Entertainment Book 09/10: Complimentary Main Course whenever another of equal/greater value is purchased (up to $40 value)
Situated about 3 minutes walk of my office building, this place has been a joint for our crazy, proper, farewell, random lunches for a while now, and over the durationof my employment at SKM, I have seen more than 3 changes in management of this place – which really makes me wonder, “what is going on?!” sometimes. That said, it’s not the management we’re eating, so let’s get down to the FOOD.
Being a bar, this place is a great little stop for a drink or two after work (especially you people working near enough to Victoria Avenue). There’s a good range of beer on tap (including Hoegaarden which is hard to come by!), and a good range of cocktails and normal spirit concoctions.
I will be doing this review in two parts:
- As an after-work bar
- As a lunch-time place to dine
I have always loved this place for an after-work drink simply because it’s nice and not too rowdy… you can actually sit down, talk and be able to listen to the person right in front of you without having to position your ear next to the person’s mouth to make out what he/she is trying to say. There is a nice courtyard area that allows people to smoke and chill at the same time – great for groups that have both smokers and non-smokers to mingle together!
Snacks are always a must for me, so we ordered:
- Beer battered Chips
- Turkish Bread with Dips
And because this review is done based on numerous visits, I shall try to remember the drinks we ordered:
- Blue Shanghai (or something like that) – Cocktail
- Two other cocktails to which I have no idea what the names were due to my lack of good memory and the time lapse that has passed…
The beer-battered chips were an absolute crowd-pleaser, with the batter covering the fat chips, topped up with a good amount of salt, served piping hot! :) It was deliciouso! The aioli is something quite unique as well – we suspect that it has been done with some form of fish-essence because when you dip your chip into the aioli and have the first bite, you will feel this sense of fishy-ness oozing out from the aioli. Took a while to get used to it but I have to say – the taste just started growing on me and the rest of the gang! We ordered another 2 portions on this occassion we had the chips, so it goes to show the greatness of those chips!! HOWEVER! I regret to say that was some time back……………………….
The turkish bread came out with a measeley two slices, and because the waitress saw us 6 people, she decided to offer us more bread free of charge! So how great was that service? *beams*. She brought out about four more to equal our numbers, and we were all very pleased with that initiative. Thumbs up! It was warm which is always a plus with turkish bread, and the dips were quite tasty – one was the usual EVOO and balsaimic vinegar… and the other was a pesto based dip which turned out to be quite tasty!
The Blue Shanghai cocktail was a crowd favourite that turned green after you stirred those two beautiful blue and yellow liquids together.
The one thing I love about Armada’s cocktails is that they’ve got a good quality with them – for some reason, I feel that their bartenders have a way with the shaker, and they are not afraid to be generous with the ingredients going into the cocktails… so for that, a huge huge thumbs up!! woo!
I don’t remember what the other two cocktails were but they were a good size and lovely to drink from my tastebud memory!
After-Work Bar: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Lunch-Time Place to Dine
I have always been a big fan of this place for lunch because of its nice ambience, interesting artwork (as you can see from the numerous photos I have taken). We were all really excited by this lunch because it had been quite a while since we last had lunch here (which was fabulous by the way).
We decided on the following dishes:
Pasta of the Day
Fish & Chips
And then some drinks:
Lemon Lime & Bitters
The pasta of the day was chicken & bacon pasta in a creamy tomato sauce topped up with rocket (or aragula as advised by my chef of a friend)… The one you see in the picture is without the bacon. I had a taste, and really it wasn’t up to scratch altho’ I loved the fact that they topped it up with the rocket. The big boo-boo of this dish tho’ – leaving pieces of chicken fat IN the dish! That’s just totally unacceptable. We were all quite disgusted.
The Nasi Goreng (which is literally fried rice in Malay) was always a dish that pleasantly surprised each of us who tasted it before this. N.L ordered this dish, and we were surprised by the serving because it is usually served in a bowl, but this time – a plate. Okay, so what? Well, it just goes to show that there must be some sort of kitchen-based change going on. And the taste just proved us even further that we were probably right. There was this amazing saltiness in the dish that left us drowning ourselves with water after (okay, so that was exaggeration but it was quite salty!). I do give it the kudos for the rather generous serving of ingredients.
The Fish & Chips had a shark being battered and fried… and I was actually looking forward to some good ol’ fashioned beer battered chips (think what I had for the after-work drinks)… but this dish came out as a massive disappointment. If not for the fact that I was actually really hungry that afternoon, finishing the plate would have been a task and a half. The chips came out really pathetic, with a lack of seasoning of salt (perhaps it all went to the Nasi Goreng?) and the fish was just hard, and chewy – not the best really.
The steak sandwich was just another disappointment right out of the bag for some reason. Steak Sandwich expert DAW was not impressed with this at all – especially when he held the steak sandwich here in Armada in high regard for a long long time.
The service was quite impecable, but food wise an overall disappointment :(
Lunch Time: 2.25 out of 5 stars
Ratings by: S.T a.k.a Miss Egg
Armada Restaurant and Bar
Telephone: (08) 9238 1888
Address: 417 Hay Street, Perth 6000, Western Australia