The Cat's Caboose, St. Catharines

Friday September 5

To welcome the new (and old) Classics graduate students, our colleague Ally arranged a pub night at a nearby joint, the Cat's Caboose. Though situated in a strip mall, it has a nice patio with an actual caboose in the front. I was hoping to find out why, but later when I got onto their website it took an age to load and then played such obnoxious music that I closed it down and didn't persevere. Perhaps you could ask if you go there.

We had a table in the back, so managed to have a few nice conversations with students and faculty over the music and noise (seems to be a theme here). There were many beer choices, but mostly of the undistinguished tasteless kind - the Newcastle Brown Ale is the closest to something genuine. Of the many fried choices on the menu, we opted for fish and chips - two good-sized pieces, on a generous mound of french fries - and onion rings, which were very popular all round the table. Quite decent, for pub food, though their cole slaw is unpleasantly sweet and their tartar sauce comes in a plastic packet. Every now and then, though, pub food is what you need, and Cat's Caboose can supply it in spades.