Red Hot World Buffet
03-06 Hills Street
St David's
Dewi Sant
Cardiff CF10 2LE
Tel: 029 2034 2499
http://www.redhot-worldbuffet.com/redhot_cardiff.html
We all have our expectations of all you can eat buffet restaurants. They often involve lukewarm food congealing slowly under hot lamps, being elbowed out of the way by people jostling for tepid onion rings, and dishes often lacking their key component due to people shovelling the best bits of the dish onto their plates with gusto. A king prawn noodle dish without any king prawns, anyone?
Along with a range of other guests, I was invited to the launch night of Cardiff’s latest buffet restaurant Red Hot World Buffet but, due to other commitments, was unable to attend. You can read some thoughts on the launch on the blogs Cardiff Bites and Corpulent Capers . However, I was invited back to try the place on another evening and so ventured along with my other half last Friday night.*
Although located down on Hill Street, which is primarily an walkway linking the original St David’s shopping centre with the monolith that is the newer St David’s 2, Red Hot looks inviting from the outside with some dramatic flames and the ability to see inside through the huge glass windows. It was busy throughout the evening but didn’t feel too cramped, despite its size and capacitty. We were greeted by Sachin Bajpai, the Head of Brand and Corporate Marketing at the Red Hot company, who gave me a tour of the restaurant and introduced the mission statement of wanting to take all the good elements of a buffet and make them better. The emphasis is on service and quality of food, and he illustrated the ways in which the food is replenished and cooked with a focus on the customer being able to watch the dishes being created in front of their eyes.
In comparison to other Cardiff buffets there is logic to Red Hot that seems designed to prevent you from the usual all you can eat sin of throwing together random dishes onto a plate. A macaroni cheese taco experienced this year in America is a fine example of such culinary confusion. The flow of the food area presents salads and the sushi and fish first, before moving fairly logically from the Italian section of fresh from the oven pizzas and a live cooking pasta bar through to the British section (including some tasty cottage pie), the more typical fare of Indian and Chinese dishes, to the Tex Mex section and to the ready prepared desserts. The only lack of logic seemed to me to be that the live cooking dessert section was oddly located on the opposite side of the food area to the smaller desserts.
So, to the food. In the press release before the launch Helen Dhaliwal, Director of Red Hot World Buffet & Bar gave this comment; “At Red Hot, we aim to turn the image of the all-you-can-eat buffet on its head. Many people associate buffets with sub-standard cuisine, with vast vats of food that have been stewing all day. At Red Hot, our five-star chefs will cook food freshly to order in front of our customers’ eyes, so they can enjoy food of a very high standard.” How much does the restaurant live up to this aim?
Well, it's certainly better than any current buffet in Cardiff. Some dishes are obviously better than others but highlights were a freshly prepared creamy pesto pasta, the fresh salads, the Tex Mex tacos, and a small dish of lamb with spicy couscous. The sushi was slightly disappointing, however, and was the only thing that seemed like it had been sat out on display for a while. There had also been a case of shrimp theft by over-zealous eaters since the mooted shrimp and vegetable noodle dish only contained vegetables when I began to eat it. Not being a dessert lover I don’t feel qualified to pass judgement but my partner enjoyed the fresh waffle and banana ice-cream.
I’d return to Red Hot again in the future and its certainly somewhere I’d chose to go for a meal before the theatre or cinema, or whilst on a shopping trip. I like the policy of offering dishes in small ready-sized portions in bowls , like canapés, and there’s enough variety to ensure that a future visit would allow me to try the other cuisines on offer. It seemed to be very busy and I’m sure it’ll be a success. It may not be to everyone’s taste but it’s certainly a promising alternative to the existing buffets in the Cardiff area.
Costs: from £7.99 for lunch and from £12.99 for dinner.
• In the interest of transparency, our food and drink was complimentary on the night of our visit.
Showing posts with label Cardiff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cardiff. Show all posts
Wednesday, 9 November 2011
Sunday, 9 October 2011
Happy birthday ffresh
ffresh restaurant
Wales Millennium Centre
Cardiff Bay
Tel no: 029 2063 6465
http://www.wmc.org.uk/eatanddrink/ffresh/45151/
Despite only being what can loosely be called a 'food blogger' for a few months, I was lucky enough to be invited along as a guest to ffresh restaurant in the Wales Millennium Centre to celebrate the restaurant's second birthday. I've only visited once before - at an academic conference dinner - but had been impressed by the quality and consistency of the food and the helpful staff both before and after the evening.
