Jerks and Mozzies

No they aren’t rival gangs, Jerks and Mozzies is what B asks for when he wants to go watch football at Wingmasters. In an effort to save some money and spend more time at home, I told him that I would make him Jerks and Mozzies while he watched football. Unfortunately it was an exciting game, and as such I neglected to write down what I put in to the dishes. Luckily I took a picture of the ridiculous mise en place I had for the jerk sauce, so I hope I can tell you approzimately what I put in there.

Starting with the bowl in the center, which is one bunch of scallions. The red in the one oclock position is 2 habanero peppers, working clockwise that is the juice of one lemon, an entire package of thyme (about 1/8 of a cup maybe?), about 5 cloves of garlic. These little ones are hard, but I ground all the spices myself, so I really don’t want to mess these guys up! A tablespoon of oil–I used a bit of sesame, a bit of hazelnut and a little olive. Then cinnamon, the flat chinese dish has a bay leaf, the bowl at the 11 oclock is ginger, next to it is nutmeg. of the four small spoons, I know one is salt and one is pepper. Okay, only two more spoons to think of. Um…one is coriander and one is allspice. Wheew. Remind me to right these down next time!

I put all these in a cuisinart and made them into a paste, I stuck them in the power marinater for about 20 minutes (equivilent to overnight) and baked the wings in a 375 degree oven for about an hour. What I didn’t do, which I think would have kept them a bit crispier, was to put them on a rack in the dish in the oven, as they ended up poaching a bit in the sauce.

So there they are in all their glory. Spicy and delcicious and way healthier than the ones at Wingmasters. The mozzarella sticks were way easier than I thought. I bought mozzarella string cheese, cut them in half, dipped them in egg beaters and rolled them in premade bread crumbs. Then I put them all in the fridge for a bit and repeated the process, then baked them at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. Keep an eye on them, because a few did burst before I got them out of there.

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.

74th Street Alehouse

My first shock regarding the 74th Street Alehouse was that when I walked in at 7:45 on a wednesday evening, the place was absolutely jam-packed. After getting over this initial shock, I managed to snag a small table for two from a departing couple. A waiter was over almost immediately to clear and wipe the table. I very much appreciated this, because nothing is worse than sitting at a dirty bar table full of someone else’s dishes.
Our drink orders were nearly immediately taken by a somewhat crazed waitres–crazed in the good, ‘all over the place’ kind of way, but it did take a little while to get the point across that I wanted my appetizer platter as quickly as she could bring it out, as oppose to when the others were getting their food.

Our drink arrived in a timely manner and continued to do so all night, despite our rather confusing switcheroo as our group grew and we table hopped to larger and larger tables.

The food was very different than your average pub grub. I had a meditteranean platter with pita (very good, surely from one of the many great Greek restaurants within a few blocks) and a dipping sauce that had some sort of amazing tangy bite–not citrusy, but just straight tang. Unlike anything I had tried before. It also came with a greek salad, which was dressed differently than a normal greek salad–a little bit less of vinegar bite to eat, but still with the same flavor. I enjoyed it very much.

B was less pleased with his gumbo, as he felt it was sacrificing too much flavor for a spice effect, luckily he had ordered it with a side of the goat cheese salad.

This goat cheese salad deserves its own paragraph. I was impressed after trying it that he was willing to sacrifice the bite he gave to me. Basically it was a bread crumb encrusted baked goat cheese on spring greens, but some how the mix of ingrediants came together in this warming but fresh flavor profile that really could have been described as a perfect salad for a cold winter night by the fire or for a sunny summer afternoon on the patio. This was what salad should be like–simple (I could barely detect a dressing) and rich.

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…

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!

The Park Pub

Upon an invite to $5 burger night with my middle school best friend and her boyfriend, I headed off to check out what $5 could buy you at the Park Pub. Well, it turned out to be quite a good deal. When I sat down, the other two had already odered, so they were ready to inform me that the Portabella mushroom burger wasnt available. I went with a bacon and bleu cheese instead. I also got my choice of a schooner of any draft beer. Not bad, really. Though it does remind me why we normally order these things in pint form. Because the other two ordered before me, I assumed the pile of fries dumped on the table was for them and that mine were coming. They weren’t. But that was okay, I tried a few and they were somewhat dry. The burger on the other hand, was delicious and moist. It was chock full of delicious things like lettuce and tomato that you don’t always see on a pub burger these days. All in all, for a $5 burger I was extremely impressed (that $5 includes the beer too!).

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.