The Mermaid Oyster Bar

79 MacDougal St.
New York, NY 10012
Website

Last weekend was date night for me and the Mrs., so we headed into The Village to one of our favorite little restaurants, The Mermaid Oyster Bar. It's not an overly stuffy establishment but certainly a little classier than the bars and pubs we usually write about. It was voted "Best New Seafood Restaurant" by Time Out New York Magazine last year after all. However, they do have excellent happy hour specials and the staff is not afraid to promote them. Oysters, lobster sliders, shrimp corndogs, fish tacos and, of course, lollipop chicken wings. We were in the mood to pick at a bunch of finger foods, so I did my civic duty and asked for the wings.

These were by far the "fanciest" wings I've had so far. The meat is pulled mostly off the bone towards the shoulder of the wing, giving it the appearance of a lollipop. As you can see, they were served meat down and bone up, not unlike the way you typically see lamb chops served. In the center of the plate was a celery and cucumber salad, which I thought was an interesting take on the common celery side. There was also chunks of bleu cheese distributed around the plate. Bonus points for presentation.

The bunched up meat made the wing super neat and extremely easy to eat (no Trongs necessary for these guys). The sauce was based off the traditional blend but had a really nice amount of sneaky heat. I'd go so far as to call it a creeper sauce. I really loved the bleu cheese. It added a great burst of flavor that was a little more concentrated than what you get from dipping in dressing. The only real problem I had was, due to the meat being all bunched up, they were a tad undercooked. I don't know if it was a one time thing or if that's the norm but all the other food is cooked perfectly so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. We're dealing with chicken here though and most people are smart enough to avoid pushing your luck with undercooked poultry. I, however, am not one of those people and I decided to forge ahead... stay the course. It's due in part to my unbridled love of food, part due to my extreme hatred for wasting food but mostly due to the vow I took to uphold the code of The Wingmen. I have a duty to carry out. An obligation to the people. So, I finished the entire plate and I'm happy to report that my stomach did just fine.

We've been here a couple times now and absolutely love the place. It's cozy, has great food, super friendly service and incredible happy hour specials 7 days a week. Plus, they finish off each meal with a little sweet surprise. I can highly recommend it... even the lollipop wings. Just order extra oysters as a backup, just incase.

[Side note: while writing this review and poking around online, looking for the address and whatnot, I found out that Zach Braff is an investor in Mermaid Oyster Bar. The Chef, Laurence Edelman, is his high school friend.]

1849

1849

183 Bleecker St.

New York, NY 10012

www.1849nyc.com

Last Friday, Steve schlepped into the city and met me at work. We wanted to hit a couple of top notch wing spots - no, the best wing spots. Whenever I ask Google to tell me who has the best wings in New York City, I end up seeing a slue of different pubs and dive bars. It's a little daunting. There are 23 square miles packed with all kinds of places to choose from, and everyone has their favorite. I did seem to notice a couple of places that were mentioned more than others though. My less than scientific research told me that if we were to hit two places that night (and that was our plan), we should try 1849 in The Village and Blondie's on the Upper West Side. We didn't exactly make it to Blondie's. We actually ended up at Manny's on the Upper East Side which used to be Blondie's but...well, Steve will tell you all about it. He's got that review. First though, we hoofed it over to The Village to check out 1849.

As you can probably tell by the name, 1849 has an old Western gold rush theme. It might sound a little gimmicky, like something you'd see in Times Square, but I thought it actually worked well and was a cozy place. Instead of a bunch of tables set up outside of the bar area, 1849 has plush couches and ottomans set up in circles. It was a little more comfortable than your standard pub and probably not a bad spot to settle in for the night. Adding to the mood are buffalo heads mounted on the wall and antler chandeliers dangling from the ceiling... so, you know, they've got that going for them.

On to the wings. We started out slow. If we were going to sample multiple spots, we'd have to pace ourselves. We ordered a plate of the "Gold Rush" wings and a couple of beers. It's worth pointing out that the waitress was pretty helpful here. Steve is a big fan of Hoegaarden, which is a wheat beer and not all that common on tap. He asked the waitress what they had that was similar and she gave a couple of recommendations. I always like when you can talk beer with a bartender/waiter like people talk about wine because, well, you should be able to do that. Anyway, the wings came out and they had a very familiar taste.

They were tender, well cooked, flavorful and lightly breaded. Yup, we each took one bite and thought, "Hooters". I do think they're a little better than Hooter's wings. The breading is a little lighter and they are not as greasy. So for all of you guys who tell your GF's/wives that you only go to Hooters for the food, you may not want to mention this place to them. Better wings, no orange shorts. But if you don't like Hooters wings, or just breaded wings in general, you're probably going to want to stay away from these. I do like breaded wings though - I know, I know... blasphemy. Don't worry, I think they're better "naked" as they say, but it's nice to mix it up every once in a while. We both enjoyed them and should have stopped there and moved on to Blondie's, er, Manny's. But of course, we didn't.

The lightly breaded Gold Rush wings.

