Madame Fromage, Castle Arcade, Cardiff Cafe Review

Cheese is great. Pungent Cheddar, ripe oozing Brie, filthy choccy Philly slathered over a digestive biscuit or sock-like Vacherin Mont d’or spooned straight from the container. It’s all good; except for cheese with bits in. 

I think it’s fair to say that Cardiff’s cheese epicentre is Madame Fromage in the Castle Arcade. This café-deli has an excellent selection of cheese and serves lunches for people whose eyes are bigger than their stomachs. Sounds like my kind of place then. Having meandered for a couple of hours through Bute Park and the Cardiff arcades, we were ravenous and I was in need of a cheese fix.

Madame Fromage was rammed when we visited for Saturday lunch and it’s clearly something they’re used to. A polite notice explains they’re a slow food café (not quite the original definition of the term) and that there’s often fairly long waits when it’s busy. So we placed our orders and hunkered down. Sipping on a Fentiman’s Curiosity Cola and reading the Saturday papers, half an hour passed fairly quickly and our food was upon us.

My Madame Fromage Gourmet Cheese Platter was herculean in size (£13.00). It’s meant to serve one person but you’d have to be a serious fatty like me to take it all on. Even I had to palm some off on the rest of the family. Cheeses included Caerphilly, Colston Basset Stilton, Brie, Cheddar, Gorgonzola and a horrific chilli cheese (get thee behind me Satan). Other highlights included a selection of bread including a light rye and an olive bread; meats including chorizo and parma ham; some flavoursome marinated olives and a rather good artichoke heart.

Everyone else really enjoyed their lunches.

Mrs G’s goats cheese, pesto and tomato tart (£8.00) was subtly flavoured with creamy cheese, a background note of iron rich pesto and the clean sweetness of tomato.

My dad’s first introduction to Cawl (£9.00) was a resounding success. Generously packed with huge chunks of tender lamb, carrots and potatoes this was a fine example of the national dish. It came with a slice of Caerphilly and a couple of pieces of garlic bread, which was good but overly sprinkled with dried herbs. My mum’s Mediterranean vegetable soup with bread (£4.50) was incredibly hearty; think ratatouille with a bit of stock to dilute it down.

We were all ready to pop but I’d already resolved that I couldn’t leave without a slice of dark chocolate, peanut butter and banana cake (£3.60). Peanut butter and chocolate is one of my favourite combos but the addition of banana to the mix was a wondrous thing.

Madame Fromage is one hell’uva place. For a generous, casual, lazy weekend lunch in the centre of Cardiff I can’t think of many better places. There’s also the added benefit of being able to take home a sack full of cheese to nibble on.

The details

Madame Fromage, 21-25 Castle Arcade, Cardiff, CF10 1BU

Telephone: 029 2064 4888

Web: http://www.madamefromage.co.uk

Mina, Lebanese restaurant, Cardiff Review

According to our Jordanian friend who we were dining with on Friday night, Mina is Cardiff’s best middle-eastern restaurant. Its interior is charmingly Bedouin inspired, the service is friendly and most importantly they do a mean kebab. Except for the lacklustre desserts he might well be onto something.

Whilst waiting for the starters to arrive I necked a rather fine bottle of Lebanese almaza lager (£3.25)

The selection of mezzes with Arabic bread to share (£12.50) was on the nail in every aspect. Hummus was smooth with a good whack of tahini; taboulle was fragrant and jam packed with fresh herbs; mouttabal had a lovely smoky, creamy, auberginey thing going on; falafel and kibba were crisp and well seasoned and the waraq enab were reminiscent of a hot lamby dolma.

For mains I ordered the meatiest kebab option on the menu, the mashwi mwshakal (£12.95). A mixture of chicken shish, lamb kofta and lamb shish were chargrilled to perfection. The medium cooked lamb shish and the lemon marinated chicken were some of the most tender kebab meat I’ve ever eaten. The accompanying rice was butterlicious and the pot of yoghurt sauce with a little garlic provided some welcome moisture.  

Mrs G’s Mina lamb (£11.95) wasn’t much on the eye but was a spot on piece of comfort food. A generous mound of slow cooked lamb in a mildly spiced tomato sauce was also served with some of the seriously moreish buttery rice.

Dessert was the only let down. My selection of baklava (£4.00) was fairly dry and didn’t ooze with honey like the best examples I’ve eaten. In fact I’m pretty certain it was shop bought. I was also disappointed by the accompanying room temperature squirty cream. Mrs G’s homemade yoghurt with honey and pistachios was tasty but I doubt I’d be able to tell the difference between homemade and decent supermarket yoghurt in a blind taste test.

So 2 excellent courses, 1 poor course, friendly service and a buzzing atmosphere; all in all it added up to an excellent meal. Next time I’ll just buy a bar of Dairy Milk for pudding on the way home.

The Details:

Mina Restaurant, 43 Crwys Road, Cardiff, CF24 4ND

Telephone - 02920 235212

Web - http://minarestaurant.co.uk