Johnny D’s

Basic Information:

• Johnny D’s First Visit - 01/30/13
  Overall Rating: 58

  Lynch Serniak

  Lynch's Rating: 28 out of 50

  Environment: 7
  

  Johhny D’s is right off of Church Street in Jessup. In fact, it’s a block away from another place we have gone to, St George’s. It’s a very small bar that serves food. The bar takes up the majority of the floor with a couple small tables off the side. The place was playing a lot of Kid Rock. I don’t know if we got lucky with this amazing music, or if it was just a coincidence. It also happened to be someone’s birthday that night, so there was cake given out to everyone. If this was the Cake Men, this cake would have rated high in flavor, as it was filled with peanut butter. Anyway, the place seemed to have a pretty good atmosphere overall. The server did take a little bit to take our order, and a while again to give us our check. As a warning, they do not take cards. There is an ATM, but it was broken when we arrived. It was fixed by the time we left though. The staff seemed nice and it didn’t take too long to get our wings. One awesome thing about Johnny D’s is you can place an order for any amount of wing you want. I got 4 different orders of 4 wings.

  
  Wing Size: 5
  

  The wings cost $0.40. There were a couple of large ones in our baskets, but there was also a mixture of small ones. I was able to polish off 16 wings and a piece of cake.

  
  Wing Flavors: 6
  

  Not the biggest wing selection around, but they do throw in a couple interesting flavors. I’ve only seen Porketta at one other place, and Old Bay is never a bad addition.

  
  Wing Taste (x2): 5
  

  All of the wings flavors I had were up to par with the standard. You may have had a bogey or birdie in the bunch, but they evened each other out. Nothing really blew be out of the water, but none of them were really a sand trap. I’m all out of golf metaphors, so I’ll just get to the reviewing. I ordered Hot, Old Bay, Garlic Parmesan, and Porketta. Hot were hot – nothing crazy here. These were your typical buttery, vinegary hot wings that you can find anywhere. For the Garlic Parm, I was expecting a hot sauce base, but this was a butter garlic parm wing. Usually, I don’t like the butter base, but this was actually really tasty. I’m not sure what it was about that buttery taste from this wing, but it worked perfectly with the garlic and parmesan flavor. I was really excited for the porketta. It tasted good with a great Italian spice, but I was hoping for bit more of a flavor. It could have done with more spices on the wing. Whenever I see Old Bay, I have to order it. I’m always let down, though. The same thing happened at Johnny D’s. I’m not sure why, but I always expect such a strong flavor since Old Bay is such a bold taste. You definitely get that Old Bay spice, but I always feel like I want more on my wing. It was a dry rub, so I’m not sure how they could go about completing this, but, like multiple times in the past, I was let down by Old Bay.

  Serniak's Rating: 30 out of 50

  Environment: 7
  

  The place had a welcoming vibe to it. I don’t dislike many aspects of human interaction more than stepping foot in an establishment and instantly feeling like all the locals and regulars think its strange that you just walked on in to their place. At Johnny D’s, that was not the case at all. In fact, Johnny himself was there behind the bar. He seemed like an enthusiastic fellow who made sure all of his customers felt welcome. The overall atmosphere of the place was one to effect of someone’s furnished basement. It wasn’t to big, but they had several good beers on draft such as Dogfishhead. The service was also fine.

  
  Wing Size: 4
  

  The wings were not too large and for 40 cents a wing, for some, that juice might not be worth the squeeze.

  
  Wing Flavors: 7
  

  This was another place that didn’t have a ton of flavors but the ones they did have were unique and different than your typical flavors you see. They had your standard hot, bbq but then they also had sweet and tangy, porketta and garlic parmesan. It was nice to see they tried to be different.

  
  Wing Taste (x2): 6
  

  The wings at Johnny Ds were alright. Nothing out of this world but they are worthy to tried by all who crave wings. I ordered the hot, garlic parmesan, porketta and sweet and tangy. The hot were solid. They had a nice bite to them. The garlic parmesan were exactly what you wan out of that flavor and they did it right by adding butter to that style. The porketta wings could of used some butter to them. It was a dry rub which I get but they could of used more seasoning or like I said before coat them with butter just a tiny bit. The sweet and tangy were the best I had. A good balance of mild sauce and sweet sauce, maybe it was bbq. It had what I wanted out of that flavor.