Irish Times

254 West 31 St.
New York, NY 10001
Website

Last week, I was heading out of work and was in the mood to grab some wings.  I sent a text to one of my NYC correspondents, BJ, and we decided to give Brother Jimmy's a shot.  We took one step in, realized the place was mobbed and it was going to be tough to get food and walked right out.  So much for planning ahead... we scouted midtown for another spot.


Right up the road was a place called Irish Times (I wonder why no one has ever come up with that name for a bar before [sarcasm]).  The crowd was much more manageable so we decided to give it a go.  We ordered a plate of traditional Buffalo wings, which were their only choice, and got to work.  

Decent flavor, but 

rubbery and salty - Pass

The wings were a bit of a disappointment.  They weren't very big and had a rubbery texture.  The sauce was pretty standard and actually had a decent flavor, but was overwhelmingly salty.  I think this may have been a mistake because I can't imagine they serve wings like that on a consistent basis.  I'm thinking the salt was added afterwards and a line cook who might have been in a bit of a rush was a little too liberal with the shaker.


It was not a very good experience overall and we promptly moved on.  It's possible we caught them on an off day, but there are just too many promising wing joints in NYC to find out.  Maybe we should have just waited it out at Brother Jimmy's.

PJ Carney's

906 7th Ave
New York, NY 10019

Friday was my last day of work on the show I was working on (I'm a freelance editor), so my bosses took me out for lunch and beers at the local dive bar, PJ Carney's.  One of them suggested getting an order of wings, the other agreed and, well hell, of course I was in.  We split an order for the table and the guy who brought it up put in the order.  PJ Carney's serves their wings two ways - with sauce or "crispy" with the sauce on the side.  We were getting the crispy.  I was a little skeptical, but certainly not disappointed.  I picked up a wing, dipped it in the sauce, chomped into that crispy goodness and immediately knew this would be an instant favorite.  

There wasn't just a little crisp to this wing, there was a solid layer of crunch.  It was great.  It almost seemed like a Korean-style chicken.  And don't get the wrong idea, it wasn't overcooked.  Not even close.  As a matter of fact, this is one of the juiciest wings I've had since we started this blog.  It was by no means a traditional wing, especially for an Irish dive bar.  But the uniqueness was appealing and makes it stand out as one of my top five wings on our mission so far.

My only criticism comes from the sauce.  It wasn't a Buffalo style sauce, which is fine.  It was more of a BBQ sauce.  But if you're going to serve the sauce on the side anyway, why not offer a large variety of sauces.  Maybe get your choice of a few different kinds.  It seems like the perfect option if you're not actually tossing the wings in the sauce.  There have been a few times where Jeremy, Steve and I have had to decide between different flavors and didn't get the opportunity to try them all since they come in orders of 10 or 20.  Imagine if you could order 30 wings with 6 different sauces to dip it in. That would be fantastic.  Maybe we'll save that idea for The Wingmen Restaurant, coming to a town near you.

If anyone is curious, I got the mexican burger as my main dish.  And although I kind of wish I just got 20 wings to myself, the burger was pretty flavorful as well.  Add to that multiple pints of Smithwick's Ale over the course of about 3 hours and it shapes up to be a pretty nice day of work.  I think this place actually inspired me to get some KFC - no, not Kentucky Fried Chicken...Korean Fried Chicken. Bon Chon for lunch tomorrow?  Maybe.