Zawa, Cardiff city centre, Middle Eastern street food review

If you’ve ever visited St Nick’s Market in Bristol then there’s a very good chance you’ll have come across Matina.

In case you need a primer, it’s a Middle Eastern food stall that sells delicious kebab wraps and salads; there’s always been a hefty queue outside it whenever I’ve visited; and it can be identified by the ridiculously large mountains of colourful salad that sit on its counter. If they get through that much salad every day, then they must be selling a serious number of kebabs.

Anyway, I’ll get to the point… Cardiff now has its own answer to Matina in the form of Zawa.

Located in Cardiff City Centre’s Hayes Island, Zawa is owned by cousins of the team behind Matina. They’ve clearly taken Bristol’s winning formula and transferred it over the Severn Bridge.

The first giveaway are those distinctive summits of salad, which are more Mount Snowdons compared to Bristol’s Everests.

Much like its cousin, Zawa offers a compact menu of naan wraps and salad boxes that are filled with a choice of chargrilled meat or halloumi.

With everything costing between £5.90 and £8.50, it’s the kind of thing you could eat on a regular basis without feeling too spenny.

On a Monday lunchtime, a queue formed soon after we’d placed our order at 1pm and we overheard a regular lamenting that the line will be too big if they become much more popular.

Wanting to try Zawa’s two key dishes, I ordered the mixed chicken and lamb salad box with rice (£8.50) whilst Mrs G ordered the mixed naan wrap (£8.50). As all the meat was cooked to order, there was about a ten-minute wait for it to be ready.

My hefty salad box was a riot of colour and flavour and a substantial meal for a growing man like me (I’m referring to my waistline, of course). Golden edged pieces of saffron stained chicken shish and well-herbed and juicy lamb kofte were sat on a generous pile of fluffy, cardamom fragranced rice. Fresh as you like salads included fresh mixed leaves, zingy red cabbage and lightly pickled white cabbage.

Homemade sauces showed a level of attention to detail that sets Zawa apart from the average kebab shop. There was tzatziki stacked with green herbs; hot and smoky harissa; sweet chilli that deftly avoided cloying sweetness; thick hummus; and a pomegranate jewelled salad dressing.

Mrs G ordered the mixed chicken and lamb naan, and it scored a two on the guinea pig scale i.e. it was the size of approximately two guinea pigs.

Essentially the same as my salad box but with a freshly made, soft, crisp and elastic naan instead of rice, it was an absolute belter of a kebab. Every mouthful contained a good mix of meat, salad, bread and sauce.

Lunch at Zawa was lush and cracking value for the quality and portions. It’s probably only a matter of time before they build up a cult following to rival Bristol’s Matina. The only thing going against them is the Welsh weather and the fact there’s nowhere to queue under shelter when it inevitably rains. Still, if it means the wait will be shorter, I’ll be packing my waterproofs.

The Details:

Address - Zawa, The Hayes Island, Cardiff CF10 1AH

Web - https://www.instagram.com/zawa.cardiff/

Telephone - 07472 747454

Sôs, Cardiff pop-up restaurant review

Sauces are often the underrated MVP of a plate of food. Bringing everything together whilst providing balance, acidity, levity or decadence, they’re regularly what differentiates a good dish from a great dish.

Whether it’s gravy, bearnaise, curry, hollandaise or ketchup, sauces deserve just as much of the plaudits as a slab of meat or a pile of potatoes. 

So, the fact that Sôs, Cardiff’s newest pop-up have given sauces the spotlight in their name is nice to see. 

Either that, or Sôs is a mayday call to save the UK’s hospitality scene, which seems to be constantly lurching from crisis to the next. 

Sôs is owned by business and real-life partners Rhodri Davies and Ri Meredith, who have both worked in some of Cardiff’s most high-profile kitchens, including the Heathcock and Heaney’s. Most recently, Ri was most part of the team to establish Ember as one of Cardiff’s best new recent openings whilst Rhodri has headed up the kitchen at Bodega in Lakeside. 

Having decided to strike out on their own with Sôs, Rhodri and Ri have been running pop-ups at Alex Gooch on Whitchurch Road since the end of September. 

When we saw that they were planning a collaboration weekend with the excellent State of Love and Trust in Lakeside, it gave us the impetus we needed to book a table. One of Cardiff’s best wine and beer shops, you can always rely on State to serve up delicious booze. 

£95 per person bought us a six-course menu with six tasting pours of wine - a fair price considering we've paid £75 for just a wine flight in a couple of restaurants this year.

