I was surprised when I walked in the door. The Wing Bar is small and crowded, which is what you get in a lot of New York City, but Brooklyn normally gives you a bit more space to work with. They have a backyard, which I didn't check out, and two big high definition flatscreens. I was able to get a seat at the bar, close to one of the televisions, which is pretty lucky, since it seems like there are some seats in the place that would give you a pretty tough viewing angle for trying to catch the game. I have to say that, even though The Wing Bar has to lose a point for only having two tv's, they should probably get that point back for the ridiculously high quality of their sets. The picture on those things looked great.
When I first walked in, one of the tv's wasn't even showing the NFL; a bunch of first year Wall Street hopeful types had crowded around the second flat screen to catch some Division II college football. That's fine for Saturday afternoon, of course, and I'm definitely a fan of the college game and showing your school pride and everything, but on a Steelers' gameday I think we need to keep the focus on what's important, where it belongs. Everything worked out well, though, since their game ended early in the first quarter so both sets could show the Steelers. The Wing Bar was definitely more bar/restaurant than straight up sports bar, which is alright for a nationally televised game since it's pretty much the only sports action going on and there's not a lot of competition. Even though it seemed like most of the people in there were watching the game, management kept the music going on the bartender's iPod, and the volume way up high, so we couldn't hear any commentary or anything. That also meant that I missed hearing the NFL Kickoff Black Eyed Peas/Tim McGraw concert, although the music at those things is always second to the visual spectacle anyway. They're more like a live music video than a concert. I've got to say, though, that Tim McGraw was throwing a pretty nice spiral when he was getting those balls out into the audience at the end of his set. That last one would have sliced up a Cover 2, right up the middle between the safeties, no doubt. If he gets tired of the whole music thing, maybe the Eagles or the Vikings will be looking for some QB help down the stretch this year. Just a thought.
As for the wings, The Wing Bar gets it right, with good quality at a good price. You can order 10, 20, 50 or 100 wings. I went with ten, which worked out pretty well, since my bowl actually came with 13 in it. That was perfect since my friend Abbie the Lawyer showed up and wanted to try a couple. She's a great gauge for the quality of the wings, since she's a really picky eater, and she was definitely happy with them. They wings were right on; they were a good size, and they were nice and crispy, which is really important since there is probably nothing worse than some soggy chicken wings. The Wing Bar doesn't offer any crazy sauces or anything, just the basics, so I ordered the hot wings, and thought that it was a pretty good sauce, although I personally could have had a little more heat. I saw some other guy adding tabasco sauce to his basket, so I guess that I'm not the only one who feels that way. Not to get all philosophical about it, but if your "hot" sauce needs tabasco added to it, then you should probably consider adding an "extra hot" option to your menu. One cool thing is that the kitchen is off to the side of the samll space, but it's open into the bar, so you can basically see your wings getting made. That might not make for must see TV, but it's a good way to know that the place isn't just pre-making a bunch of wings and then letting them sit around before reheating them. Believe it or not, that kind of thing does happen, although I don't know what kind of place would do that to an honest, hard-working, wing-eating, Pittsburgh-loving, Steelers-watching man.
Prices were solid for the neighborhood, seven or eight bucks for the wings, which was good considering the extra pieces that ended up in our basket, and they sell beers for between three and four dollars each. That's really good, since, believe it or not, I've found that the four dollar beer has become an endangered species on non-happy hour bar menus. The night I was there The Wing Bar had Bud Lite, and something else that I've never heard of, on tap, but I went for Yuengling in a bottle. They also sell pitchers for their tap beers, which you can get for seven or eight bucks. All in all, the food was good enough that I would go back here just to get some wings and grab a beer, especially if I wanted to catch a random game where I didn't need to pay as much attention to the football, maybe the Giants on Monday night or something. Honestly, I could have easily eaten a second order of the wings, and if it wasn't so late I would have, so if you're hungry you might want to order some onion rings or something. They've got a limited bar menu, with burgers and hot dogs, veggie dogs, fries, etc. Prices are good all the way around. It seems like a good after work spot, and I hear that they'll be serving food late if you're in the area and looking for a midnight snack.