I was also very excited to hear that the meal would be overseen by the restaurant's consultant chef Shaun Hill, from the Michelin-starred Walnut Tree in Abergavenney. I hoped we'd be in for a special night and were not disappointed.
The evening kicked off with some gorgeous canapaes of crisp warm blue cheese and sesame biscuits (as my Cheese loving other half exclaimed " you can actually taste the cheese!") and warm and moist Arancini with a lovely taste of mushroom. This was served with a fruity and fizzy wine from the Ancre Hill Vineyard and kicked the evening off in style.
We were lucky enough to have a seat in front of the kitchen and, along with chatting to fellow bloggers and other guests, this provided a great deal of entertainment. It was wonderful to see the chefs working and to feel part of the action.
The first course was red mullet with anchovies and herb crème fraiche. It was my first experience of this fish and I was impressed; the creme fraiche was creamy but light and the dish was a wonderful introduction to red mullet.
The main course consisted of roasted partridge with its own pudding, hispi cabbage and lentils and what I think, in my ignorance, was a potato fondant. Whilst I'm sure the cooking skills here were good I wasn't taken with the taste of partridge (another first for me), finding its gamey meatiness too strong for my palette. Strangely, it reminded me of liver in its strength and I'm not sure I'd order it from a menu out of choice. The sauce with the dish was lovely and rich but a little more would have been nice - the meat was also a little dry for me and some more sauce would have compensated for this. I was also confused by the pudding - it seemed eggy in texture to me and, again, was too strong for my tastes.
The dessert of hot chocolate fondant, hazelnut praline sauce and vanilla ice cream however, was a masterpiece. A hush descended on the room as we ate the soft pudding, oozing with chocolate sauce and the sticky nut sauce. Despite the apparent obsession of Masterchef contestants with making chocolate fondant I had never had one before. Even as a non-dessert lover I was utterly converted. Truly one of the best puddings I've ever experienced.
Overall, the evening was a great experience and it was also lovely to see and meet some of the Cardiff foodies I follow or chat to on Twitter in the flesh. As a newbie to the world of food blogging - and as something I do for fun - I felt privileged to have been allowed to go along to this. Whilst I'm not sure I'll try partridge again, I'm now on the hunt for a chocolate fondant to rival Shaun Hill's and am also about to place an order for some Welsh wine from Ancre Hill. We'll also be returning to ffresh in the very near future to try out some more of their food. I sincerely hope they get to celebrate more birthdays in the coming years.
Wales Millennium Centre
Cardiff Bay
Tel no: 029 2063 6465
http://www.wmc.org.uk/eatanddrink/ffresh/45151/
Despite only being what can loosely be called a 'food blogger' for a few months, I was lucky enough to be invited along as a guest to ffresh restaurant in the Wales Millennium Centre to celebrate the restaurant's second birthday. I've only visited once before - at an academic conference dinner - but had been impressed by the quality and consistency of the food and the helpful staff both before and after the evening.
I was also very excited to hear that the meal would be overseen by the restaurant's consultant chef Shaun Hill, from the Michelin-starred Walnut Tree in Abergavenney. I hoped we'd be in for a special night and were not disappointed.
The evening kicked off with some gorgeous canapaes of crisp warm blue cheese and sesame biscuits (as my Cheese loving other half exclaimed " you can actually taste the cheese!") and warm and moist Arancini with a lovely taste of mushroom. This was served with a fruity and fizzy wine from the Ancre Hill Vineyard and kicked the evening off in style.
We were lucky enough to have a seat in front of the kitchen and, along with chatting to fellow bloggers and other guests, this provided a great deal of entertainment. It was wonderful to see the chefs working and to feel part of the action.
The first course was red mullet with anchovies and herb crème fraiche. It was my first experience of this fish and I was impressed; the creme fraiche was creamy but light and the dish was a wonderful introduction to red mullet.
