The Grog

While in Bryn Mawr for work, I was getting pretty hungry and happened to notice a pub a block away named “The Grog.” From what I read online, the wings were supposed to be great, and although it wasn’t Wing Night, I decided to stop in to check it out anyway.

I walked into this small pub, ordered up a $2 bottle of Coors (which is awesome by itself), looked at the menu and noticed the following: “One pound of our award winning jumbo wings…” This always gets me excited because I feel that they are looking to make wing eaters like me happy. There are a lot of false claims like that in many wing places, so we shall see what today brings.

The Grog offers up a variety of wings including: Plain, Mild, Hot, Super Hot, and Habanero – to name a few. Going with the advice of the bartender, after explaining to her my heat preference, I went with a pound of the “Hot” and got the “Super Hot” and “Habanero” on the side. From what I understand, the “Habanero” is a chef specialty made with all the seeds, and brings hot heads from all around to sample it. I myself don’t like that much heat, but I obviously can’t leave without trying some of this hyped-up wonder.

The wings came out and looked delicious. The Hot sauce that covered the wings smelled and tasted like an average blend that you would typically find in a store bought brand (though it was nothing I could pick out). The wings themselves looked good and came out pretty hot, but tasted pretty average and all-in-all didn’t really offer much more than being a nice vessel to get the sauce flavor from the plate to the mouth. The menu also claims that they are jumbo, but what I saw in front of me was just slightly larger than what you would expect to find at a typical bar.

The sauce, however, is where all the chef’s time went… and it showed. Though the Hot was nothing fancy, the Super Hot had a lot more flavor which made me feel like it had more uniqueness than its predecessor. It no longer felt like a store bought brand as the different spices kicked in. Then, my main focus turned toward the Habanero sauce as it sat there like a menacing paste. I mean, this stuff was so thick it looked like I ordered a side of applesauce from hell. You could see all the seeds and smell the heat from a foot away. Reluctantly, I dipped my wing, closed my eyes, and took a bite. !@#$ that stuff was so relentless that the only time I would ever need that much heat is to punish an enemy by rubbing it in their eyes. I tell you, I don’t get the heat seekers out there.

As for me, I like to taste my food. It’s also very hard to eat with all the tears and snot running down my face, so I’ll just stick with the Hot sauce that they offer as that was more than enough heat for me. As for The Grog as a whole, it was a good place to grab some wings, but it seemed that the chicken needed some more attention. The sauces were the real winners here, so if you crave the fire, swing on in and grab some of the Habanero mixture. As for the rest of us, if The Grog spent as much time on the preparation of the chicken as they seem to on their hotter sauces, then this place would rock the wing world. But for now, like I said before, it’s just a good place to grab some wings.

The Grog
863 West Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr, PA 19010
(610) 527-5870