Whitebull Hotel — Restaurant in Armidale

I love country pub meals...enthusiastic apprentices, learning how to cook solid basics at the hands of seasoned, local food tradies...not here though. Here, we are subject to a sad, counter-style dormitory sponge, in the guise of a constructed meal. When the least problematic item on two plates is the Thai farmed barra fillet, you know you got 99 problems. The undercooked char-look eggplant hides in shame under a sauce that itself needs the pre processed molten rubber ("cheese product") to hide under. This sauce isn't the quality tinned tomato sugo, laced with garlic, onion, oregano and olive oil. It's more akin to the drained contents of 85c tinned spaghetti. The frozen beans could have been somewhat rescued from their random cutting and drowning, with some seasoned butter, or olive oil (dare I ask for caramelised onion?). And yet, they are left to fend for themselves next to pieces of sweet potato, seeming survivors of a mad machete attack by a random malevolent who happened to invade the kitchen a while back. They too are left "au natural"...in itself ironic. In a world where we look to the countryside as the last vestiges of a real world view, this place is a veritable...

MISSY THE CAT RETURNS

While it's a good solid (albeit pricey) venue for a drink, and well worth your passing visit on that account, Whitebull nevertheless suffers from the typical Australian hotel problem: ie, is it a pub, or is it a restaurant? The answer is 'no'. Whitebull's restaurant table seating and patrons make it awkward to find a comfy spot to sit as a pub; but the pub micro-tables and crowds of drinkers make it awkward as a restaurant. My heart went out to the decent citizens of Armidale waiting forlornly for a spot to order and eat their dinner, while I held down the last table and slowly slurped the bottom half of my craft beer. Perhaps one of these days we'll split these pub / restaurant combos back into separate parts, and be able to bump up the rating by a star.

Missy The Cat Star Ratings:

5 - a place of rare genius that merits repeated return visits

4 - a strong effort with no major shortcomings

3 - a solid, worthy effort with perhaps one important thing to fix

2 - several important things wrong, but at least one important thing right

1 - can't be given a zero, doesn't deserve a dollar (as of...

White bull has been our family favourite pub to go to for the past 4 years. In the past 3 months we have noted a decline in attention to the food and the service. If this had been a “one off” we would not complain but now that prices have increased and menu options seem more sparse there is no excuse for this.

We arrived at 5:15 and ordered when the kitchen opened so we didn’t order at a busy time. Table of 5. Hamburger was the last order placed on the table and it was very red. Couldn’t have been on the heat for more than a couple minutes in total. Ordered a medium rare Santa Maria and it was rare. Ordered a medium Santa Maria and it was medium rare. The rump and schnitzel was okay. The chips even were not as crunchy as normal. We ordered drinks twice and not one glass was removed from the table the entire night. Service now consists of delivering the plate to the table. Hint…if you are walking back to the kitchen you can take back some of the dirty empty glasses. Very disappointed and really hope they bring the quality and service back. For now I’ll be taking business elsewhere and cooking...