Romby’s
Wingage Score: 100%
Address: 488 Lake Street - St Catharines
Parking: Outside
Intersection: Lake & Linwell
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Last Reviewed: September 14th, 2023
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Last Visited: March 14th, 2024
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| Judge |
Score |
| BHON - Sept 2023 |
100% |
| BHON - Apr 2022 |
99% |
| BHON - Oct 2020 |
92% |
| BHON - Jun 2003 |
65% |
| BHON - Oct 2001 |
89% |
| BHON - Apr 1998 |
80.17% |
Overall - Sept 2023:
Welcome to the 100 Club!
Again, Romby’s spoiled us with another batch of their perfectly prepared wings with just the right balance of smokiness, seasoning and a crispy finish. We will admit smoked wings are not everyone’s taste, but they are a really nice deviation from the standard buffalo wing and Frank’s Hot Sauce that we get everywhere else and we figured they were deserving of some recognition for their efforts. Also, they’ve met our expectations in terms of consistency and quality for the past few years, despite the pandemic.
What more can we ask for?
Oh....and those Reaper wings kicked serious ass in the heat department this time around too!!!
Overall - Apr 2022:
Damn those were some fine wings! Just the perfect balance of smoke & finished off in the deep fryer. We stuck with the traditional Buffalo Hot this time, and once again they came out cooked perfectly with a crispy skin and juicy, moist chicken inside. These were some of the best we’ve experienced recently and enough to push Romby’s closer to the 100 Club.
Guinness on tap as usual, and pricing in line with what we’ve come to expect lately, post-pandemic. We’re happy to welcome Romby’s back into our regular rotation!
Overall - Oct 2020:
Smack dab in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, we decided to revisit a place we hadn’t been to in over a decade. Romby’s has been a fixture in north-end St. Catharines for at least as long as BHON has been around, and although we’ve had mixed results there over the years, this time around we enjoyed some of the best wings we’ve had in recent memory.
First off, cooking wings to perfection takes skill. Romby’s rebranded themselves as a ’smokehouse’ and bar, thus cooks their wings in their smoker instead of deep frying them in the traditional way. The results were amazing....perfectly cooked wings that were crispy outside and juicy inside. The smoke flavour blended perfectly with the various wing sauces we tried, including standard Buffalo hot, Wolverine (buttery cajun), dry rubbed, and Carolina Reaper hot. Our only complaint was that they didn’t have a truly ’hot’ hot wing and even the reaper wings were fairly pedestrian in their spice level. Otherwise, we all agreed that they were fantastic and it was obvious that they were prepared with a level of pride and care that most places can’t compare.
Beer wise, we had our Guinness on tap so no complaints there either.
A final note - a great selection of music to complement the evening that was not too loud nor overly obnoxious really helped up the score for us as well.
Overall - June 2003:
Two words....AIR CONDITIONING! This time it turns out Romby’s had none, or at least it was most certainly on the blink when we arrived. It is pretty bad when you have to chung a Guinness so that it does not evaporate on you! We didn’t even stick around try the wings this time.
Though probably not any fault of their own, when it is 35+ degrees outside, sitting in a bar that is 45+ degrees and fermenting in your own sweat is NOT recommended practice! Word to Romby’s....fix your A/C! For now, you get a wing slam for being unprepared for the summer heat!
Here’s a photo from the evenings festivities. Here you can see BHON members casting Iron Ore into steel flatbar while enjoying a quick Guinness.
Previous Reviews:
Overall - Oct 2001:
We’re we ever SUPRISED!
The wings were SUPRISINGLY large and SUPRISINGLY hot.
I’m SUPRISED my asshole survived the following day.
Romby’s has always had decent wings that have yet to let us down. We decided to bump the score up a few notches as this last round were quite impressive, and the fact that they served no skunky beer (which we’ve been getting at many places recently) was a big plus too.
Overall - Apr 1998:
Could Romby’s have some of the best wings witnessed by B.H.O.N.?
Could Nancy be any more Sarcastic?
Tune in next time.
Poor Mike, A chemical reaction between wings, beer, spaghetti, and sidewalk caused the following reaction:
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