(“On the Menu” restaurant review, Page 5, Arts and Leisure, Steel City Chronicle, August 13, 1978, Sunday Edition)

By Tom Kalamaku

Dear Readers, we have a treat for you today!

Here in Steel City this week, I was able to attend the grand opening of Devlin Lettbeck’s latest, exciting culinary offering, Dev’s Dine-In, Armada II. This newest restaurant, based on the original Armada, previously of Tap City, will be his latest foray into the realm of fine seafood.

Mr. Lettbeck has been trying to get dining out with quality and style in both Steel City, and in his original home, Tap City, since first hitting the restaurateur scene in 1958 — that’s when Devlin’s Place opened on Chestnut Street in Tap City’s Southside neighborhood. With its long, narrow dining room, approachable American diner style menu and mosaic brick walls, it was the restaurant that made Lettbeck. Consistently busy, consistently popular, and consistently consistent: You always knew what you would get when you went to Devlin’s, and you knew it would be fabulous!

That was the feeling at Devlin’s Place for almost three years, until the devastating events of the Q’Orn Invasion. While heroes such as the BoyScout, LassoLass, and even noted local Tap City hero, Fromage-Rouge, were ultimately able to end the trans-dimensional invasion, many landmarks in Tap City suffered, Devlin’s Place being one of the many notable sites reduced to rubble during the struggle. Many Tap Citizens tried to aid Mr. Lettbeck in rebuilding, but he chose instead to work towards opening a new restaurant in another neighborhood.

He expanded across those next two decades, with a half dozen other restaurants and concepts. Armada was next to open, offering the daring diners of Tap City’s Pesceville neighborhood an upscale, Old World seafood dining experience at reasonable prices. This idea would become a core concept that Devlin would continue returning to on his decades long journey.

Armada was later leveled when industrialist billionaire, Max Meldham used Eminent Domain laws to buy out most of the properties in the Pesceville area to build his now infamous Meldham Towers Research Labs. (We all remember that unfortunate event that led to a swarm of gigantic crabs, rampaging across most of Pennsylvania’s farmland, screaming the lyrics to “Lovers Concerto” in German. No need to rehash that here, Dear Readers.)

Later, in 71, Lettbeck brought this same idea to his newest establishment in glitzy, downtown Darkholme, with the Metro! Sadly, the Metro was forced to close within months of its initial opening when a fight between notorious criminal gang leader Laugh-Riot and his eternal nemesis, the BroodKing caused extensive damage to the Metro as well as to several surrounding establishments.

Devlin then opened his most successful venture to date in MidLanticCity, New Jersey, with the opening of Muffin’Stuff’s Bakery and Casino.

While Muffin’Stuff’s became a regular attraction on the classic Midlantic Boardwalk, weathering several gangland turf wars, and even one invasion of the New Jersey coastline by the Undersea Armies of SubMan, Devlin’s donut-dealing property proved to be a neighborhood rallying point, where even the beloved heroes of the ironically named SmashAmerica held off the Armies of SubMan the Sea King. Sadly the eatery made more money for Lettbeck by selling New Jersey superhero memorabilia, than it has done as a bakery or a small casino. Do try their croissants, though. They make the trip worth it with every bite.

Returning to his old stomping grounds in Tap City, Devlin then set his eyes on opening an Italian style eatery— this time with roughly 250 seats in an office park in Radiustown Center, with a multilevel valet lot, a roving Martini cart, a giant, glassed-in terrarium patio with the best musical talent he could hire in Tap City, and a menu that is to this day equal parts surprisingly original Tuscany inspired dishes, and shamelessly nostalgic kids’ fare. The wait staff are notoriously physically fit, Mr. Lettbeck’s hiring standards are rigorous, and the staff are both well trained and well dressed, wearing only the best “Business” attire.

Lettback has always been at his best when he’s working with a theme — whether he’s pulling a fantastical vision of Pre-War of Evolution Cuba, the Martian/Basque Pilgrimage Landscapes or even his most recent offering, based on Mexico’s Domed Serpent City, Sugar-Skull Island offers a fun filled dining experience of fun live music and inspired tapas plates.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Well, last night I was able to attend the opening of Armada II!

With Armada II, Lettbeck is still dreaming of seafood, but this time with a twist, Andalusian fare. Entering, you might marvel at the atmosphere, with dark wood interiors and scarlet table services. The exotic yet homey addition of hanging fixtures meant to look like flickering candelabras, with the staff all adorned in traditional Andalusian attire. Lettbeck even had a mosaic commissioned on one wall of the dining room that supposedly mirrors the mosaic of his original eatery, Devlin’s Place.