The main course consisted of roasted partridge with its own pudding, hispi cabbage and lentils and what I think, in my ignorance, was a potato fondant. Whilst I'm sure the cooking skills here were good I wasn't taken with the taste of partridge (another first for me), finding its gamey meatiness too strong for my palette. Strangely, it reminded me of liver in its strength and I'm not sure I'd order it from a menu out of choice. The sauce with the dish was lovely and rich but a little more would have been nice - the meat was also a little dry for me and some more sauce would have compensated for this. I was also confused by the pudding - it seemed eggy in texture to me and, again, was too strong for my tastes.
The dessert of hot chocolate fondant, hazelnut praline sauce and vanilla ice cream however, was a masterpiece. A hush descended on the room as we ate the soft pudding, oozing with chocolate sauce and the sticky nut sauce. Despite the apparent obsession of Masterchef contestants with making chocolate fondant I had never had one before. Even as a non-dessert lover I was utterly converted. Truly one of the best puddings I've ever experienced.
Overall, the evening was a great experience and it was also lovely to see and meet some of the Cardiff foodies I follow or chat to on Twitter in the flesh. As a newbie to the world of food blogging - and as something I do for fun - I felt privileged to have been allowed to go along to this. Whilst I'm not sure I'll try partridge again, I'm now on the hunt for a chocolate fondant to rival Shaun Hill's and am also about to place an order for some Welsh wine from Ancre Hill. We'll also be returning to ffresh in the very near future to try out some more of their food. I sincerely hope they get to celebrate more birthdays in the coming years.
Tuesday, 9 August 2011
An uneven evening: Crown Social, Cardiff
Crown Social
The Parc Hotel
Park Place
Cardiff
CF10 3UD
Tel. No: 029 2078 5593
Email: crownsocial@thistle.co.uk
http://crownsocial.co.uk/
In many ways, writing a review of the Crown Social, housed within Cardiff's Parc Hotel, seems slightly redundant. Firstly because, as most Cardiffians with an interest in food and dining will know, the partnership between the Crown group (who also run the Michelin-starred Crown at Whitebrook and the Crown restaurant within the Celtic Manor) and the Parc is due to finish at the end of the month.
Chef Martin Blunos is to look for another Cardiff location to open a Crown restaurant within the city and the hotel is to resume running of the Social. This is, apparently, all very amicable. I had hoped that this might be the place to finally bring a coveted Michelin star to the city and it's disappointing to see a place that had that promise (and managed to acrue 2 AA rosettes so quickly) has apparently not taken off.
The excellent local food blog Corpulent Capers also last week posted a thorough review of the Crown Social and some musings on the reasons for its failure. I'm not sure how much I can add to those thoughts but I'd suggest checking out the post.
My rush to visit the Social this week was, thus, born from the fact that I was in possession of a Travel Zoo dining voucher that I wanted to cash in before the opportunity to sample the place was forever gone. The voucher offered £90 worth of food for £45 for two - including two nibbles, four starters, two mains, two sides, and two desserts. On the face of it, this sounds like incredible value but when you consider the small plate sharing ethos of the Crown Social, it becomes less of a bargain.
Nevertheless, despite the news about the imminent parting of the ways between the Parc Hotel and Crown and despite some of the less than positive reviews and comments I've read on Twitter and other blogs, my partner and I set off to try it out for ourselves.
The first thing we were suprised by was how busy it was for a Monday night. Although I've seen many people comment that the place is like a ghost town on their visits, the place was around half full when we attended. How much of this is due to Travel Zoo punters rushing to use their coupons is unclear but it did add some atmosphere to the dining room. I can easily see how a quiet evening would seriously detract from the experience of the visit.
We started with drinks - an Oriental Sparkle cocktail was surprisingly small for its £8 cost and lacked the kick of lychee and mandarin I was promised. We thus opted for a bottle of wine with our meal which was perfectly servicable (but, hey, we're on a budget!).
The sharing concept has also come in for some critique and again I can understand this. We ordered our 2 nibbles and 4 starters and agreed that these would all be brought at the same time. This allowed some sharing between the two of us but it also meant that some of the dishes were less than warm by the time we tasted them.
Cheese fondue
The cheese fondue was my favourite of the starters that we tried. I'm a massive fan of this anyway but the cheese was gooey and just strong enough. We had to order a side of bread to finish it all off but at 90p for a fairly substantial loaf (nicely presented on a bread board with a knife) it didn't break the bank.
