Wingmasters: Revisited

Many months ago I wrote about a favorite bar here and here. Due to being a bit more conscious of what I’m eating and no longer living in Ballard, it has been a while since we were there. I had written of the leaving of Todd, THE wingMaster. But last night we went back and things were great. A slimmed down, far less alcoholic looking version of Todd was back in the kitchen. The jerk wings were as spicy and tasty as I remembered and the mozzarella sticks (pictured above) just as huge and melty. The place appears to have been cleaned up (”There isn’t a trough in the bathroom anymore! There is REAL toilet.”–B), and there was a lower ratio of dirty old men drunks to normal people. Overall the place has only improved in my opinion. Little bit more expensive, but still on the cheap end of the spectrum. I’ll definetly be back here again for all my sports watching needs.

The Old Peculiar

I love pub trivia, and I had heard that the trivia at the OP was legendary, so I decided to give it a shot. I recruited the man and a friend and her man and the four of us went. I got there at 615 to snag a table, though if you stood around and got lucky, you could snag them up until right about 7. But this isn’t about trivia.

We mostly drank and enjoyed ourselves, though I got hungry and ordered a mac and cheese. I don’t expect much from pub grub. In fact, I don’t even need the veggies to be on the plate. I liked my mac and cheese–penne and cheese with garlicky bread crumbs on top, to be honest. I don’t care where it came from or if it were microwaved, it satisfied the need. I enjoyed it. But on the side of my mac and cheese were some veggies. Frozen veggies. I don’t mean previously frozen veggies that they heated up for me. I mean my cauliflower was still fully frozen.

The boy didn’t even try his veggies, but enjoyed his bangers and mash. He got soup with his, but found it to be luke warm (and what is french onion soup with out paremsan (or cheese at all) on top?).

Which brings me to my main point: OP, my darling, you are a nice pub. You pull good pints, people like you, and your main dishes, they aint bad. So why even put the veggies on there? why serve the soup? I’m not there to eat my veggies. I’m there for the beer. and maybe a mac and cheese…

Sam’s Sushi

So I have been to Sam’s before and have always enjoyed decent, even good, cheap sushi there. We went for the BF’s B-day, though and I was thoughroly dissapointed. Our sashimi was frozen. I could see the ice crystals in my fish. We pointed this out to the waitress, who took the fish back, switched that one fish out, and gave us a different kind. Not more, not switching out other types of fish (which were also frozen) but simply the one piece I had pointed out. She was also unapologetic. When you consider it was a birthday dinner, and we were spending over $100 for a two top, which I’m guessing doesn’t happen all that much there, you would think she could knock off a beer, or discount our sashimi or something. Nope. We paid a lot of money for frozen sashimi. Well. Guess I won’t go back there any time soon!

Wingmasters Note

We went in for wings at Wingmasters last night, and I’m sad to announce that Todd, the cook has been fired. I have no interest in this place any more. His wing sauces were what made this bar great.
He has an interview with the now Consolidated Restaurants owned Wing Dome next week. Best of luck, Todd!

La Carta de Oaxaca

Oooh, I waited along time to try this place. After repeated attempts to eat here botched by the rumbling of my tummy after hearing that it was a one hour wait, I dragged my parents out here for my Dad’s birthday on a monday night. It was still a ten minute wait, but at least this time I could enjoy a margarita at the bar while I waited.
All the plates are fairly small, so we ordered about half the menu and dug in. Started with chips and guacamole. The chips were great, but the guac was not as good as I hoped. It was creamier than I am used to, no big chunks of deliciousness. The salsas from the salsa bar were fairly good though, especially the pico de gallo-esque fresh veggie one. Next up was the Albondigas, a beef meatball soup. It was very authentic–just like what I have had in Mexico. But then I remembered that every time I order I wonder why I didn’t just order an extra taco al pastor! We had the tostadas con camarones. They were alright, but the smallness of the shrimp pieces (all chopped up) meant a little less shrimp flavor coming through everything else. The two kinds of tacos–al pastor (a personal fave of mine) and halibut were both quite good. I would say that I would prefer them more in the style I am used to–less sauce, more allowing of the lamb and fish flavor–than with the creamy sauce. Last but not least, the Mole negro oaxaqueno. Unreal. Now I understood why everyone raves about the place. Everything else was good, this was unbelievable. I get it. If I went back, I might skip straight from the chips to a few orders of Mole Negro.
and the price? Well, my dad’s comment was “This is pretty much as good and as cheap as the food we had in Mazatlan”
Now, I’m not going to make fun of him for Mazatlan being his source for Mexicanity, but it makes my point. Good, cheap mexican food in Ballard. Not an easy find in these parts!

Wingmasters

24th and 58th in Ballard

Wingmasters is exactly what all dive bars should strive to be. I will issue this with a warning that I would not go in there alone. Nor would I reccomend any other females doing so. Even with my boyfriend holding on to me, I am still incessently hit on and groped here. Harmless drunks, all of them, but nonetheless, warning issued. There tends to be a high ratio of extremely wasted people in this bar at all times. There was also the selling and buying of cocaine occuring. That said the food is delish.

The mozzarella sticks here are the size of pilsbury cookie dough rolls. Crunchy on the outside, soft, warm and gooey on the inside, what any mozzie lover could want. The true highlight, as the name suggests, are the wings. Todd, the chef, warns us every time “I added some extra jalapenos to the jerk rub this time” but we order anyway. This jerk rub chicken wing could kill off a buffalo wing with both hands tied behind its back. But do be warned–tears fall from the eyes of grown men because of the spicyness of these!

We also happened to be there for game night: Spelling bees and bingo. While I did manage to misspell binoculars AND counterfeit, I did feel like everyone, myself included, was having a great time.

Lock and Keel

Lock and Keel is a nice little pub–I thought it was going to be a dive bar, considering my boyfriend wanted to go. Instead of a grill, they go in a different direction, and have a smoker out back. This meant that the nachos turned out wonderfully, topped with a big pile of shredded barbecue. The quesadilla did not work out quite as well in this method.
There was a good selection of beers though, and the nachos were enough to hold me over despite my poor decision on the quesadilla.