Lettbeck invokes the feel of late medieval Spain in the gleaming sword-wielding Chef and Head Waiter, specializing in slicing both fish and meat delicacies on an expansively huge butcher-block table in the middle of the dining room. This smiling, darkly handsome man checks each dish for plating and accuracy as they go out to each table.

Once ordered, little treats, extravagant salads, and extra dishes are walked out to tables just for fun by smiling Spanish Maidens. Like a little cheesecake with your meal? Armada II has thrown some spice in that mix!

It’s roast suckling pig or Ruby Jeweled Duck if you give the kitchen 72 hours’ notice and, for the rest of us, a greatest-hits mix of Armada’s original seafood­ setup, but gilded here and there with toasty, fiery flare of the Iberian Peninsula. There’s a new “a la plancha” section that takes advantage of the charcoal grills the Tap City never had room for, plus a .

Amada uses the pizza oven for making paella, and for flatbreads topped with short rib and horseradish. From the grills come head-on prawns dressed in lemon and smoke, Ibérico pork tenderloin and Wagyu skirt steaks, thin slices of paprika-and-garlic­ chorizo Bilbao, blistered and so sweet, they taste almost candied. Three skewers of the sausage slices were about one and a half too many. The flavor was one-note, and they were exhausting to chew.

Service is personable, though not yet polished. At times, the various wait staff seemed to not speak the English language well, there are always bumps in any new road that need smoothing out, and Devlin Lettbeck is on this new road for the long haul, Dear Readers! The acting the staff put into the service of the ambiance of “Medieval Spain” was masterful! Some of the younger waitresses acted as though they were actually from the Middle Ages, and pretended to not know what items like wrist watches were. All very entertaining and adds to the atmosphere!

The team seems genuinely thrilled to walk you through the menu; suggest wines, cheeses, charcuterie, and they take the necessary time explaining the scarcity of food from “their own, darker, harder times.” The selection of Spanish sherries is top notch; and the staff tell you how wisely you’ve chosen your meal path, no matter what it is you pick. The plates come as they come. Endive hearts with Serrano ham and a Cavern style blue-cheese, like taking a workaday, dull, wedge salad and forcing it into the realm of “interesting” by making it take a semester overseas. A long white plate with an ellipsis of cod steaks — ­perfectly crisp on the edges and flakey, light interiors and held in place by dots of orangey-red Catalonian romesco that I sopped up with a torn piece of delightfully dark bread when the cod steaks were gone. The gambas al ajillo needed a soft bread to absorb the lemon and garlic sauce, and LOW and BEHOLD! A soft “pita” style bread was produced for just that application!.

I enjoyed the plating of the lamb albóndigas, served in their own little curl of a bowl made from fried potato, even if potatoes are a New World food, it’s too tasty to let the anachronism ruin the dish. And the staff are all so excited by the “buntata bowls,” how could one possibly refuse?

Which, really, is the secret to this wondrous place. Armada II is a vision of Medieval Spain that Devlin Lettbeck has brought beautifully to the fore here, refined across decades and tens of thousands of plates, and many ruined establishments. It has now been made consistent but never the same. And while last night’s grand opening was attended by the likes of the Mario Damien, Steel City’s newly elected mayor, local celebrities such as the Karl Nostromo and his family of Science Delvers, one could also notice, Dear Readers, were you to look carefully, a selection of Steel City’s own Superhero set.

The Octomotrist sat at the bar, nursing a decidedly tasty Dark&Stormy, while one table towards the back, if you were to casually look, you might spy Steel City’s Iron Rats arguing over who gets the last piece from their order of albóndigas. Giant-Gina and her husband, the Meadowlark, sat near the lute playing entertainer, gazing deeply into one another’s eyes, as the newly married tend to do. And who could blame them? The atmosphere of Armada II is just right for a romantic night!

So, throw off your inhibitions, Dear Readers, and make for Armada II as soon as you can! You never know what tomorrow brings!

Twenty years gone from the dream of a young chef trying to make a name for himself in this and other cities, Armada returns here, Armada II now, is surprising because it feels new. What Tap City lost, Steel City now can enjoy nightly! It feels alive. It feels thoughtful in a way that fourth, fifth, seventh… locations never do and as a result manages — even in the suburbs — to come off less like a carbon copy of something fondly remembered and more like a fresh-eyed return to someplace beloved.