Beer battered whiting with tartare sauce & Grilled mackerel with Russian salad
Apparently the whiting was mostly pointless, providing some nice tartare sauce but little in the way of flavour or texture. The mackerel was reported to be well cooked but uninspiring, with the Russian salad really being a tarted-up coleslaw. Not excellent on the fish nibbles/starters front at all.
Leek and potato terrine, roast garlic and toasted hazelnuts
This was another missed opportunity; cold and bland with a fairly unpleasant texture and the toasted hazelnuts didn't add anything at all to this dish. We both sincerely wished that we had ordered something else.
Welsh pork boudin and shallot piccalilli
This was tasty and, sadly, as a nibble, too small for much of a sharing experience. Nicely seasoned meat and a very pleasant mouthful.
Seared lambs liver, cauliflower and hot caper butter
This was my partner's highlight of the meal. Having never tried liver before he was impressed with the flavour and the combination of the liver with the capers and cauliflower. I hate liver but tried it and found it better than most other livers I've tasted. Well cooked and interesting, this was one of the best dishes of the night.
For the mains we went for one fish and one meat dish and ordered them with sides of a salad and chips. The chips were chunky and soft on the inside but could have done with being crispier on the outside.
Crab tortellini and crab cream sauce
The crab tortellini looked pretty but was pretty much what it said on the menu: 5 piece of pasta with a little sauce. The tortellini had a good fish flavour but my partner reported the odd bit of shell in the dish - a cardinal sin at any restaurant but especially one aiming for such high levels!
Slow cooked lamb shoulder and crisp lamb breast
My lamb dish was very good, the meat was well cooked and tender and the sauce that accompanied it was rich. Aside from the fondue, this was my favourite dish of the evening - with a slightly larger portion and some extra garnish I would happily eat this as a main course in any restaurant.
For dessert we chose the honeycomb souffle which was light and fluffy and full of delicious surprise honeycomb textures. The lime sorbet didn't really add much to it though and the flavours didn't really match up. The souffle itself more than made up for it though.
Honeycomb souffle and coconut lime sorbet
The salted caramel chocolate slice was also very good. My only critique was the presentation - no matter how you look at it, a brown smear on a plate is not attractive. It's one of my pet hates. But the slice itself was both salty and sweet and a good size for the end of a meal.
Salted caramel chocolate slice
Overall, we enjoyed the experience at the Crown Social but there were a number of flaws. We both agreed that whilst there were flashes of excellence (the fondue, liver, the lamb dish, the desserts) there was also a great deal of mediocracy (the shell in the crab dish!, the bland lifeless potato terrine, the whiting) which made the food quality very uneven. I can see how the concept of sharing such small dishes might also be off-putting to some people and how the usually high prices also seem to jar with the concept. If we hadn't used the Travel Zoo voucher the meal would have easily set us back nearly £150. At that price, it just isn't worth it.
I think the concept of 'fine dining tapas' could work if prices were lower, portions were larger, or both. I also do hope that the Crown finds a suitable location in Cardiff although I'd wager that this won't be in the city centre. The success of more 'high-end' restaurants such as Bullys, Woods and Oscars outside of the main areas suggests that punters don't always associate the city centre with this type of place. I may well be proven wrong though (and the recent buzz around the Potted Pig does offer a counterpoint) and I'm interested to see whether that is the case.
At the moment, though, the search for a restaurant to bring Cardiff its first Michelin star goes on...
The Parc Hotel
Park Place
Cardiff
CF10 3UD
Tel. No: 029 2078 5593
Email: crownsocial@thistle.co.uk
http://crownsocial.co.uk/
In many ways, writing a review of the Crown Social, housed within Cardiff's Parc Hotel, seems slightly redundant. Firstly because, as most Cardiffians with an interest in food and dining will know, the partnership between the Crown group (who also run the Michelin-starred Crown at Whitebrook and the Crown restaurant within the Celtic Manor) and the Parc is due to finish at the end of the month.
