Mike A.
Yelp
It pains me to post this review.
I live on the Southside / Tri-Cities, where higher expectations in dining choices compared to many Atlanta neighborhoods is sparse, so a place like The Manchester Arms who has gotten some publicity on the likes of 'Good Eats ATL' created the hope that it may be a Southside dining destination that is greater than Hapeville's Dwarf House or East Point's Taco Pete was welcome.
But it's not.
I have a rule of thumb before eating at Chinese fine dining. It's try the shrimp fried rice first. If they can't do that, no reason to spend top dollar at their house specials.
The same held true for The Manchester Arms.
I was enticed by their specials - a filet, a ribeye, a flounder - all at market price. Fish and chips (to match the English pub theme). $16 pub burger.
All the things and prices you expect at a decent gastro pub. gastro pub? foodie pub? pub that has good, quality food.
Maybe these things are good, so it's not fair for me to even mention them, but I have been so jaded by less than good (lets call it shitty standard) foods on the Southside, that I opted to use the fried rice litmus test for pubs. Try the wings.
I ordered the smoked wings that you can get tossed in your choice of sauces, or plain and sauce on the side for dipping. Got mine tossed in my choice, hot sauce. My dinner guest had the wings plain with hot sauce on the side.
The wings came and while they may have been initially smoked, had been flash fried. They were so dry that they had no moisture whatsoever. The hot sauce was pasted on them as if a already cooked wing had been covered in hot sauce and then place in an air frier, painting the sauce on the over-dried crust of what was once a chicken wing.
Thinking this may an exaggerated result of the sauce, I tried the plain cooked wing of my dinner guest, only to realize that the issues was multilayered - that the wings themselves were dry and unappealing.
So, contemplate this - we're on the southside of Atlanta, where wing places are, colloquially, a dime a dozen. But, I'm paying 75% more money for a wing that I could have gotten at a place called Lit Wings, or Deez Wangs for a product that I feel confident 75% of people would feel is 75% less appealing.
It's SO frustrating.
I want this place to be better.