiled and season infused.

I won't lie, it was an exciting first time experience. That's me with the seafood bag. I forgot to mention they also give you plastic bibs, and clear plastic gloves to eat the food. I have to say I was a little off-put by all the disposability and waste of the experience. Plastic bibs, plastic gloves, plastic bags, paper cups, paper table. It's all food grade quality so it's safe, but it is wasteful. I still ate it, but it was something gnawing at the back of my mind.

It was weird eating out of a plastic bag. I mean, it's just all in a bag. But I like that everything is thoroughly coated in sauce and seasoning. I was excited about the crawfish, and there were like 15-20 in the bag.

Now I've never had crawfish before (maybe you've also heard them called crayfish, craw-daddies, or mud bugs) but they look like a miniature mix of a shrimp and a lobster. They aren't much longer than my finger. Seryna warned me that there isn't a lot of meat in each one before I ordered (people complain I think) but because there are so many there is enough meat for a moderate appetite. To eat them, you pull off the head - I was told there is nothing in the head to eat, so discard that. The claws also are too small for meat, so into the trash they go too.

Then you try and pull out the tail, where all the meat is. The piece of meat that comes out varies from each creature, but it's basically about the size of a quarter. The head comes off easily (and usually with a bunch of seasoned juice) but getting the tail off from the back legs was a challenge. If you are squeamish at all, this is not an experience for you, FYI.

I ate one or two, very slowly, after I finally developed a strategy; I pulled out a crawfish, pulled off the head and put it on my plate (to let the juice ooze out onto the plate). Then I pried the tail meat out and discarded the body into the shell bowl. The meat I dropped back into the bag to keep warm and absorb more sauce. After de-shelling all the crawfish, I put the heads into the bowl, mixed up the bag and poured it all out onto the plate into a pile. Then I was ready to go to town - I removed my plastic gloves that had slightly filled into the gloves some how. I cleaned off with the napkins, and then used my fork to eat somewhat civilized.

The meat has the same consistency as shrimp. It's tender, but it also has a bit of chew. There were two very distinctive flavours going on here: the sauce, and the crawfish itself. The crawfish itself was super fishy. Like strongly fishy, and I was not a fan. I expected more of a shrimp or lobster, or even crab-like flavour, but I just got a big dose of fishy. If this is what crawfish is normally like, I would pass in the future. But something tells me that bayou crawfish doesn't taste this fishy. LJ had the same experience with her crab that I tried and found really fishy too.

As for the sauce, wow. Amazing. You got all those notes of garlic, lemon pepper, butter, paprika, peppers and hot sauce. The garlic was very sharp and stood out, but so did each of the flavours. It was rich and spicy and was great to dip everything into. It was complex and layered and was really good.

The question was, how were the wings?

The wings come in orders of 1/2 pound and full pound, a full pound being about 8-9 wings. They also came with ranch for dipping, which was a great little ranch. It tastes commercial, but it was creamy and light tasting.

Size wise the wings are about a medium in length - they don't stretch out very far. But in terms of being meaty, wowsers these were big. I mean some were average to the small length, but many of them were bulging with meat on them. They are breaded in a crunchy batter that adds to the size, but they are still really frick'n meaty.

They came out hot and fried just perfectly. There was a crunch when you bit into them, but they were fresh enough and fried just right that you could pull the bones off the meat without effort.

The wings don't come with any sauce, but they are marinated before frying. Now the marinated spices aren't strong, but the chicken is good on it's own. It's even better with the ranch. It's even better with the Captain's Boil sauce ...

I dredged those chicken wings through the sauce on the plate like it was nobody's business. The breading sopped up the sauce without losing that crispiness, and it elevated the wings to another level. As mentioned before, the sauce was spicy, but not killer hot as advertised. I mean you've got hot sauce and butter, but also garlic and spices. It was so good and LJ and I agreed we'd come back just for the sauce and the wings.

FINAL SCORE:

The experience of The Captain's Boil was cool and different. I like the hands on, rip'n and tear'n, dunking and sucking spices and all the flavour. The sauce was amazing, but the actual seafood was just to fishy for LJ and me. The fries were crispy good, but the wings were also really well done. Plain, but fried just right and crispy. And then you mix that into the Captain's Boil sauce and you've got a great wing experience. We both said we would go back, but we'd skip the seafood (I'm not giving up on having an authentic crawfish boil in Louisiana one day) and that we'd just have the wings with a side of Captain's Boil sauce next time. If only they had a wing night.    ...   10/15

The Captain's Boil

290 West Hunt Club Road, Ottawa, ON (and other locations)

thecaptainsboil.com

Green Mesquite Smoked Fried Wings on Diners Drive-Ins & Dives

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@guyfieri eating wings at The Green Mesquite in Austin Texas on s5e10 of #dinersdriveinsanddives Wing sauced, then smoked, then fried, then sauced again, yes please! #lordofthewingsblog #lordofthewings #wings #chickenwings #smokedwings #friedwings #bbqwings #hotwings #wingsontv #guyfieri #tripled #foodnetwork #thegreenmesquite #austintexas

A post shared by LORD of the WINGS (@lotw_wingking) on Oct 2, 2018 at 9:49am PDT

These wings go through quite the process but I would love to try them. I love smoked/fried wings. I was shocked when Guy 'tasted' the sauce from the lady at the restaurant until it turned out to be his wife!

Check out the Food Network for more info on this place.

LOTW Meme Monday = Dry Mouth after Spicy Wings

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And the waitress is nowhere to be seen. Amiright? #lotwmemes #wingmeme #chickenwingmeme #mememonday #meme #memes #lordofthewingsblog #lordofthewings #wings #chickenwings #spicywings #hotwings #skeleton #skull

A post shared by LORD of the WINGS (@lotw_wingking) on Oct 1, 2018 at 5:36am PDT

Dry spice wings do this to me especially. Boy he's making me thirsty.

Also, it's only 30 more days till Hallowe'en. Just saying.

#nonwingsunday = Ribs, Corn & Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno's

This was a good summer's end meal. Grilled ribs with a leftover Candy Apple homemade BBQ sauce, and three cheese bacon wrapped jalapenos. Don't forget some boiled corn with butter and salt on the side. My mouth is watering just remembering this meal!

Happiness Happened Here: Bones of the Bucket

"Bones of the Bucket"

KFC Hot Wings. Mmmmmm ...