Chef Martin Blunos is to look for another Cardiff location to open a Crown restaurant within the city and the hotel is to resume running of the Social. This is, apparently, all very amicable. I had hoped that this might be the place to finally bring a coveted Michelin star to the city and it's disappointing to see a place that had that promise (and managed to acrue 2 AA rosettes so quickly) has apparently not taken off.
The excellent local food blog Corpulent Capers also last week posted a thorough review of the Crown Social and some musings on the reasons for its failure. I'm not sure how much I can add to those thoughts but I'd suggest checking out the post.
My rush to visit the Social this week was, thus, born from the fact that I was in possession of a Travel Zoo dining voucher that I wanted to cash in before the opportunity to sample the place was forever gone. The voucher offered £90 worth of food for £45 for two - including two nibbles, four starters, two mains, two sides, and two desserts. On the face of it, this sounds like incredible value but when you consider the small plate sharing ethos of the Crown Social, it becomes less of a bargain.
Nevertheless, despite the news about the imminent parting of the ways between the Parc Hotel and Crown and despite some of the less than positive reviews and comments I've read on Twitter and other blogs, my partner and I set off to try it out for ourselves.
The first thing we were suprised by was how busy it was for a Monday night. Although I've seen many people comment that the place is like a ghost town on their visits, the place was around half full when we attended. How much of this is due to Travel Zoo punters rushing to use their coupons is unclear but it did add some atmosphere to the dining room. I can easily see how a quiet evening would seriously detract from the experience of the visit.
We started with drinks - an Oriental Sparkle cocktail was surprisingly small for its £8 cost and lacked the kick of lychee and mandarin I was promised. We thus opted for a bottle of wine with our meal which was perfectly servicable (but, hey, we're on a budget!).
The sharing concept has also come in for some critique and again I can understand this. We ordered our 2 nibbles and 4 starters and agreed that these would all be brought at the same time. This allowed some sharing between the two of us but it also meant that some of the dishes were less than warm by the time we tasted them.
Cheese fondue
The cheese fondue was my favourite of the starters that we tried. I'm a massive fan of this anyway but the cheese was gooey and just strong enough. We had to order a side of bread to finish it all off but at 90p for a fairly substantial loaf (nicely presented on a bread board with a knife) it didn't break the bank.
Beer battered whiting with tartare sauce & Grilled mackerel with Russian salad
Apparently the whiting was mostly pointless, providing some nice tartare sauce but little in the way of flavour or texture. The mackerel was reported to be well cooked but uninspiring, with the Russian salad really being a tarted-up coleslaw. Not excellent on the fish nibbles/starters front at all.
Leek and potato terrine, roast garlic and toasted hazelnuts
This was another missed opportunity; cold and bland with a fairly unpleasant texture and the toasted hazelnuts didn't add anything at all to this dish. We both sincerely wished that we had ordered something else.
Welsh pork boudin and shallot piccalilli
This was tasty and, sadly, as a nibble, too small for much of a sharing experience. Nicely seasoned meat and a very pleasant mouthful.
Seared lambs liver, cauliflower and hot caper butter
This was my partner's highlight of the meal. Having never tried liver before he was impressed with the flavour and the combination of the liver with the capers and cauliflower. I hate liver but tried it and found it better than most other livers I've tasted. Well cooked and interesting, this was one of the best dishes of the night.
For the mains we went for one fish and one meat dish and ordered them with sides of a salad and chips. The chips were chunky and soft on the inside but could have done with being crispier on the outside.
Crab tortellini and crab cream sauce
The crab tortellini looked pretty but was pretty much what it said on the menu: 5 piece of pasta with a little sauce. The tortellini had a good fish flavour but my partner reported the odd bit of shell in the dish - a cardinal sin at any restaurant but especially one aiming for such high levels!
Slow cooked lamb shoulder and crisp lamb breast
My lamb dish was very good, the meat was well cooked and tender and the sauce that accompanied it was rich. Aside from the fondue, this was my favourite dish of the evening - with a slightly larger portion and some extra garnish I would happily eat this as a main course in any restaurant.
For dessert we chose the honeycomb souffle which was light and fluffy and full of delicious surprise honeycomb textures. The lime sorbet didn't really add much to it though and the flavours didn't really match up. The souffle itself more than made up for it though.
