Burgers on my Brain, Cathays, Cardiff burger review

If you wait long enough then everything comes back in fashion, both the good and the bad.

It’s a travesty to see mullets, super baggy jeans, tie dye t-shirts and ‘dad’ trainers once again surge in popularity.

In contrast, I’m glad to see a lot more people birdwatching, wired earphones, beans (especially in glass jars) and thick patty burgers.

When it comes to burgers, over the last few years it feels like every menu now features a burger with a couple of thinly smashed patties and thicker patties have fallen by the wayside.

But the signs are there that they’re coming back in fashion.

Firstly, the arbiters of style, British Vogue say that thick patties are back in.

And secondly, Cardiff’s newest burger joint, Burgers On My Brain, focuses on thick patty burgers.

Located in Dalton Yard, a cosy covered outdoor event space just off the top of Crwys Road, Burgers On My Brain has only been open for a few weeks. Currently operating on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, it’s run by the former owner of Chronic Fried Chicken.

When it comes to making a good burger, the crucial starting point is buying good ingredients and not messing around with them too much. So, Burgers On My Brain is in a good position as they use dry aged Welsh beef from legendary Cardiff butchers Oriel Jones and potato buns from Newport bakery Nos Da.

On the menu, is a choice of three cheeseburgers, and two different fry options. I can understand why the menu is so compact as it’s all prepared singlehandedly by the chef-owner Tyler, who was working full tilt on the Sunday we visited

On tap, there’s normally local draft beer from Caerphilly’s excellent Dark Element. But, they’d just sold out when we arrived, so Tyler kindly let us bring in a few cans from Cathays Beer House around the corner. We sank a couple of lovely pale ales from Burnt Mill and Left Handed Giant.

When it came to our burgers, the intensely beefy dry aged patties combined the juiciness of a thick patty with the caramelised crust of a smashed patty. It was excellent but I’d have probably liked the option for it to have been cooked medium.

A bacon cheeseburger (£13.50) combined a soft yet sturdy and not too sweet potato roll that well held the thick patty topped with crisp smoked streaky bacon, a good poke of melted cheddar, tangy burger sauce and the balance of a little bit of raw white onion.

A Carolina (£12.50) saw the melted cheddar topped beef patty combined with sweet and punchy honey mustard barbecue sauce, pink pickled onions and a token scattering of lettuce. 

Super crisp skin on loaded fries (£7.50) were dusted with umami chicken salt and topped with heaps of crispy bacon nuggets as well as generous drizzles of burger sauce and honey mustard barbecue sauce. Dirty and delicious, I regret sharing a portion with Mrs G.

We had a belter of a lunch at Burgers On My Brain and it’s up there with the best burger joints in Cardiff. We were told that they're planning on sticking around in Dalton Yard for the long term and this makes me very happy indeed because it’s great to have somewhere like Burgers On My Brain on our side of the city.

The Details:

Address - Burgers On My Brain, Dalton Yard, Dalton Street, Cathays, Cardiff CF24 4HB

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

Fallow, London restaurant review

In the age of social media, the viral chef rules supreme. 

It must be frustrating for some chefs these days. When all you want to do is focus on cooking and running a kitchen, success can seem to depend just as much on being a social media personality as it does on your culinary skills. I’m sure many chefs choose a back-of-house career for a reason, and constantly being expected to create content probably isn’t one of them.

Chefs like Matthew Ryle, Adam Byatt, Will Murray and Jack Croft have all enhanced their reputations by pulling back the curtain on how to prepare restaurant style dishes. Each has amassed hundreds of thousands of social media followers and, I’m sure, bolstered their booking sheets as a result.

Will and Jack are the duo behind @fallowchefs, which currently has an eyepopping 1.6 million followers on Instagram. They’re also the chef patrons of Fallow, a restaurant that’s located just a minute’s walk from Piccadilly Circus and is currently ranked at 89 in the National Restaurant Awards.

Billed as serving “conscious gastronomy”, Will and Jack have done a fine job of creating menus that are both aspirational yet accessible. Dishes include crowd pleasers like a dairy cow burger (£19) or crispy fried chicken buns (£10) as well as more challenging plates such as sweet and sour pig head (£59).

As we sat at lovely high table in the window at Fallow on a Sunday lunchtime, we were surrounded by families with toddlers, groups of tourists and chichi couples, many of whom were getting stuck into a Sunday roast. Fallow have certainly succeeded in pulling in a broad customer base – a bit like Cardiff’s Pasture, which seems to appeal to everyone.

