I’ve been
mad keen to visit The Crispy Duck on Whitchurch Road for a long time.
They’ve won
Oriental restaurant of the year in the South Wales Echo Food & Drink awards,
a clutch of people have recommended it, and their menu of pan-Asian food
reads really well (think sushi, yakitori, noodles and Cantonese classics amongst
others).
They’ve clearly
got a broad fan-base too. On the Thursday evening we visited, the clientele ranged
from Asian businessmen to toned crossfitters and a large group celebrating an
80th birthday party.
As we chose from the menu, we ordered a couple of beers and nibbled on a bowl
of complimentary deep fried snacks that were light on seasoning and flavour.
Whilst
there’s a ton of interesting sounding dishes on Crispy Duck’s menu, its expansiveness and the seemingly arbitrary differentiation between some of the starters
and mains (beef teriyaki (£8.80) is a starter whilst crispy duck salad (£5.50)
is a main) made ordering more of a conundrum than usual.
Put it this
way, constructing a meal of adequate size and balance took longer than my usual
ten seconds.
To start we
shared a couple of dishes.
A plate of
chicken gyoza (£5.50) was excellent. Delicate dumplings encased a light chicken
and spring onion filling. A salty & citrusy ponzu dipping sauce was the
ideal companion.
Disappointingly,
a dish of crispy duck (£5.50) didn’t deserve its name above the door of the restaurant. Served as
2 ready-rolled pancakes, the portion was a little skimpy, the meat wasn’t crispy and the
pancakes were on the dry-side.
For mains,
Mrs G went down the sushi route whilst I went stir fry.
Scottish
salmon and avocado rolls (£6.80) looked pretty as a picture and tasted very
good. However, a layer of chewy nori made for a messy eat.
Inari sushi
(£3) were excellent. A soft pouch of flavoursome fried tofu cocooned moist,
firm & well seasoned rice.
My honey
beer chicken (£6.80) was a mixed bag. A tender chicken breast surrounded in a
delightfully light and crispy batter was let down by a one-dimensionally sweet
honey beer sauce.
Steamed
rice (£3) was pleasingly sticky but lacked any seasoning.
Crispy Duck’s
brief dessert menu reads like an afterthought - assorted cakes with special
fruit anyone?
The reality did nothing to dispel this first impression.
A scoop of
tasty green tea ice cream was accompanied by a grainy red bean number (£3).
Apple
crumble tray cake (£4.80) was pappy with an unforgivably soft crumble topping.
It was paired with a scoop of generic vanilla ice cream.
There’s a
lot I like about The Crispy Duck – the super friendly service, aesthetically
pleasing plating and on occasion very good food are all big pluses. However, it’s
the fine details which let many of the dishes down. With a menu of such scope, it
could be argued that this is inevitable.
The details:
Address - 21 Whitchurch Road, Heath, Cardiff, CF14 3JN
Telephone - 029 2062 8008
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