Honeycomb souffle and coconut lime sorbet
The salted caramel chocolate slice was also very good. My only critique was the presentation - no matter how you look at it, a brown smear on a plate is not attractive. It's one of my pet hates. But the slice itself was both salty and sweet and a good size for the end of a meal.
Salted caramel chocolate slice
Overall, we enjoyed the experience at the Crown Social but there were a number of flaws. We both agreed that whilst there were flashes of excellence (the fondue, liver, the lamb dish, the desserts) there was also a great deal of mediocracy (the shell in the crab dish!, the bland lifeless potato terrine, the whiting) which made the food quality very uneven. I can see how the concept of sharing such small dishes might also be off-putting to some people and how the usually high prices also seem to jar with the concept. If we hadn't used the Travel Zoo voucher the meal would have easily set us back nearly £150. At that price, it just isn't worth it.
I think the concept of 'fine dining tapas' could work if prices were lower, portions were larger, or both. I also do hope that the Crown finds a suitable location in Cardiff although I'd wager that this won't be in the city centre. The success of more 'high-end' restaurants such as Bullys, Woods and Oscars outside of the main areas suggests that punters don't always associate the city centre with this type of place. I may well be proven wrong though (and the recent buzz around the Potted Pig does offer a counterpoint) and I'm interested to see whether that is the case.
At the moment, though, the search for a restaurant to bring Cardiff its first Michelin star goes on...
Sunday, 10 July 2011
Restaurant review: Browns
Browns Bar & Brasserie Cardiff
The Friary Centre,
The Friary,
Cardiff,
South Glamorgan
CF10 3FA
Telephone: 0292 066 7096
http://www.browns-restaurants.co.uk/locations/cardiff/
Having heard excellent things about Browns from friends in London, Bristol and Bath, I was pleased when I heard that it was opening in the space previously occupied by Ha Ha’s (an over-priced venue with mediocre food and little atmosphere). A group of six of us thus ventured to Browns for a birthday celebration, eager to sample some of the tasty sounded dishes we’d previewed on the online menu.
Upon arrival, the restaurant had no knowledge of our booking for our table of six; a little inconvenient but we had no trouble getting a table, despite it being a busy Friday night. The cocktail list is varied and looks exciting but, as designated driver, I was forced to sit this out on this occasion. The male members of the party assured me that the list of continental beers was impressive, however, and that this alone would necessitate a return in the future.
Our orders were taken promptly and starters arrived quickly, within 10-15 minutes of our order. Two members of the party opted for the soup of the day; a spicy butternut squash which our waitress cautioned us was “really really spicy”. This proved to be a slight overstatement but it was reported that the soup was delicious and had a warmth and depth of flavour that went well with the heat of the chilli.
Spicy butternut squash soup
A portion of watermelon, feta and hazelnut salad was also apparently tasty but lacking in feta. Whilst the mint and white balsamic glaze that accompanied it was delicious, the salad was seen to not fully live up to the promise of the menu description.
I opted for the chicken and duck liver parfait which was really enjoyable. The flavours were well balanced and the parfait was rich and smooth. The accompanying orange and grape jelly offered a sweetness that set off the meaty richness of the parfait very well but the ratio of parfait to toasted ciabatta was far too small. The amount of bread provided was inadequate and led to me having to pilfer bread from other starter plates at the table in order to make the most of the parfait. In future, I would seriously consider having to order an extra portion of bread if I ordered this again.
The final starter was a shared fish platter which was huge and would comfortably feed two people as a main course. I sampled the crispy squid which was crisp and tasty and the wakame seaweed which was surprisingly sweet. In general, I was impressed with the size and quality of the platter and would definitely order one as an accompaniment to a good bottle of wine on future visits.
The main courses were, overall, less impressive. Whilst the goat’s cheese, brie and spinach filo parcel was bursting with flavour, the pea, broad bean and sundried tomato risotto was incredibly bland. The only pockets of flavour came from the sundried tomato and the dish overall lacked seasoning.
Goats cheese parcel
Three of our party (including myself) opted for the king prawn & chorizo linguine and the portion size was, on arrival, quite disappointing. The the tomato, pepper and garlic butter in which it was cooked was very tasty and the dish was full of prawns but there was a distinct lack of chorizo in my serving (around 3 pieces) which undermined the taste of the chorizo and prawn as a combination. The final main course of grilled chicken with ham and taleggio was served with some impressively crispy fries and a basil oil that was bursting with flavour. The mains, then, were a mixed bag with some offering interesting combinations of texture and taste whilst others were lacking in basic seasoning and bite.