As we’d been on the booze on Saturday night, we stuck to alcohol free drinks - a fresh and fruity Dragon Punch (£11) made with tea, apricots and mint, and a highly gluggable Beavertown 0% (£8) pale ale.

We ordered a bunch of snacks, small plates and larger dishes to share, and a smoked leek Caesar salad (£16) was the first to arrive. Layered with sweet charred leeks, crisp leaves, nuggets of salty pancetta and crunchy croutons coated in a briny anchovy charged dressing, it was a first-rate salad. 

Next to show up was a silky smooth, creamy and umami rich mushroom parfait (£18) with a wonderfully complex boozy twang of port, madeira, and brandy. It was served alongside slabs of charred sourdough. I thought Tom Simmons’ version was as brilliant as mushroom pâtés could get, but somehow this was even better.  

Crisp and sweet corn ribs (£9) were coated in a compellingly savoury and smoky spice rub made with kombu and smoked paprika. They were a simple yet highly addictive snack. 

Smoked beef dairy ribs (£15), with just a few mouthfuls of meat left on the bone, were also just the right size to live up to their snack billing. I'd love to have had a go at one before it had been stripped of most of its meat. Stupidly tender and richly beefy, they were excellent dredged through a pool of intensely umami reduced cooking juices.

A cod’s head (£29) was our main event and it looked like a monster, both in portion size and personality. But in fact, it was a delicate beast that required plenty of burrowing around its various nooks and crannies to extract the equivalent of a small fillet of fish. It was well worth the effort as the meaty fish was glorious drenched in a spicy and glossy sauce that tasted like it was 50% sriracha and 50% butter.

Finally, sweet and juicy heritage tomatoes (£12) were piled on top of a bed of creamy labneh and cleverly seasoned with the crunch of seeds and fragrance of deep-fried curry leaves.

At this point, the efficient yet standoffish service that we’d experienced up until now, ground to a halt and after fifteen minutes of waiting for our table to be cleared, we gave up and asked for the bill (which included an eyebrow raising 15% service charge). 

I was seriously impressed by the elevated yet crowd-pleasing food at Fallow and I can see why Will and Jack’s cooking has amassed them over a million followers on social media. It’s slightly frustrating that it was let down by indifferent service as it didn’t come close to the level of the excellent cooking. 

The Details:

Address - Fallow, 52 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4RP
Web - https://fallowrestaurant.com/
Telephone - 020 8017 1788

Pane Olio, Rhiwbina, Cardiff Italian restaurant and deli review

Rhiwbina doesn’t exactly have a reputation for being one of Cardiff’s liveliest suburbs.

Well at least it never did when Mrs G grew up around there.

Until fairly recently, the Juboraj and Deri Inn were about as exciting as it got when it came to places to eat and drink.

But, over the last few years there’s been a string of exciting independent hospitality openings.

First, the Rhiwbina Tap opened in 2021, followed by Mesen in 2023, and a branch of Pettigrew Bakery in 2025.

And just last month, the long-awaited Pane Olio finally opened its doors.

This Italian restaurant and delicatessen is owned by chef David Thomas, a Rhiwbina native with an impressive CV to his name. He initially trained under Stephen Terry at the Hardwick before working in top kitchens in Tuscany for eight years. Returning to Cardiff during the pandemic, David then cooked at the brilliant Casanova for five years before finally striking out on his own.

By day, Pane Olio’s deli serves freshly baked bread, cold cuts, and pantry items whilst the next-door restaurant offers a set lunch menu with three courses for less than thirty quid.

When we visited on a Wednesday evening, the outside terrace was humming with people enjoying aperitivi. The classy dining room, which is less pile-it-high pizza pasta joint and more classy Tuscan trattoria, quickly filled to capacity.

Pane Olio’s compact focuses on a tight selection of antipasti, primi and secondi. Dishes include panzanella (£10), fresh taglioni pasta with king prawns and chilli (£21) and sirloin steak with rocket and parmesan (£30).

On the booze front, a red-focused all Italian list, includes a few well-priced house wines by the glass. Fruity Fiano (£7 for a medium glass), super gluggable Chianti (£7), and prosecco (£7.50) all very much did the job.

Airy crumbed focaccia and toasty crusted sourdough (£5.50) were accompanied by a bowl of grassy olive oil.

A golden arancino (£7), which was sat on a pool of fruity and creamy tomato and mascarpone sauce, was the standout of the starters. Beneath its hyper crisp exterior was a layer of courgette-flecked and mint-scented rice surrounding a core of compellingly molten cheese. Classy yet hearty, it was a sign of things to come.