As expected, Nat from State of Love and Trust had chosen an interesting selection of wines that each worked extremely well with their paired dish. What made the evening all the more enjoyable was Nat’s storytelling about the background to each wine and the rationale for why he had selected the pairing. 

Dinner started off strong with a posh take on chips and sauce. High end fried stuff is always the way to my heart. Super crisp and golden halves of sweet and earthy Jerusalem artichoke were dusted with savoury seaweed and accompanied by a dollop of sharp and fiery hot sôs that was tempered by thick and creamy smoked crème fraiche. The nuttiness of a glass of flor-influenced Hogan “The Lift” South African Chenin Blanc was the ideal foil. 

Next up was cuttlefish, a dish which can so easily be chewy in the wrong hands. Fortunately, a swift cook meant that it was as tender as it could possibly be with nicely caramelised edges. Soft and sweet burnt leeks and the anise hit of tarragon oil completed a light yet whopping flavoured dish. This time, a fragrant Flowergirl Albariño was another corker of a pairing. 

Onto the meat dishes, and pork belly and its paired wine were the standout of the night for me. A nudgingly tender whorl of belly with melting fat had been slow-cooked in Gwynt Y Ddraig dry cider before being scattered with nuggets of crisp crackling. Both accompanying sauces were belters - a rich and buttery sauce made using the reduced cooking liquor and a balancing sweet and sharp apple caramel puree. Domaine Sylvain Pataille Aligote, a creamy and decadent Burgundy white, held up extremely well against the rich meat. 

Venison was perhaps the most traditional looking of the dishes we ate but it was still delicious. A ruby red hunk of gamey meat was served alongside a disc of confit turnip whose flavour had been amped up by cooking it in beef fat. A glossy meat sauce, fragrant and zingy plum puree and almost Bovril-esque black garlic puree all brought something different to the dish. A raspberry-packed Peitro Caciorgna Etna Rosso was another top drawer a pairing. 

Sôs’s baked cream is most certainly part of the same branch of the family tree as a Basque cheesecake. A mound of smooth, thick and tangy vanilla-fragranced baked cream had compelling toasty and caramelised notes that worked exceptionally well with a sweet sherry poached pear, the crunch of roasted pecans and the acidity of a pear puree. Bodegas Cesar Florido Cream sherry, the same booze as which the pear was poached in, was a smooth, sweet and raisin-y accompaniment. 

Finally, the bonus course was a bonne bouche of aerated white chocolate topped with a blob of sharp blackberry puree. Tasty as it was, the booze pairing was the star of this course for me. A mixed berry mead from the acclaimed Superstition Meadery in Arizona had a brilliant fruit intensity and balancing acidity. 

We had a hell of a good meal from Sôs accompanied by some belting wines from State of Love and Trust. Rhod and Ri’s cooking combines big comforting flavours with bang-on technique, and I look forward to seeing what they’ve got planned next for Sôs. In the meantime, they're still popping up at Alex Gooch on Friday and Saturday nights until just before Christmas. 

The Details:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sos_with_a_hat/
Booking: Google Docs form

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/

The Everest Bar and Eatery, Nepalese restaurant, Cardiff city centre review

From initial impressions, you might not guess that the Everest Bar and Eatery serves some of the best Nepalese food in Cardiff.

This no-frills establishment, which is located next door to Live Lounge in Cardiff city centre, offers a big range of 24 draft beers for all tastes, including Madri, Guinness, Tiny Rebel and Staropramen; a menu of pub classics like steak and chips and fry-ups; and three shots for £10.

There’s karaoke, spotlessly clean functional furniture, crystal chandeliers, and a 90s leaning soundtrack featuring Whitney Houston, Goo Goo Dolls and Tracy Chapman.

But there are a few giveaways about Everest’s Nepalese inclination.

The first, of course, lies in the name. The second tell is the understated wall murals showing the mountain’s snowcapped peak and climbers trooping up its side. Finally, there’s a photo on the wall of co-owner Dip Prasad Pun receiving a medal from Queen Elizabeth for his bravery whilst serving with the Gurkhas in the British army.

Everest is owned by siblings Dip Prasad Pun and Jhalak Pun, who originally hail from Nepal, and are both former Gurkhas. Jhalak, who we met behind the bar during our visit, casually informed me that he’d climbed Everest a while ago, as though it was the kind of thing you might do with a spare hour on a Saturday morning. Warm and friendly, and built like a real-life Jack Reacher, I think he could probably have bench-pressed me with one arm.