Chorizo & prawn pasta
In conclusion, Browns is a venue I’d return to for a post-work drink and some food, or for lunch during a shopping trip. I’d absolutely go back to sample some of the cocktails (and to partake in their current champagne festival) and the platters but I’m not sure it’s somewhere I’d revisit for a special occasion meal. When contrasted, for example, with other local eateries in the same price bracket (e.g. Cardiff Bay’s Cote) Browns doesn’t fully seem to deliver.
The Friary Centre,
The Friary,
Cardiff,
South Glamorgan
CF10 3FA
Telephone: 0292 066 7096
http://www.browns-restaurants.co.uk/locations/cardiff/
Having heard excellent things about Browns from friends in London, Bristol and Bath, I was pleased when I heard that it was opening in the space previously occupied by Ha Ha’s (an over-priced venue with mediocre food and little atmosphere). A group of six of us thus ventured to Browns for a birthday celebration, eager to sample some of the tasty sounded dishes we’d previewed on the online menu.
Upon arrival, the restaurant had no knowledge of our booking for our table of six; a little inconvenient but we had no trouble getting a table, despite it being a busy Friday night. The cocktail list is varied and looks exciting but, as designated driver, I was forced to sit this out on this occasion. The male members of the party assured me that the list of continental beers was impressive, however, and that this alone would necessitate a return in the future.
Our orders were taken promptly and starters arrived quickly, within 10-15 minutes of our order. Two members of the party opted for the soup of the day; a spicy butternut squash which our waitress cautioned us was “really really spicy”. This proved to be a slight overstatement but it was reported that the soup was delicious and had a warmth and depth of flavour that went well with the heat of the chilli.
Spicy butternut squash soup
A portion of watermelon, feta and hazelnut salad was also apparently tasty but lacking in feta. Whilst the mint and white balsamic glaze that accompanied it was delicious, the salad was seen to not fully live up to the promise of the menu description.
I opted for the chicken and duck liver parfait which was really enjoyable. The flavours were well balanced and the parfait was rich and smooth. The accompanying orange and grape jelly offered a sweetness that set off the meaty richness of the parfait very well but the ratio of parfait to toasted ciabatta was far too small. The amount of bread provided was inadequate and led to me having to pilfer bread from other starter plates at the table in order to make the most of the parfait. In future, I would seriously consider having to order an extra portion of bread if I ordered this again.
The final starter was a shared fish platter which was huge and would comfortably feed two people as a main course. I sampled the crispy squid which was crisp and tasty and the wakame seaweed which was surprisingly sweet. In general, I was impressed with the size and quality of the platter and would definitely order one as an accompaniment to a good bottle of wine on future visits.
The main courses were, overall, less impressive. Whilst the goat’s cheese, brie and spinach filo parcel was bursting with flavour, the pea, broad bean and sundried tomato risotto was incredibly bland. The only pockets of flavour came from the sundried tomato and the dish overall lacked seasoning.
Goats cheese parcel
Three of our party (including myself) opted for the king prawn & chorizo linguine and the portion size was, on arrival, quite disappointing. The the tomato, pepper and garlic butter in which it was cooked was very tasty and the dish was full of prawns but there was a distinct lack of chorizo in my serving (around 3 pieces) which undermined the taste of the chorizo and prawn as a combination. The final main course of grilled chicken with ham and taleggio was served with some impressively crispy fries and a basil oil that was bursting with flavour. The mains, then, were a mixed bag with some offering interesting combinations of texture and taste whilst others were lacking in basic seasoning and bite.
Chorizo & prawn pasta
In conclusion, Browns is a venue I’d return to for a post-work drink and some food, or for lunch during a shopping trip. I’d absolutely go back to sample some of the cocktails (and to partake in their current champagne festival) and the platters but I’m not sure it’s somewhere I’d revisit for a special occasion meal. When contrasted, for example, with other local eateries in the same price bracket (e.g. Cardiff Bay’s Cote) Browns doesn’t fully seem to deliver.
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