Like I say, the place was pretty crowded, and a lot of the people there seemed to be at least paying attention to the game. It didn't seem like there were necessarily a lot of hardcore Steeler fans there, but a couple of tables were definitely clapping and cheering when appropriate. One thing that everyone knows is that you can't hate Pittsburgh, and you definitely can't hate the Pittsburgh Steelers. Even the one dude who was cheering for the Titans must have known, deep down inside, that he was in the wrong. You could just see it in his eyes. Either that, or he could just see that his girlfriend was embarrassed that she wasn't there with a Steelers fan.
I was sitting next to a Jets fan, who was admitting, very honestly, that the Steelers should look pretty good this year. He and his homeboy were pretty good on the Budweiser, so he kept talking to me, with varying levels of coherence, about how Troy Polamalu is the best player on our defense. Well, that guy looked like Nostradamus during the first half. Troy was absolutely playing out of his head, obviously, and you could tell that he was fired up to be back on the field. With the sound off, it was hard to tell what was going on with his injury, so I didn't know how serious it was until I read the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette online the next morning. Still, they're calling it the "best case scenario" for his type of injury, so we can just hope that he gets his rest and comes back strong when he's ready. You know that James Harrison is looking to jump in there, do his thing and help everyone pick up the slack. The defense might not have looked explosive, but holding a team to ten points is no laughing matter.
Ben Roethlisberger didn't necessarily get off to his best start, but I was happy to see that stayed in command of things and stayed confidant, especially as it became clear that the team was going to be leaning on him for the majority of their offense. The first of the two picks that he threw looked pretty bad, and I've got to be honest and say that it had me a little concerned for a minute there. The second one has me convinced that I don't approve of the Hail Mary play, unless you're actually trying to win a game in the closing seconds, and/or Doug Flutie is your quarterback. As for the ball that he missed Mike Wallace with early on, he definitely underthrew it, and it could have been a home run ball, but it was definitely catchable, so I wasn't too worried about that. It seemed like it was just kind of an early season quarterback/receiver timing and comfort issue, and I'm sure they'll work it out with no problem. I liked that they hooked up on that big play late, and I think that Wallace is really in there fighting for his spot. In fact, that first miss looked a lot like the big ball that Ben hit Hines Ward with a little later. I think that the main difference between the two plays was Hines' ability to make a veteran play on the ball while it was in the air. Hines made a really nice read on that ball and adjusted his route, Ben hit him with great timing, and you can tell that Hines has his energy level up going into this year. Santonio Holmes came into the game ready to show that he's not taking anything for granted, and I don't think that there's any doubt that he's maturing into a consistent big game receiver. He's just going to keep getting better, too. All in all, Ben and the rest of the guys played so solid after they got warmed up that I'm feeling really good about the passing game going into week two.
Because of some technical issues that I've now gotten all resolved, this post was obviously quite a bit late getting up, so some time has passed since the Tennessee game. In that spirit, and because I want to start this series of posts on a positive note, I'm taking the opportunity of hindsight to focuson the positive here, since the good guys came out of Week One with a nice home win, so that basically means that I'm not going to focus at all on the running game. What running game, you ask? Exactly. But I'm not going to pile on to our back or our offensive line, since Week Two is here, the adjustments have hopefully been made, and it's officially time to move on. So they're getting a mulligan on that one.
Look for another, more appropriately timed, full write up after the Bears game, as well as some mid-week posts, and we'll keep it fresh moving forward. We're looking good so far. Here's the Week One summary:
- Steelers win (1-0)
- Great passing offense, non-existent rushing offense, good defense
- The Wing Bar (275 Smith Street, between Sackett and Degraw)
- Great wings, okay crowd, great tv's, fair tv placement and general viewing ability
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