Caponata (£8) saw soft aubergines and crunchy celery bound together with a palate enlivening sweet and sour tomato sauce. Nuggets of crumbly ricotta cheese and toasted almonds provided flavour and texture contrast.

I can’t see mortadella (£9) on a menu and not order it. Here, the thin slices of luxury Billy Bear sausage were nicely flecked with pistachios. Each mouthful transported me back to last year’s guzzling trip to Bologna.

Wild mushroom risotto (£18) was a decadent bit of comfort food with a bang on texture that balanced intense umami and funky mushroom flavours with luxurious cream and cheese notes. I suspect a background kick of booze might have added even more complexity.

Coarse and meaty sausage ragu (£18) was accompanied by al dente trottole pasta and a generous dusting of fresh parmesan. It was very tasty but less memorable than the risotto.

A lot of care had gone into a side salad (£5) too – mini cucumbers, baby plum tomatoes, thinly sliced shallots and an interesting mix of leaves all had plenty of flavour, were properly dressed and precisely plated.

Just the two desserts were on offer on our visit during our meal as they’d run out of panna cotta.

Thankfully, there was no shortage of tiramisu (£9). Light yet decadent, it was very good indeed. A big dollop had just the right ratio of coffee-soaked sponge, mascarpone cream, and bitter cocoa.

 A ramekin of rich and thick chocolate mousse (£9) dusted with crushed hazelnuts hit the spot too.

We had a lovely meal at Pane Olio and their classy yet big flavoured Italian cooking is another welcome addition to Rhiwbina's restaurant scene. This North Cardiff suburb has most definitely found its groove when it comes to independent hospitality.

The Details:

Address - Pane Olio, 2B Heol y Deri, Rhiwbina, Cardiff CF14 6HF
Web - https://paneolio.co.uk/

Etles, Walthamstow Uyghur restaurant review

Over the years, one of the questions that I've been asked that pops up now and again is,“Can you recommend any BYOB restaurants in Cardiff?” 

I can totally understand why. If you want to have a few drinks whilst you’re out for a meal, then the typical mark-up for wine and beer can make it a seriously expensive endeavour. 

At my last time of checking, the places in Cardiff that I would recommend are Vegetarian Food Studio, Sen BBQ and Pim's @ iCookThai. Sadly it looks as though the excellent Ponnuswamy has now closed. Although, it’s been a while since I’ve visited any of them... 

But I digress, because this week I’m writing about a BYOB restaurant in Walthamstow, where we happened to be visiting an old university friend of Mrs G. 

Etles is an understated place that’s located near Walthamstow Central tube and focuses on Uyghur cooking from the Xinjiang region of northwest China. Due to Xinjiang's location along the ancient Silk Road, Uyghur cuisine incorporates a colourful fusion of influences and utilises spices like cumin, Szechuan pepper and chilli.

I’ve only had Uyghur cooking once before when we were in Munich and fondly remember the cumin spiced meat and elastic hand-pulled noodles which we ate. 

On the menu at Etles is a selection of dumplings, hand-pulled noodles, meat skewers and sides. 

And to drink, we shared a selection of local Pressure Drop beers and German lagers, with a 20% service charge added to the bill to cover the booze.

We shared a couple of starters between three of us whilst we waited around 30 minutes for our sharing main course to arrive. 

Minced lamb filled boiled tugur dumplings (£9.99) were juicy and thin cased if a little light on flavour. However, a big hitting chilli vinegar added plenty of oomph.

Lamb kebabs (£14.99), served on their ornate metal skewers, were commendably tender and had a lovely cumin chilli marinade going on.

Large plate chicken (£39.99), Etles’s house special main dish, most certainly lived up to its no nonsense name. The large plate was laden with plenty of food for three people. It probably could have served four with a few more additional sides. 

Elastic thin flat homemade noodles, soft potatoes, toothsome peppers and nuggets of tender chicken on the bone were coating in a mammoth flavoured, warming spiced and meaty sauce with chilli, Sichuan peppercorns, five spice and bay leaf.

On the side a crisp, soft and dense crumbed naan bread (£2.99) topped with nigella seeds was the ideal mop.

We had really tasty, well-priced and laid-back meal of Uyghur cooking at Etles and it’s well worth a visit if you’re ever near Walthamstow - especially if you’re on the hunt for somewhere that’s BYOB. 

The details:

Address - Etles, 235 Hoe Street, London E17 9PP
Web - https://etleswalthamstow.com/Home.html
Telephone -  020 3620 6978