Inside you will find a warm, inviting interior with lots of wood and a big fireplace. They also have a patio outside with seating overlooking the parking lot, but still a pleasant place to sit.

We are here for a quick snack after checking out the new patio at the Brown’s across the way. While the patio is a lively and enjoyable place to while away the hours, the food there leaves much to be be desired.

Check out my review here.

The food here at St James Well is generally better. I’m going to try mini Yorkshire puddings. And a Guinness of course. When in Rome…

The question is, how many Yorkies? There’s no set amount on the menu. Order a minimum of two and as many as you want. Three is good for me tonight.

i skip the horseradish, it ruins it for me.

Now I’m pretty sure these aren’t made in house, too perfect. But they are rather difficult to master. Regardless they are pretty tasty. The batter could use a little more salt. Which the gravy adds, too bad they are a little chintzy with it. The prime rib was very good, very tender.

Overall very good.

I certainly make them better at home, but in a pinch these are pretty good.

7/10

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We find ourselves in Richmond tonight needing a drink.

As we are near the south terminal at YVR The Flying Beaver came immediately to mind.

It’s a cool spot right on the river on Sea Island.

And it’s 2 for 1 appies tonight. How can you lose?

First off though a beer. Hoyne’s brewing Dark Matter.

Since they can’t even tell you what this beer is it’s hard for me to but I’ll give it a go.

It has the taste of a stout but it’s not heavy like a Guinness. Quite easy to drink actually with a

low alcohol content. Good beer!

And two appetizers for the price of one!

First Fish tacos.

And Thai chill chicken wings

Let’s start with the wings as they were better than the fish tacos.

As with the most pubs they are deep fried but they actually had a oven roasted feel to them. I think that’s because they weren’t heavily breaded. In fact there is no breading on them at all. And they were perfectly cooked. A nice sweet chili sauce finished them nicely.

The fish tacos were ok.

The addition of mango elevated it. Inside the taco was your typical non-descript white fish that was a bit overcooked. However the abundance of chipotle mayo covered up the dryness of the fish. There was a bit too much slaw as well. I prefer more fish. Cabbage is cheaper than fish though.

We also had a bit of entertainment. One of the severs dropped a full tray of glasses. Whoops!

The DJ was pumping out a mediocre selection of tunes as well. No one dancing though.

So should you find yourself in the area this isn’t a bad place to go.

Nice view, decent food with a good Appy special, and an ok vibe.

7/10

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A beer to start.

White Bark Wheat Ale

From Driftwood Brewery this nice smooth beer with citrus notes is brewed with coriander as well. Easy drinking with a mild sour note.

Merilynn went with the Calamari.

She’s braver than me. Calamari in a pub?

Unfortunately it lived up to expectations.

While it was tasty it unfortunately was chewy.

I went with the Beef Dip. Partly just to make sure we had something edible. Good thing I did I guess.

So it seems they have changed the fries since I have had this last and they aren’t as good. I did prefer the thicker cut. These aren’t bad. But they aren’t some of the best fries I’ve ever had like the ones previous.

The beef dip was still just as good though. They do a nice job of trimming the beef so you don’t get big chunks of fat.

So a hit and a miss today.

Come for the beef dip. Stay away from the squid.

6/10

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Clearly though my last three or four visits here I’ve  forgotten about.

The quality of the food has not been great these last few years.

Wait, wait, wait.

Let’s be real here and not BS anymore.

The food has been crap.

Unfortunately today the trend continues.

There were 4 in our party today. So a fair representation of the menu.

We each had something different.

Not one of us like our meal all that much.

I can’t speak to the details of the in-laws food other than the negative verbal report both gave me.

Our two dishes were pretty unexceptional.

First up we have the Seafood croissant and Carrot ginger soup.

The croissant was okay. It had crab and shrimp and the croissant was fresh but not flaky at all. This is a margarine croissant no question. But it was fine.

The soup in my opinion was awful. The chef should not have let this go out of the kitchen. The flavor was actually ok but they did not puree this enough.

I had a momentary lapse of reason and had the Seafood Benny.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

What was I thinking?

I had to crop the photo because the egg on the other half had slid right off the muffin.

Speaking of the muffin, ewwwwww. They didn’t toast it, which is just wrong.  And to make matters worse it was crumbly, likely stale. Very disappointing.

The rest of it was okay. The Hollandaise was exactly what you’d expect, bland. The eggs were poached soft. Too bad it had fallen off and broken before it got to me. I skipped the hashbrowns, I guarantee they  would have come out of the deep fryer. The salad? It was green.

