We don’t get down to Illinois for wings often, so when we do we hope we have some good ones. Does Timothy O’Toole’s hit the spot or should we have kept driving?
So Collin and I were on our way down to Ikea the other day and decided to make a stop at Timothy O’Toole’s for lunch. Ive been wanting to check out this place ever since Mel and I had their wings at WingFest in Chicago a couple years back. I actually found their newest location on Grand Ave in Gurnee by accident on my way back from O’Hare Airport a couple weeks back. So when we happened to be in the area, we dropped in for some wings.
Like I said before, the Timothy O’Toole’s is right off I94 on Grand Ave in Gurnee near Six Flags and Gurnee Mills. They also have another location in downtown Chicago as well . Timothy O’Tool’s Pub is located in what looks like a fairly new strip mall kinda building. It has a typical Irish bar feel which you would expect from the name. The big wrap around bar has plenty of seating with numerous tables surrounding it for larger groups of people. Their beer selection was actually pretty good and came out very cold. Just how I like it. From where we sat we had a great view of a cluster of flat screens which was awesome, not to mention the super cute bartender and blonde waitress. Yeah, I notice these things. :)
You have your choice of 10 sauces which include, Mild, Spicy, extra Spicy, Volcanic, Traditional Buffalo, BBQ, Chipotle BBQ, Garlic Ginger, Garlic Parmesan, and Jerk. On this stop, Collin and I decided to just order up 3 flavors. So between us we ordered the Traditional Buffalo, Garlic Parmesan, and the Chipotle BBQ. As we sat at the bar and shot the breeze with a couple patrons and watched the Grand Am race, our wings came out promptly and piping hot. On first impression these wings looked amazing. They seemed to be fried only which was just fine because they did it very well. No burnt or broken bones, which I cant stand. The skin was nice and crisp and the wing quality was very good. Timothy O’Toole’s had an above average “sauce to wing ratio” which was awesome since the wings happened to be a little above average in size.
Chipolte BBQ, Garlic Parm, and Buffalo wings at Timothy O’Toole’s
As I stated above, we only ordered 3 of the 10 sauces. Il’l start with the Traditional Buffalo. As its name says,this sauce is a very traditional Buffalo with a good amount of spice and with everything you would expect in a buffalo flavored wing. Nothing really stood out about it. Its kind of like seeing a Toyota Camry. Great car, does everything you would want it to do, you see a million of them everyday and dont think anything about it. Not like when you see a Lamborghini and say “Hey look a Lambo. F*#%@& Dope”. If there was a downside it would have to be that I think the sauce would be better a little bit thicker. It seemed to soak into the skin of the wing making it get a little soggy faster than I could eat them. But still very good. The Chipotle BBQ was a thicker sauce that had a sweet BBQ flavor. I really didnt taste much if any smoky, chipotle type flavor to it however. It seemed like it was just a sweet bbq rather than chipotle. Best part of the sauce was that it didn’t soak into the wing like the buffalo did, with the wings staying crisp till the last bite. The Garlic Parmesan was disappointing. When I order a wing that says GARLIC in the title, I would like to taste some GARLIC. This had almost none. It tasted more like Butter and Parmesan. Too say the least, I was one very disappointed Paesano.
I know Timothy O’Toole’s has a reputation for “Award Wining” wings, but I guess I was expecting more. I was all sorts of excited to try their wings when I stumbled upon the Gurnee location but to be honest they fell a little bit short. I will be back with the rest of the crew though to give them another shot because I did get great service and the prices weren’t too bad. The cute girls and cold beer may be another reason. I guess we will see.
