Plains Pub

Basic Information:

• Plains Pub - 04/03/18
  Overall Rating: 84

  Lynch Serniak

  Lynch's Rating: 42 out of 50

  Environment: 9
  

  This is our second visit to a Plains wing joint in as many weeks and I’m starting to become a fan of what Plains has to offer. This time, we decided to check out Plains Pub. You enter to a big, rectangular bar with plenty of seats around it. There were a few seats open by the bar, but we decided to venture to the dining room, which has a good number of tables. It is a non-smoking bar, so you can really take a seat wherever tickles your fancy. We got there a bit late – close to 8:30 PM – and it was still pretty busy. In fact, as we sat in the dining room, more people kept piling in. It was pretty impressive. Regardless of how busy they were, we were waited on pretty quickly and it didn’t take long too long to receive our wings. The waitress was pretty nice and was there when you needed something. While we waited for our food, I took in my surroundings. There was a lot of wood. The tables, floors, seats, napkin holders, and part of the walls were all wood. I don’t know why, but I was a fan. I was also a fan of the fact that they put malt vinegar in spray bottles. What a great idea! This makes it so much easier to spread on fries, if you’re into that sort of thing. Plains Pub also has a popcorn machine that you can utilize while waiting for food, after dinner, or just enjoying drinks. I also liked that when the wings arrived, they were in their own basket with a marking on the corner of the paper so it’s easier to identify the sauce. It’s little touches like these that can make a place stand out.

  
  Wing Size: 7
  

  I have a feeling Serniak and I are going to differ in this category. I do have to say, 45 cents a wing is a rarity this day and age. It’s nice to see a place stick to the lower price. While the price is pretty low, most of the wings I got were about average size or slightly below average. I’d say order a bit more than you normally would if you want to leave feeling full.

  
  Wing Flavors: 8
  

  Plains Pub offers a good mix of sauces. On top of your classic flavors, I love the addition of sauces with ranch, chipotle, and Cajun. Plus, you can mix any combinations of sauces. I wish more places did this because this really opens up the possibilities. We didn’t order the Suskie sauce, but from what the waitress told us, it is more of traditional hot sauce with a butter base.

  
  Wing Taste (x2): 9
  

  I was very happy with all the wings I tried at Plains Pub. There seemed to be plenty of sauce with every order so if you feel like you didn’t get enough sauce on your wing, dig down to the bottom to sop up some of that delicious flavor. My first wing was the Hot Creamy Cajun. These wings were delicious. I’m not quite sure where the creaminess came from, but it certainly balanced perfectly with the hot sauce and Cajun flavors. Another real winner was the Chipotle Ranch. It had a great amount of ranch flavor, an incredible smokiness from the chipotle pepper, and a slight hint of spice to even out the wing. Finally, I decided to turn it up a notch and order the X Hot. This sauce had a high, but bearable, level of spice and a strong cayenne pepper taste. It had a good flavor, but it may not be a wing for everyone.

  Serniak's Rating: 42 out of 50

  Environment: 9
  

  NEPA Wingmen? More like Plains Wingmen amiright? Because for the past two weeks we’ve gone to wing joints in Plains. Let it sink in, you’ll get it. Man alive let me tell you, we’re just been hanging out in Luzerne county. Can’t get enough of it especially when the wings are on-point. This week was no different. This time we went a little bit farther down the road from Charlie B’s and saw what all the fuss was about at Plains Pub. I wonder if there’s ever been a civil war between Charlie B’s and Plains Pub for wing supremacy. I’m sure there was and now they both have decided to live in peace. That’s nice. When you pull up to Plains Pub on their wing night, you get greeted by this fun sign that really gets to core of what you’re looking to do.

   

  Inside you’ll find two worlds. The first world is the bar area included a popcorn machine that you could enjoy whenever you wanted and many TVs around it, perfect for watching the game or flexing your brain in Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. I swear, if I ever open a wing joint, I;m going to incorporate wings with Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. Like how bars to trivia, I want to do that. Just gotta figure out how. Anyways, we sat in the other world past the bar, which is a dining area. The dining area also had TVs back, darts and a fire place. Y’all know I’m a sucker for fire places and even though this wasn’t a classic fire place with a real logs on it, it still made me feel good. Plains Pub was noticeably very clean. The tables in the dining area were near in excellent condition. You can tell they care about what they’re doing. One thing I thought was cool was that each table had a spray bottle of vinegar on it. You could use it for anything, but ideally you’d use it for fries. Never saw that before, nice addition. Our server was pleasant, diligent and helped explaining a few of their wing flavors. Just a very solid place all the war around.

  
  Wing Size: 10
  

  Plains Pub get a 10. I can’t not give them a 10 and that’s because in the parlance of our times with wing prices through the roof, they have their wing night at 45 cents a wing. I know there are a few other places that still have them at that price but that list is getting smaller by the day. I respect them for not delivering that price. The actually size of the wings are more traditional/average size as compared to their wing rival down the road in Charlie B’s, which were enormous. This score is all about the price. The average for wing price on wing night is probably around 50-55 cents, so you can imagine how refreshing it was to see a wing night at 45 cents. The wing purist will bring up how wings used to be 25 or even 10 cents a wing back in the day, but we live in a different world where chicken meat is up there with gold. Deal with it

  
  Wing Flavors: 9
  

  You can tell when you look at the menu that this place takes pride in their wings. Like, this is what they’re about like how Italian restaurants are about naturally about Italian food, here at Plains Pub, the push the wings. Plains Pub has 21 flavors to choose from. That’s an fantastic amount to choose from. They also have a nice variance of flavors to choose from. They have your standard flavors that you can get just about every where but then have unique ones such as sweet fire, creamy cajun, buttery old bay and one called Suskie, which is an old school hot mixed with butter. I think I’m beginning to have a system when scoring wing flavors. If you have over 20, you’ll probably get a 9 and if you have over 30 you’ll get a 10. Anything under 20, will get debated by the brain trust, which is my brain. Also, having unique flavors that you don’t see often helps as well.

  Here’s what they have to offer. Sorry if it’s tough to read

   

  
  Wing Taste (x2): 7
  

  I got my head back in the game and ordered my standard 20. First off, the wings were cooked well. They had a nice crisp to them. Of course, since it was a new place, I ordered their plain hot. They were fine and they had a good flavor to them. Nothing remarkable about them. Just solid hot. Next were, the buttery old bay. Most times you just see a dry rub of old bay and that’s fine but here we had buttery old bay. A simple addition that can really pay off. I thought these wings could of been better. A common thing that happens with dry rubs is that when the rub gets applied, it doesn’t get applied to both sides of the wings. I had to really scrape the bottom of holster the wings came in, which was where the majority of the butter lied. Not a deal breaker, but I could used more seasoning. I realize it’s a fine line between over and under seasoning but it’s a dance worth knowing all the steps. Next were the sweet fire. This was recommended from our server. They were as advertised. It wasn’t simply a sweet chili flavor that you can get from any bottle of sweet chili you can get from the store. This was a Plains Pub creation and it was solid. They had the sweetness that was backed up with the spice in every bite. Kind of had an Asian type style to them. Real good stuff. Lastly, were the creamy cajun. These had such a beautiful look to them with a elegant orangish hue to them. Not exactly sure what the creamy portion of the flavor was. Maybe it was ranch? Could of been ranch. The Cajun part of it was had very good spice. Spice that was able to breakthrough the creamy aspect of it but nothing to powerful. An elegant balance indeed.