To drink, we ordered halves of their eponymous Everest lager (£2.50). Crisp and malty it was a lovely accompaniment for our spicy-packed lunch.

Everest’s compact menu of Nepalese cooking offers dishes like momo, Chatpate (a crunchy Nepalese salad of puffed rice, dry noodles and vegetables), set thalis, Nepali soup, and chow mein.

My sights were laser focused on the momo. Available in chicken, pork and vegetable varieties and served with either chutney or jhol, I opted for the latter option. 

It’s fair to say that they’re some of the best dumplings I’ve eaten in Cardiff. Ten beautifully steamed dumplings were delicately encased and filled with impeccably juicy minced chicken. Fragrant in their seasoning, I think they were most likely spiked with lemongrass and ginger. 

The decuplet of dumplings were sat in a whopping bowl of thick, creamy, nutty and slightly fiery sesame and tomato soup, also known as jhol. It was a proper winter warmer of a dish and a very good feed for £13. 

Mrs G very much enjoyed her mutton bhutuwa (£13.50). An offaly good mix of liver and kidneys were coated in an intense and earthy dry spice mix. A good squeeze of lemon provided zing whilst puffed rice offered contrasting crunch. A few of the bits of offal leaned towards the dry side so a couple of spoonfuls of jhol provided impromptu saucing.

Chicken fried rice (£9) was cooked with a delicate hand. The light and distinct grained rice had a beautiful wok smokiness, delicate spicing and was nicely flecked with tender chicken pieces and mixed vegetables.

We had a delicious lunch at Everest and their jhol momo is a Cardiff city centre cheap eat that’s definitely worth setting out on an expedition for.

The Details:

Address - The Everest Bar and Eatery, 8 The Friary, Cardiff CF10 3FA

Web - https://www.theeverestbareatery.com/

Telephone - 029 2297 0309

Barry Sidings Cafe, Pontypridd cafe review

It’s easy to see why some cafes in popular parks just phone it in. 

After all, with a captive audience out for a stroll, swing or pedalo, there’s always a plentiful supply of people to whom you can flog a sad panini or a dried-out scone. 

This is certainly not what Barry Sidings Cafe have decided to do.

Located between Pontypridd and Porth in Barry Sidings Countryside Park, their menu of burgers, loaded fries, and baked goods makes a big deal of the Welsh produce they use, name checking local butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, brewers, and coffee and tea suppliers, amongst others.

There’s also a distinctly non-corporate feel to the place, with its country and western soundtrack, acoustic guitar adorned walls and pallet panelling. 

With their massive outdoor seating area, plentiful cycle parking, and bike repair shop next door, they’re also clearly catering to the multitude of mountain bikers enjoying the local area. 

Despite there being a sizeable queue when we arrived on a sunny Saturday lunchtime after a yomp up Mynydd Gelliwion, our order was served within 25 minutes. 

A black coffee, from local roastery Big Dog, was impressively smooth.

A pair of burgers were both very tasty and showcased sturdy yet soft crumbed rolls from Ivey Patisserie in Church Village and double 4oz smashed patties from The Gourmet Butcher in Whitchurch.

Both patties had a good crusty caramelisation and a juicy pink interior. Considering the burgers each cost just over £11, they delivered plenty of bang for our buck. 

I had the bacon double cheeseburger (£11.25), topped with a good ooze of American cheese, crisp streaky bacon and the freshness of sliced lettuce and tomato. It had a high end Whopper vibe but perhaps would have been even better with some burger sauce to bring it all together. 

The clear winner was Mrs G’s Oklahoma burger (£11.50), with the double patties smashed into a pile of white onions and mustard to deliver a good hit of umami sweetness, mustardy warmth, and oozy cheesiness. It was altogether a naughtier and more intensely flavoured affair. 

From the selection of loaded fries on offer, we plumped for the Teriyaki chicken version (£9). The plentiful chicken had a good tenderness and the sticky sauce a tasty sweet savoury flavour. But both the fries and batter would have benefited from more crispness. And, I’m sure the advertised garlic chives and kohlrabi microgreens that were absent would have added an extra dimension. 

We had a very tasty lunch at Barry Sidings Café, with their burgers most definitely being the standout. If you’re out for a ride, walk or twitch in the local area, then it’s well worth a pit stop. 

The Details:

Address - Barry Sidings Cafe, Porth, Pontypridd CF37 2PE
Web - https://www.barrysidings.co.uk/