Armenia
is famous for unique cuisine enriched with thousands year old traditions.
On top of it Armenians are known for their generosity and perfection in cooking.
The combination of these qualities takes Armenian cuisine to the next higher
level. It is pure heaven for enjoyment and exploration of ethnic dishes and
flavors of traditional food.
In
Yerevan new restaurants open every week and every restaurant has its own style.
Most are different from each other and some of them are quite eccentric. From
the side, it looks like a contest for most bizarre and unusual restaurant
of Yerevan. Fierce competition forced restaurant owners to come up with some
intricate designs and different ways of attracting new customers.
There
are three types of restaurants in Armenia, fancy restaurants, traditional
restaurants and cafes that serve full course meals.
For
Armenians, ethnic pork barbeque is the same as classic hamburger for Americans.
Over the years, Armenians reached perfection in preparation of the best pork
barbeque and kebob in the world. The traditional restaurants' main dish is
barbeque, but they also serve other ethnic dishes, such us Chashlama, Kyfta
or Chash. These restaurants usually located in outskirts of the city or in
some scenic areas. The best examples are restaurants on Proshian Street, known
as Barbeque Street. You can also find great dinners in Hrazdan River gorge
and Myasnikian Avenue. In Armenia almost every restaurant falls into this
category, however they all have local flavors. For example, restaurants around
Lake Sevan known for their famous fish dishes and in Dilijan for the Oyster
Mushroom dishes. Armenians call scenic restaurants Veteroks, meaning breeze
in Russian. So, if you want to have the best Armenian barbeque then go to
restaurants on the Proshian Street. The prices are moderate and affordable.
They are also great for celebrations, and large groups of people.
Downtown
restaurants, like Deauville or Bellagio usually do not serve the best barbeque,
but they are good for other traditional dishes. You can find the best Armenian
barbeque in restaurants outside of the Yerevan. Most of them are using fresh
meats from the local farms, unlike the Yerevan's restaurants that sometimes
use frozen or even imported meat.
Our advice is to try other local food when traveling outside of the Yerevan.
For example, try Oyster Mushrooms in Dilijan, Rainbow Trout in Sevan, and
do not forget to try marinated appetizers and fresh vegetables.
Yerevan
downtown is known for fancy restaurants. Some of them called international
restaurants, but they are not really international. In the end they all have
some Armenian flavor. In fact, the blend of international cuisine with Armenian
creates a great combination. To try ethnic home-style Armenian food visit
restaurants like Caucasus Tavern or Dolmama. If you are looking for international
food or a formal restaurant, then Hotel Yerevan's restaurant is the perfect
place for you. You will notice in most restaurants a large variety of dishes
with the exception of Dolmama. It takes long time to go over the menu and
decide what to order. Even if you desire something that the restaurant does
not have they probably will order your food from somewhere else, just to keep
you happy. Service in most restaurants is excellent. Unlike in US, there is
no set percentage for the tips. You can leave whatever you think is appropriate,
however we recommend 15% tip for the exceptional service.
Cafes
and nightclubs of Yerevan are best for drinks, deserts and coffee, but almost
all of them serve full course meals. In summer some of the restaurants, like
Deauville or Marco Polo open sidewalk cafes. In general cafes are the best
for the brief lunch or light food, so we recommend going to the real restaurants
for the dinner. Prices in cafes are very similar to the restaurants.
The nightclubs also provide full course menu and are good places to eat after
12am with the addition of the show. We have not tried food in the nightclubs,
as for the drinks and deserts they were perfect. Prices in the nightclubs
are slightly higher than in the restaurants. We recommend to stay away from
large fruit salads. For example, Omega nightclub counted and priced each slice
of the fruit separately, so that no one could understand the check. The fruit
salad could cost you over $25, which is very expensive for Armenia and does
not make any sense.
When
you are in Armenia, you should try Armenian wine. Great complement to the
steak or barbeque is Vedi Areni or Old Erivan red dry wines. From the semi-sweet
wines Vernashen has unique and rich flavor, but does not go well with the
meats. Armenia also produces excellent beer, some of them are made using the
400 BC recipes of ancient Urartu. If you prefer the hard liquors, every restaurant
has the great variety of Armenian or Russian vodka. Evenings in the cafes
are best enjoyed with the glass of Ararat Armenian cognac and coup of espresso.
We
hope you will enjoy food in Armenia
Nightlife
and entertainment Printable Version
Yerevan
is full of nightlife. Most cafes and restaurants are open until 12am and after
that you can always find some place that is open until morning. The nightlife
in Yerevan gets more active during the wintertime, when weather is cold and
sidewalk cafes are closed for the season. Usually, the shows and entertainment
in nightclubs start around 9pm and continues until 11pm. After 11pm adult
shows like exotic dancing and striptease take place.
Most
nightclubs of Yerevan are very similar to each other. For example Omega and
Charlotte have almost the same shows and similar design. Evening entertainment
include performance of some the Armenian famous singers and entertainers.
One of the best clubs that host the live show is Pioneer on Bagramian Avenue.
You will find an interesting atmosphere, but one of the drawbacks of Pioneer
is the thick cloud of cigarette smoke, that is unbearable after few hours
inside. Most of the high-end clubs have entertainment fee, which is added
to your bill and varies from $5 to $15. The fee does not include anything,
so expect to pay extra for food and drinks as well.
In
addition to great variety of drinks, the nightclubs of Yerevan serve traditional
and international meals. The Areni vines of Pioneer and Omega are exceptional
and really worth trying. Omega nightclub have very good desert, but beware
of a large fruit salads. In our experience with fruit salads, they counted
and priced each slice of the fruit separately, so that no one could understand
the check. Fortunately that was the only bad experience we had in Omega. The
service in most high-end nightclubs is good. If you decide to stay and watch
the striptease shows then you can ask waiter to change large bills to a smaller
drams or dollars. They also accept dollars if you ran out of drams in the
middle of night.
If
you want to relax and enjoy the great late show we recommend Omega nightclub.
It is located on Terian Street, right after Opera Square. The design of Omega
is very interesting and impressive with the service and atmosphere that is
quite different from other places we had visited.
In
Yerevan you can also find lower end nightclubs that cost less, but we would
recommend staying out of them. The underground small places remind local gang-nests
with bunch of shady people sitting in a thick cloud of smoke.
Other
nigh activities in Yerevan include casinos and dancing nightclubs. However,
we would recommend avoiding casinos, save that experience for Las Vegas or
Atlantic City.
In
summer you will enjoy late nights spent in open-air cafes rather than in nightclubs.
Some of the cafes are open late and have live music.
The
nighttime entertainment in Yerevan is in the constant development stage, so
expect to find more new and interesting places every year. In the future we
will update our guide with new reviews. Please tell us about your experience
with Yerevan and will gladly publish your story on our website.
Zanazan
Restaurant Address: Village Tsapatagh (57 kilometers from the lake peninsula),
Sevan Phone: (+374 10) 547888 URL:www.tufenkian.am E-mail:tufhost@arminco.com
