Oriel's Modern Meat Shop, Pontcanna sandwich shop review

A good sandwich is one of life’s greatest pleasures. 

The interplay of contrasting textures, flavours, and temperatures all stuffed inside top-drawer bread make it the perfect handheld meal. 

However, just because a sandwich looks the business doesn’t mean it tastes the business. 

So many 'Grammable sandwiches cram in far too much filling, throwing the ratio of bread to filling out whack. And don’t get me started on buns and loaves that haven’t been engineered properly to contain their filling. 

Oriel’s Modern Meat in Pontcanna, a sandwich shop, pie purveyor, roast dinner rustler and meatmonger, certainly know what they’re doing when it comes to making a tasty sandwich. 

Owned by the same team as the excellent Oriel Jones butcher in Canton and run by the friendly Helen, they opened their doors on the former site of Cegin Oriel earlier this year. 

Mainstays on their menu include breakfast buns, carvery subs, ginormous sausage rolls, and a selection of cook at home meat and condiments. 

Out of the four sandwiches I’ve tried, Oriel’s Marry Me chicken focaccia, which is based is based on the viral TikTok dish of the same name, came out on top. When it was taken off the menu briefly during the summer there was a public outcry, and it was the first dish to sell out at their recent Sticky Fingers kitchen takeover. I can see why - it’s an addictive melange of naughtiness. 

Crisp crumbed chicken pieces were bathed in a proposal-inducing combination of cream, garlic, chilli, sun blush tomato and parmesan. Topped with even more parmesan and a few leaves of spinach, it was all crammed into a soft and squidgy focaccia. On the side was a well-sized pile of impeccably crisp and well salted fries. For a tenner you get a hell of a lot of bang for your buck.

A hella good breakfast bun (£8.50, served until 12pm) was a close second in the rankings. A sturdy yet soft crumbed challah roll was filled with a slab of 24 hour bacon, which was essentially ridiculously tender slow-cooked pork belly, a runny-yolked fried egg and an ooze of American cheese. A good squeeze of brown sauce provided vital cut through. 

The final filling, a golden wedge of hash brown, was impeccably crisp with a soft textured interior. I removed it from the bun as otherwise there's no way I would have been able to get the sandwich into my gob. 

Oriel’s sausage rolls (£5) are always a banker too. A monster of chorizo sausage roll was all meat killer and no breadcrumb filler. Encased in golden, flaky pastry, at the bottom of the well-seasoned sausage meat sat nuggets of paprika-spiced chorizo.

A spicy BBQ chicken melt (£8.50) was a corker of a special over the summer. A soft toasted sub was overflowing with tender chicken in a sweet and savoury BBQ sauce and topped with molten spicy cheddar. Once again, a handful of Spinach leaves gave the merest illusion of healthiness.

I also enjoyed guzzling their steak sandwich (£10), another menu mainstay, in the sunshine of Pontcanna Fields. 

More of that house-made soft crumbed focaccia was stuffed with well-flavoured steak slices and crisp salty fries dressed with creamy peppercorn sauce. A few of the steak slices were a touch chewy in places and so perhaps would have benefited from being cut slightly smaller and I would have loved some more of that peppercorn sauce to dunk my chips in. 

Oriel’s Modern Meat Shop serves just the kind of comfort food that I crave on a weekly basis. Fortunately, it’s a ten-minute walk from my work so I’m going to work my way through everything on their menu… or I might just order their Marry Me chicken sandwich on repeat. 

The details:

Address - Oriel's Modern Meat 221 Cathedral Road, Pontcanna, Cardiff CF11 9PP

Web - https://www.instagram.com/orielsmodernmeat

Flat Iron, Kings Cross, London restaurant review

Yes, I know Flat Iron is a chain with fifteen branches across London and three more across the UK that are either open or set to open soon.

And, I know that I don’t normally to review chains because they homogenise the identity of cities at the expense of interesting independents.

But, it would be disingenuous of me to say that I never visit chains.

Crispy Dosa, Honest Burger, Greggs and Din Tai Fung are all places that I’ve been to in the last few years.

Furthermore, Flat Iron isn’t just any chain, so I thought that it was worth writing about.

Firstly, it was founded by Charlie Carroll one of the co-owners of the Devonshire, the UK's most hyped pub. Whilst a table at the Devonshire is rather tricky to come by, it’s a lot more straightforward to visit a Flat Iron.

Secondly, unlike the encyclopaedic menus that many chains offer, Flat Iron have taken a single dish, the flat iron steak, and put it at the very core of their business model.

Their menu also eschews starters and desserts in favour of a compact selection of mains. It enables Flat Iron to turn tables very quickly and have a streamlined ingredient inventory, both of which must be important factors in the success of their model.

Knowing that we wanted something quick to eat before catching a Eurostar, I decided Flat Iron Kings Cross would fit the bill.

Arriving just before midday, there was already a gaggle of people waiting outside its doors to open. It’s a looker of a place with its exposed brickwork, wood-panelling and racing green paint; there’s apparent age and class belying its budget price point.

Despite the lack of starters on Flat Iron’s menu, as soon as we sat down a pot of warm, beef dripping scented popcorn arrived. It was still busy popping away in a machine behind us providing reassurance about just how fresh it was.

Whilst Flat Iron’s menu focuses on their headline dish (£15), there’s also a burger (£14), ribeye (£19) and wagyu steak of the day (£23). Furthermore, there’s a choice of seven different sides, all of which range from £3.50 to £4.50 and four different sauces for £1.50. I can’t think of many places where you can get a steak and sides for this kind of price, even in Cardiff.

From the concise wine selection, which is all available by the glass, we order a juicy Sangiovese (£9.50) and a smooth, red berry-packed malbec (£8.50).

Orders were taken within a few minutes of sitting down and our food arrived in approximately the amount of time it takes to cook and rest a flat iron to medium rare.

Presented on a cast iron and wooden slab with a miniature cleaver, it was a lovely looking bit of meat. With an excellent tenderness and good (if not the most deeply aged) flavour, it was a very tasty steak. It’s worth noting that Mrs G's steak was fattier and a bit smaller looking than mine.

On the sauce front, a silky bearnaise honked nicely of tarragon whilst peppercorn delivered a warming meaty hit.

Aubergine, mozzarella and tomato bake (£4.50) was a melanzane parmigiana by any other name and it was a hot mess of deliciousness with a good ooze of mozzarella and compelling crusty edges.

Creamed spinach (£4) did the job but was the least impressive of the sides.

Silky smooth mashed potato (£4.50) was brought together by a pool of garlic butter, a lick of bone marrow and crunchy batter puffs. It was decadent stuff.

Whilst there’s no dessert on Flat Iron’s menu, our bill was charmingly accompanied by cleaver tokens that we could exchange for a swirl of Tahitian vanilla soft serve. 

Served in a shatteringly crisp waffle cone and dusted with chocolate, the sweet and milky ice cream was a dead ringer for Joe's vanilla.

Stuffed yet relaxed, we were in and out of Flat Iron within just over thirty minutes, meaning there was no dash required to get to our train on time.

Flat Iron is certainly one of the best chains I’ve visited in a long while and an impressive business model to boot. With a branch set to arrive in Bristol later this year, I’d imagine there’ll be a Cardiff opening in the not too distant future. 

The Details:

Address - Flat Iron Kings Cross, 47-51 Caledonian Rd, London N1 9BU

Web - https://flatironsteak.co.uk/restaurant/kings-cross/