Restaurant Review: Barney's Pub & Grill

BARNEY'S PUB & GRILL 5705 50th Street ~ barneyspubleduc.com Instagram: @barneysleduc ~ Twitter: @BarneysLeduc Co-Diner: Tim Golem

I have to admit, when I first heard about Barney's and that VUE Weekly voted them #1 Worth the Trip: Leduc 2018... I was skeptical. How good could a small town pub really be? Leduc is a small city to the south of Edmonton and it's pretty much a suburb at this point. Is the food there actually good? I was more than willing to give Leduc a fair chance to show me what they're doing that's delicious. I visited on a Saturday evening and upon pulling into a parking lot, noted that the pub is attached to a Best Western hotel. This is the kind of place that definitely has VLTs on the premises. But again, keeping an open mind, I entered the large pub-style restaurant. The space is huge with a massive bar right in the center of the room. The decor definitely screams "bar" but it isn't terrible. There's a lot of dark wood, rock finishes, and some funky booths wrapped in vinyl. In terms of a pub, it's pretty much exactly what you might expect. It's certainly far from a hole-in-the-wall but at the same time I still found myself questioning how good the food could possibly be. Our server was extremely friendly and very attentive. I never felt "forgotten about" at any point in our visit and everything was quite prompt. Once seated, I was first met with an extensive liquor menu. They offer something pretty neat at Barney's called "Pour Your Own Beer" where they have an entire wall full of Alberta craft beer taps and you can select and pour whatever you want - self-serve. A very unique and interactive idea! This isn't the kind of place that makes fun cocktails (they do caesars on Sundays) or anything of the like. I wasn't much in the mood for alcohol (which felt somewhat wrong) and decided to forgo the booze entirely and move straight to the eating. Barney's does pride themselves on offering locally sourced food, something that I can always appreciate. The menu is fairly simple, featuring many of the pub staples that you would expect. They have daily special features and boast that just about everything is homemade from scratch. I was starting to understand what might be good about this place. I certainly have NO problem with pub-style food and was so curious to discover what this restaurant is dishing out. There's a pretty wide appetizer section in the menu - because that's often what you do at a pub! You grab a couple of apps and everyone shares stuff. Well Barney's has just the thing: the H-Appy Platter ($35.00). I couldn't say no! This thing is filled with all of their best-sounding items!

Ribs, wings, nachos, deep fried pickles, parm fries.

I was slightly shocked when this massive iron tray arrived at our table like a giant feeding trough. What had we done?! On the other hand, I was starving and this all looked exactly like what I wanted to shove into my face. Starting with the Dry Rib Fingers, my expectations were extremely low. I don't think that I've ever had a good dry rib. They're always shriveled and dry to the point of being unpleasant. Well Barney's sure showed me! These dry ribs were nothing like that. They were juicy, meaty, and fall-off-the-bone tender. I liked that they were salted to bring out the flavour. These things were miles ahead of my perception of dry ribs. For the Chicken Wings we were able to choose our flavour from a wide selection. There were four dry rub choices and eight wing sauce choices. Many sounded great, especially the hot + ranch which is right up my alley. But on this visit I went with the Maple Bacon dry rub because it sounded the most interesting. The server exclaimed that it's their most delicious flavour. And wouldn't you know it, the wings were some of the best that I've had in a long time. So crispy and perfect on the outside, so juicy on the inside. The flavour of maple bacon truly came through and shined, adding a complete new dimension that I never would have expected from the humble chicken wing. Then, Barney's Nachos - of which there is no further explanation... Until you see them. These aren't your typical nachos and there are no tortilla chips in sight. The chips used for these nachos are potato chips and I felt joyful over this revelation. Smothered in a hefty amount of marble cheese and topped with diced tomato, there wasn't much to these "nachos" yet somehow they were just right. I'm never upset to see Deep Fried Pickles and these ones were fried to a crunchy perfection, encasing a juicy pickle spear on the inside. Lastly, the Parmesan Fries, which were a huge pile of perfectly golden, crispy fries topped with parmesan cheese and chipotle mayo. Loved these! They were super flavourful and very addictive! On top of this, the whole platter came with a side of five different homemade dips; Salsa, Sour Cream, Ranch, BBQ Sauce, and Chipotle Mayo. These were excellent accompaniments to everything on the platter and they just made sense with the food items. Looking over the monstrous heap, I couldn't help but remark that I wasn't angry at any of it. Quite the opposite. Everything was exceedingly delicious. But that wasn't all! We also ordered the Candied BLT ($16.00) because I'm just a little bit obsessed with BLT sandwiches and had to try this one.

For the choice of side I picked the House Salad with Lemon Emulsion dressing, knowing that the giant platter was going to have the fries covered. This was absolutely the right choice and I found myself relived to have some fresh greens with a nice zippy dressing as a respite from all of the heaviness. The sandwich was good! First of all, it was absolutely jam-packed with a ridiculous amount of sweet, sweet, smokey, sticky caramelized bacon. There is no such thing as skimping at Barney's. I enjoyed the soft, fresh bun. The lettuce and tomato were bright. And I believe that there was a garlic aioli on the sandwich in place of a traditional mayonnaise, which tasted great. If you're a BLT purist this version might be too much of a departure for you, but it was certainly delicious for what it was. Barney's sure showed me! They're taking "pub food" and making it better. The atmosphere is kinda what you want, in all honesty. However, this is a perfect example of why you can't always judge a book by its cover. If I'm ever in Leduc for any reason, I'm going to be suggesting eats at Barney's.