Against our better judgement and our prior experiences with BBQ wings, we decided to order a plate of their other flavor. This is where Steve and I have differing opinions. He thought they were too sweet and pretty awful. I thought they were the best BBQ wings we've had so far. I also believe that the best BBQ is still worse than the worst Teriyaki (maybe a bit of an exaggeration) but all-in-all I still thought they were pretty decent. I definitely prefer the Gold Rush, but I'd eat the BBQ again.

Our nemesis, the BBQ wing. I thought they were ok... Steve? Not so much.

Were these the best wings in NYC? Probably not. But they were good, the beer selection was large, flat screen TV's were showing all the local sports teams in action, the juke box was playing good music and it was an overall cool environment. I'll be back. That's the thing though... it's probably going to be impossible to find the best wings in NYC. But we sure can have a good time trying. Would Manny's be any better? We grabbed our metro cards and headed out the door to find out...

Pluck U.

Pluck U.

Wings & Things

230 Thompson St.

New York, NY 10012

http://www.plucku.us/

This was another lunch time mission for me. I've pretty much been given the responsibility to take care of as many NYC wing joints as I can, so I grabbed a work buddy and we headed off to The Village. We got to Pluck U. and it was a total dive - small, dirty and awesome. I was pumped. There were "Best Wings in NYC" awards hanging all over the place and I felt like we were on to something. Apparently they had the highest rated wings in NYC six years running. So were my hopes high? Abso-plucking-lutely.

You have to love the story behind this place. It's the age old fairy tale of two friends in college turning down lucrative offers after graduation to start a less than prestigious business venture - and succeeding. I also love the menu. It is full of all kinds of combo meals - 5 wings, fries and a drink ($6.50), 10 wings, fries and a drink ($9.85), etc. Unfortunately, this is where my troubles began.

They have a decent variety of flavors (mild, medium, hot, death, BBQ, honey mustard, gold and 0 carb [huh?]) and I wanted to at least give two of them a try. I asked the woman at the counter if I could break the 10 wing combo into two portions of five. When she told me I couldn't do that, I said I would take the 5 wing combo with an extra order of 5 wings. Thinking back now, it makes no sense that I can order two separate orders of 5, but not break the 10 wing combo in half - but whatever. The woman was friendly enough and wanted to save me some money, I guess. She tried persuading me into an order of 10 wings, dry, with the sauces on the side (which was just over a dollar cheaper than my 5 plus 5 idea). I had a bad feeling about it but she was very persistent. Add that to the language barrier and the fact that I wasn't really sure what she was doing at the time and... well, I got a little flustered and went with her suggestion. It would prove to be a huge mistake - one demerit for me. My order: 10 wings dry with a side of hot sauce and honey mustard, fries and a coke.

Nice lady, but her effort to save me a buck and change came back to bite me.

We got back to the office and I got down to business. I separated my wings into two groups of five, poured the sauce on and gave them a toss - still confused as to why they couldn't do it in the kitchen. First up, the hot. I took a bite and... what the pluck? Is this - ? No, can't be. Another bite. Yup... tastes like ketchup! Who does that? I'll tell you who does that, Johnny Famous. And if you've been following along at home, you know we've got a saying: "At least they're not Johnny Famous bad" (or something like that). Well these were, in fact, Johnny Famous bad. But it gets worse. While Johnny Famous had the worst sauce we came across, they were cooked alright. The worst cooked wing award, so far, goes to CJ Sullivan's. Pluck U wings were not cooked as poorly as Sullivan's wings, but they were damn close - totally dried out and crispy. So I'd actually describe these as a combo of the two worst wings we've had so far. The sauce wasn't as bad as Johnny Famous, and they weren't as dry as Sullivan's but put them both together and it's just a sorry wing.

On to the honey mustard. It's almost impossible for me to even review these. First of all, they only gave me one little cup of sauce. Again, I'm the idiot who caved and got the sauces on the side but come on. You have to at least give enough to give the wings a nice coat. I ended up eating half of them dry. It wouldn't even make sense to critique the sauce anyway. It's not like they made it. It came in a little Ken's Steakhouse Dressing container.

Overall, I thought Pluck U had a resemblance to Atomic Wings. Take-out/delivery spot catering specifically to wing lovers and serving mediocre poultry. I'd definitely put Pluck U a rung under Atomic Wings though, mostly due to the awful hot sauce. The fries were actually pretty decent though. And walking from Soho to The Village on a nice day is always a good way to spend a few minutes. Maybe it was just me though. What about my co-worker, Chris? He actually sent me this email right after he finished:

"wings-weak

fries- not bad

walk-well worth it"

To which I replied:

"couldn't agree with you more. did your sauce taste like spicy ketchup?"

He followed with:

"YES!!!!!!!!!!! I couldn't put my finger on what it was but that's exactly it."

Ok, so it wasn't just me then. But now the real question is, who the hell gave these guys the "Best Wings in NYC" award? Six years in a row! I bet they don't even make the best wings on Bleecker St. So would I recommend this place, or even go back to give them a chance at redemption? Pluck no!

Yup, that's all the sauce they gave me to coat 10 wings.