The Gillnetter does boggle my mind. With a  location this good why can’t they get their s*** together and serve better food.  It’s extremely disappointing to see the potential of this spot being ruined by whomever is in charge.

So come for the patio, skip the food entirely and have s cold one. It’s harder to screw that up.

3/10

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As good as the patio is the Interior sucks. This place used to be part of the prison and they didn’t do enough to make it look otherwise.

We started with a beer and a Caesar.

The beer was beer. As long as it’s cold it’s fine.

The Caesar though put me off. I’m pretty sure it had pickle juice. The flavour of dill was very evident a d it had some little chunks floating In the drink Great way to ruin a Caesar in my opinion.

It wasn’t spicy enough either but you can always add it right? So not the biggest problem. I think from the bartenders point of view serve the drink less spicy and the customer can add more if they want.

Rosemary pork bites for a snack.

Okay I do prefer these over a dry ribs. Unfortunately the breading was a bit too salty and I got zero Rosemary flavour. They were okay, but I never need to have them again.

I was a little put off by the server when we arrived. Okay it’s not a five-star restaurant I don’t expect a gushing welcome like I’m the king of England. But at minimum a smile would be nice.

As long as the beer is cold and there’s a table on the patio for me I’m happy to come back here.

I should probably eat dinner at home first though.

5/10

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If you’re going out specifically for chicken flappers Wings would not be my first choice.

I’ve been a couple times I the past and it was mediocre at best.

Tonight was no exception.

I ordered the Maple Bourbon and Salt and Pepper.

First off, the wings were overcooked. Not by a lot but enough to notice.

The salt and pepper flavor was decent, but when I do them at home I really wrap the pepper up. These weren’t at that level.

The maple bourbons flavor was okay. But I found the sugar granules a little disconcerting. I think the brown sugar idea is right but it would be better served in a maple bourbon sauce rather than sprinkled on.

Of the Wings locations I’ve been to this is one of the better ones. A nice bar with lots of TVs. Decent selection of beer on tap

So overall I think you’ll do better at Wild Wings. They have a better selection and you can get them oven roasted instead of fried.

But it will do if you just need a beer

5/10

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It’s the playoffs!

Go Canucks!

Is there a better way to watch the game than with friends at the pub?

No!

Just maybe not this pub!

Ok, the atmosphere is fine. It’s no different than 100 other pubs I’ve been  in my time.

Big screen TVs, cold beer, decent atmosphere.

I started getting a bad feeling after perusing the menu. Not one thing on their menu looked overly appealing.

Yes there’s the typical pub grub.

A beef dip. Too often filled with less than great meat in establishments such as these.

The obligatory deep fried chicken wings, fries, yam fries and nachos.

A selection of burgers that didn’t thrill me.

Butter chicken? Only in an Indian restaurant please.

But I’m starving, so I reluctantly order a turkey, bacon and brie sandwich. With soup as I try to avoid fries. Italian Wedding soup tonight.

Hmm. The skeptic in me doubts that this is going to be any good but better than fries right?

Wrong!

Yeesh!

Let’s start with the soup.

I make this soup 2 or 3 times a year so I have a good idea of how it should taste.

It was very bland. The meatballs were tasteless and had a mystery meat texture. The Acini were overcooked so provided no texture. Do they have salt and pepper in the kitchen here? Very disappointing.

As for the sandwich, At least there was the bacon to add some flavour. But the brie was greasy. How does that happen?

The only reason I knew there was turkey in there was because I could see it. Certainly couldnt taste it.

I know it’s pub grub but can’t these “chefs” put some pride into their food?

Quickly polling the others who ate at the table:

The burger? Okay.

The Nachos? All I got was a shrug.

I really haven’t been having great experiences at pub type restaurants lately. Either my tastes are moving past this level of food, or there has been a general decline in the overall quality offered by this genre of establishment.

I suspect it’s a combination of the two.

3/10

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After hearing rumours of a pub opening up again in the old penitentiary gatehouse for almost a year it has finally happened.

At this point they are still in a soft opening stage, so I will be selective in my criticism.

The food:

Actually I thought it was ok.

We had the Nashville hot chicken bites. Nice and crispy with a batter that ideally could use a little more “heat”, but was still tasty. The chicken was cooked well, nice and moist. Perhaps a bit greasy. But that’s comes with fried foods sometimes doesn’t it?

We also had the chicken wings. No pic. I forgot.

But I thought they were ok as well.

I have personally come to prefer baked wings, not fried. They are healthier. But I get that in a pub they are gonna be fried. And these ones were pretty good. We had the Salt and Pepper. They were well seasoned and had a nice crispy skin.

