The Royal Oak - Ottawa

Not the newest Royal Oak in town, not the biggest Royal Oak in town, not the nicest Royal Oak in town but probably my favourite. It has a second level patio with a view that overlooks the canal!!! It's everything that you'd expect from a pub or a Royal Oak. The burger and wings are ok. I haven't tried to much else from the rest of the menu that I would order again. However sitting here, catching some sun and watching the boats and runners go by while having great conversation and laughs with good company make this spot pretty awesome. The place can be busy but never to the point where you can't get a seat.

I am not really the biggest fans of the Royal Oak, as a fact I am not overly fond of Irish or English style pubs, there are too many of them and they tend to be the same and the Oak is an embodiment of this averageness. Either way I found myself at this Royal Oak Sunday morning cheering on a friend doing the army run and it was not bad. First the positives, the location and the patios. It 's right on the canal and the downstairs patio has good shade while the upstairs one offers a brilliant view of the canal. The service is also friendly and their beer selection is pretty good (yes I had a beer on Sunday morning, don 't judge me lol), although I wish they had more local stuff and less big brewery stuff. In terms of food, I had breakfast and it was an Irish breakfast thing, homefries, sausage, egg, cheese, onions, peppers all layered, it was very tasty, but steep in price for a breakfast. A big problem (one that knocks off a whole star) is that the coffee was cold and awful. It 's Breakfast, at least have fresh, hot coffee for god 's sakes, especially on a cold and windy morning! Overall, this Royal Oak has a nice view but I wouldn 't go out of my way for that view. There are a lot of better pubs around, but if you really want to show people the majesty of the canal in the summer then this would be the place to do it.

Fish Tacos! If you order these do not use the taco sauce that comes with it, it 's Sariacha and hotter than.., we 'll, you know how hot that stuff is. I made the mistake of covering the tacos in this sauce (nothing indicating it 's Sariacha), took one bite and knew the tacos were unedible. I explained to the server that sariachi is NOT taco sauce. At no point was I offered another round of tacos. The restaurant knows nothing about how sariachi is used it 's meant to add heat and some flavour but it is not a salsa or taco sauce by any means. No refund, no return, no nothing.

This restaurant has the worst service I have ever experienced. It was slow, rude, and it felt like every question I asked was considered annoying.

Just the right size, not too small or too big! The staff is very friendly and the food here is better than other places I've tried.