If you go to Yelp or Trip Advisor and search for reviews on Edmonton’s Refinery Grill, you will see the word ‘amazing’ and it’s annoying synonym, ‘awesome’, in almost every post. If those words don’t get the message across, then the liberal use of exclamation marks will because according to online reviewers, the Refinery Grill is “THE BEST RESTAURANT IN EDMONTON!!!!!”

Don’t believe everything you read—at least in online review forums. My experience at the Refinery Grill was, categorically, one of the worst dining experiences I’ve had in Edmonton since Plow & Harvest (whose carcass, coincidentally, is within spitting distance of the Refinery Grill). Two restaurants came before the Refinery Grill in this space which makes me wonder if this area near Stony Plain Road, 170 Street, and Mayfield Road is the Bermuda Triangle of bad food.  The owners of the Refinery Grill used to own a place called Wolfie’s Deli right around the corner at 170 Street and 100 Ave.

The visuals:

7 p.m.

This is a “hidden gem”, according to online reviews. Maybe too hidden; the room, at 7 p.m. was empty.

Smoked Meat Poutine

Curdless poutine? All of Quebec is laughing right now. Cheese curds are poutine’s raison d’être.

Greek Ribs

Barbecue sauce on the plate, dry potatoes, lifeless ribs.

Chicken Souvlaki with Greek salad and potatoes

Chicken flavoured with gas from a flare-up on the grill, and a spiritless Greek salad. It made me yearn for the incredible salads we had in Greece (see below).

Vibrant, flavourful Greek salad from Oroscopo in Athens.

Lester’s packaged Montreal Smoked meat in the cooler

Smoked Meat Sandwich at the Refinery Grill

Size is not everything. Though this looks impressive, a heaping helping of bland is just too much. And that kosher pickle? A thousand bubbes are kvetching and oy gevalt-ing right now.

In comparison: a Smoked Meat Sandwich from Schwartz’s in Montreal (photo cred: www.theatlantic.com). Hand cut, ‘medium fatty’ meat can’t be beat.

Prawns Santorini

Best dish of the night was the Prawns Santorini said to be topped with feta, but you can’t grate feta, so not sure what this cheese is.

The Refinery Grill suffers from trying to do too many different things and not focusing on doing one thing great. Want Italian?  Greek? French? British? You can find it all here. The trouble is though, that you can’t be all things to all people.  We voiced specific concerns about the food to the owner who did not take kindly to our views, but, in giving credit where credit is due, took the offending items off the bill. That practise can’t hold up for long though because if the food continues to be this blasé, Refinery Grill will be the next restaurant to be swallowed up in Edmonton’s Bermuda Food Triangle.

And, to that one online reviewer on Trip Advisor who said it was worth the drive? It wasn’t, at least not for me.

You can listen to my on air segment with Mark Connolly, here.