The Service:

I will give them a break regarding service.

Our server in particular didn’t seem to know much, and she seemed to get lost a couple times. Plus she didn’t know the drinks menu at all. There was only about 7 beers on there I had them memorized in 3 minutes. But it might have been her first night and it is a soft opening so will cut her a lot of slack today. If I’m back in two months and she is the same she is going to hear about it.

As for the other server. Hey guys, this is your  warning, try not to stare.

The ambiance:

Okay so this is where I’m gonna be more critical, soft opening or not.

It was too cold to sit on the patio tonight so we sat inside.

I’m going to say the interior is basically downright awful.

I’m guessing they decided to go as cheaply as a possibly to make this work inside.

I mean it’s not dirty or anything, there’s just zero character.

Boring tables and chairs. Cold tile floors. A high ceiling that just amplified the noise from all the activity.

They are limited in some ways that a normal pub wouldn’t be. The windows are set deep into the stone walls. It is a small space and you do you want to maximize it to accommodate as many people as possible.

But certainly the space could have been designed better. Designing a space using the natural design and origin of the building would have made much more sense.

I can think of few places that have a worse ambience.

The real gem here is going to be the patio. From our window we could see the river below us. The patio isat the back of the building so it’ll be quiet. Other than more than occasionall train horn. But on a warm summer night this will be an absolute wonderful spot to sit and enjoy a few cold ones.

Tonight was an ok experience. But not fair to criticize too harshly. I’ll come back and try it again after they’ve had a chance to iron out some of the bugs.

I’ve reconsidered scoring the Notorious Grey Fox at this time. I will reserve a score until they are fully operational.

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I have been to the Guilford location many times and the food there leaves much to be desired.

Here’s hoping the Coquitum restaurant is better.

This is the Sweet Thai Lime Bowl.

Chicken, peas, carrots, green onions and rice with a Lime Thai sauce. As usual I skipped the mushrooms.

The components of it are fine but there was just too much of that sticky sweet Thai lime sauce. As I got to the bottom of the bowl everything was swimming in it.

Dial that sauce back a little and this would be a pretty good dish. But in this state it was hard to eat the last half of it.

Food 5/10

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A friend has been raving about the food at The Arms so we thought we would pop over and check it out.

This first thing that stands out about The Arms is the location.

It’s crap.

It’s in a strip mall with nothing but other businesses and housing around.

Ok, if you live close by it is very handy to stagger home drunk from.

By if you’re looking for a nice spot to sit and enjoy a few beers on the patio keep looking.

Let’s talk about the patio for a minute.

There are some great patios in and around Vancouver.

The Gillnetter has a fantastic one overlooking the Pitt river. And it’s not far. (As good as the view is though the food is not)

Anything on White Rock beach.

The Boathouse at the Quay.

Popina Kitchen on Granville Island.

Mahoney’s at Stamps Landing.

These are but a few of what our great city has to offer.

And then there’s the patio at The Arms.

If you love the aromas of wafting second hand smoke and a chorus of idling engines then this is the patio for you.

So don’t come for the patio.

Inside you will find a neighborhood pub that could be confused with a hundred other neighborhood pubs around town should you wake up from a drunk stupour with no recollection of how you got there and weren’t exactly sure where you were.

The obligatory TV screens with a variety of sports and gambling options. Neon beer signs. Sticky menus.  The overall appearance of a Canadian attempt at creating an English style pub and not quite pulling it off.

If you look really closely you can still see the pall of smoke from the 80s still hanging over the place.

But what about the food?

We had the Arctic fish bites and the Beef Stroganoff.

Once I got past the mushrooms this was really good. The gravy was really rich and tasty, the beef was tender and noodles pretty well cooked.

The fish bites were tasty, somewhat surprisingly well cooked, and crunchy. The tartar sauce was just your typical restaurant tartar, nothing special.

My buddy says the burgers are really good here too.

I tried a flight of Margheritas.

All were good, my favorite was the watermelon.

The real story here is the value.

The stroganoff was $16 and the Arctic fish bites were $12. Those are pretty good prices and the portions are quite large. In today’s world those prices are kind of hard to beat.

Maybe because they don’t have an expensive patio to maintain?

As for me, I don’t plan on returning anytime soon. There are quite a number of pubs between here and my house that I’d go to before I went back to the Arms.

But if you live closer and are looking for good value I think The Arms might be a good choice for you.

Just don’t expect much in the way of a view.

Food 7/10

Ambiance 5/10

Value 7/10

Overall 6/10

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