The Smoke House, Pontcanna, Cardiff, BBQ restaurant review

The Smoke House in Pontcanna is the third member of Cardiff’s BBQ restaurant trinity.

Having already got my paws dirty at the awesome Hang Fire and the less awesome Fire Island, I’d been looking forward to completing the picture with a visit The Smoke House.

The experience was enjoyable but...

Whilst Smoke House’s exposed wood, chalkboard and grey toned dining space is gorgeous

and they have a cracking range of interesting flavoured American craft beer (the citrusy Magic Hat IPA was particularly lush),

and service is super slick and friendly (complimentary pre-dinner pretzels and minging Hershey’s Kisses brought with the bill were a nice touch),

a BBQ restaurant is ultimately all about the meat, and it’s in this area that the Smoke House disappoints. 

A half rack of ‘Memphis’ style dry rub ribs (£13.95) were tender but hadn’t been trimmed sufficiently to remove the cartilage and small bones. More significantly, too subtle smoking and the drenching of the meat with sweet barbecue sauce contributed to a samey experience. Sides of apple slaw, crisp fries, and a pot of smoked garlic mayonnaise were very good, whilst a pan of BBQ sauce was surplus to requirements.

Mrs G’s pulled pork (£10.95) was tasty but suffered from the same problems - it was all just a bit soft and sweet. A bit more restraint with the sauce, a bit more smoking and some more textural contrast would have improved the dish. Sides of onion rings were good but lacked the uber-crispness of the best. A pot BBQ beans also contributed to the relentless BBQ sauce action.

A side dish of brisket (£3.45) was once again swimming in BBQ sauce. As such, whilst the pulled pork and brisket should have been dramatically different, there was actually very little to differentiate them.

Our other friends ordered slow smoked BBQ chicken (£10.95), a nice juicy half chicken with no discernible smoke flavour, and a Smokehouse burger (£9.50) which was described as good but unremarkable.

For dessert, a warm pecan pie combined a light syrupy filling with crisp pecans. A scoop of creamy vanilla ice cream was good but an unnecessary slick of chocolate syrup conspired to mask the flavour of everything else on the plate.

Baked New York cheesecake was pleasingly light but could have done with a citrus note to balance its richness.

Key lime pie with crisp pastry and a whipped, sharp, creamy filling was the strongest of the trio of desserts.

Our meal at the Smoke House was fine. In fact, it was only the smoked meat which was a real disappointment. 

But here’s the thing... a BBQ restaurant is all about the BBQ. 

The details:

Address - 77 Pontcanna Street, Cardiff, CF11 9HS

Telephone - 029 2034 4628

The Crispy Duck, pan-Asian restaurant review Cardiff

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 80^th 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

Web - http://www.thecrispyduck.co.uk/