The Courtyard Bar & Grill
Wingage Score: 88%
Address: 2 Dunlop Drive - St. Catharines
Parking: Plenty out front
Intersection: Dunlop Dr & Lake Street
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Last Reviewed: November 14th, 2024
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Last Visited: November 14th, 2024
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| Judge |
Score |
| BHON - Nov 2024 |
88% |
Overall - Nov 2024:
It’s always exciting when we get to try out a new place in the hopes we might find a new gem to go into our regular rotation. Recently, we saw ads for a new bar opening up in the former iHOP location in the Comfort Inn on Dunlop off the Lake Street exit from the QEW. Would they be a worthy contender?
First impressions....
Atmosphere - was nice. Although most of these hotel restaurants seem to have a similar generic look and feel to them. Like they took the iHOP out, removed the pancakes, hung up some TV’s and sports paraphernalia and called it a bar. It was quiet though which was a bonus for us.
Service - our server was nice enough though she seemed a bit scattered. When we asked her about the wing flavours she didn’t know anything about them, and they were a bit on the slow side getting our drinks to the table. Given they’d only been open a week or two, we suspect they’re still working out the kinks here and there. Someone we presume was the manager did stop by our table to check on us and make sure we were enjoying our meal so props for that!
Beer - Guinness on tap, check. Fairly large selection of domestic, import and premium beers on tap too.
Wings - surprisingly good! Decent sized and cooked properly. This is one of those places that somehow manages to make the wings juicy inside, with crispy skin, while also making them saucy at the same time, and their sauces were not just the average Franks and Fuckoff sauce. If anything, the sauces had a bit of an East Asian influence to them. We enjoyed them thoroughly!
Buffalo buttery hot were tasty, more-so after eating a few presuffering wings. Not terribly spicy but a decent heat.
Suicide wings were ketchupy, the sauciest of the bunch with a nice frontal mouth burn. Quite an unusual flavour to them like an Asian BBQ sauce with a punch.
Crier wings - supposedly hotter than suicide, these had less sauce than the suicide wings, with a bit of ground up Carolina reaper or ghost pepper to them. Couldn’t quite put my finger on it but equally tasty.
Cajun wings - that weren’t overcooked and didn’t taste like kitty-litter?!
Shocker - I don’t normally like cajun wings because most places don’t prepare them well. These were fantastic in comparison.
Looking at the rest of the menu, they have some Thai and Indian cuisine which explains the unique wing sauce flavours. They also had an extensive an Italian section and the typical pub food selections.
Value - seemed a bit expensive at $60 a person but I think I had 4 Guinness which was 1 more than average. They had some wing specials if we were to resort to drinking domestic beer in pitchers, so that would have brought the cost down.
Overall, better than I would have expected. We will definitely be back for another visit and see if they’re worthy of going into the rotation. The wings alone made the trip worthwhile!
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