I’ll be honest I’d not heard of Amesoeur until this week and me being me i’m always keen to try something knew so was more than happy to attend to sample some items on the new menu.

Located at 98 Crwys Road, opposite Shaws it was easy to find although I always dread going anywhere for food along City Road, Crwys Road or anywhere in Pontcanna usually but 2 attempts up the side streets and we happily found a small space to squeeze the Abarth into.

Based on the name Amesoeur Bistro I was expecting some french flair in the food menu but was suprised to see a more tapas style offering. Not that that’s a bad thing as I tend to prefer to order a selection of small plates to share as opposed to a mound of the same thing especially if it’s not quite to your taste if you’re being adventurous as you’ve still got 5 or 6 more that make up for it.

The menu is broken up into 3 sections with those from the farm featuring mainly meaty plates, then there was the sea with you guessed it seafood and then those from the field so more of your veggy side dishes.

We were given a brief overview of the menu by the owner who was very friendly and happy to help with any questions and recommended dinners usually go for around 3 dishes each. I’m always worried when I go for tapas style food or mezze as you never know what the portion size is going to be like and being left hungry with no option to grab a bag of chips on the way home.

Food

We were both drawn to the seafood section and the trust favourites of prawns, muscles and squid so went for the garlic king prawns, cayenne and parsley butter (£4), salt and chilli squid rings in lemon and coriander dip (£4), steamed muscles in garlic and cream sauce (£4).

Although the options on the meat section sounded good I wasnít in the mood for most of them but the sautéed potatoes with crispy cured beef sausage, coriander, chilli, garlic and ginger (£3.50) sounded too delicious to skip over.

No meal is complete without some form of melted cheese and another fav added to the list lately is goats cheese especially after my eggy crumped, goats cheese and bacon brekkie I did last weekend. We opted for the deep fried goats cheese with honey dip (£3.50) and thought we might have to have at least one veggie dish so the butter beans in paprika and bbq glaze was an obvious choice.

Drinks

I decided to sample the one cocktail as it was my last day in my job the day after and celebrating the new job but didnít want to overdo it so stuck to the one and a beer. There cocktail list wasnít overly expansive but thatís not what they specialist but what was on there did look inviting. Iím always weary with cocktails of late since switching over to the dark side with my gin or whiskies with little or no mixer so I find cocktails and even my previous fav spiced rum and coke way too sweet. Most of them had the inclusion of sugar syrup and based on other more well known places in Cardiff who rely on ready made syrups they leave me feeling a bit sickly so I opted for the Earl Grey containing Earl Grey surprise surprise, double measure of Gin, honey and lemon.

I didn’t know what to expect again before it came especially as the menu seemed to display the measures of the mixers as well including 50ml of lemon, which I was hoping wasnít going to be too sour but the drink was so refreshing and perfect balance of gin and mixer. Mwsh opted for another gin cocktail with the Elderflower, Cucumber Collins and that was equally as fresh and moreish. I could easily have sunk another few and not felt the sugar eating away at the insides of my stomach like they do in some places.

Partial to a good beer I thought I’d see what was on offer, sadly there were no draughts on tap but they had Brooklyn, Corona, a cider I believe but I opted for a Samuel Adams as I’d not tried that before.

The Verdict

I was very suprised by the food as I really didn’t know what to expect with the suprise tapas style as opposed to what I was expecting in the way of French Bistro esque menu items. We couldn’t fault anything on our plates and everything was so tasty and just so inviting to eat with it glistening in flavour and seasoning. It was a welcome change from the bland, microwaved plates I’d become used to with tapas from La Tasca over the years. You could see the chef put love into each little plate, which was validated when our food came out and they opologised that we would have to wait for the goats cheese as he had another batch on as he wasn’t happy plating up the first one so that just goes to show he’s proud of every dish that leaves the kitchen doors.

I was apprehensive when I saw the extent of items on the menu as I wondered how fresh the food would be or how long we would be waiting to put together the vast amount of items on the list as it was probably bigger than any tapas menu i’d seen previously but I was pleasantly surprised how fresh and tasty each dish was. The only thing and this is clutching at straws that I could give in terms of constructive feedback is the bread and oils starter we ordered was difficult to soak up any of the balsamic with the oil and we came to the conclusion this was because the bread was toasted. Tasted find but I do like a good evenly proportion of oil to balsamic on my ciabatta but being toasted none of the vinegar seemed to stick.

We were looking for flaws but couldn’t really find any to be honest each dish was equally as delicious. I was expecting onion ring style squid but it was more like fresh chunks without the usual overbearing stodgy batter. The surprise dish was the butter beans in paprika and bbq glaze that packed a such a flavour punch and we were discussing recreating them even as we ate with a recently purchased jar of Gran Luchito chilli honey and even bought a tin of butter beans from Tesco on the way home to try this weekend.

We couldn’t see a dessert menu anywhere to hand or blackboard as you sometimes get so on asking if they did any there was a carrot cake or strawberry cheese cake to choose from. Sold! One each to share and sample it was and both priced at £4.

I did see a cheese sharing platter on the main menu so there was always that option too I guess. Anyway the cakes came out and both in mammoth portions. I was expecting the carrot cake to be a bit dry as I think it might have been from the bar under a glass cover and Iím always conscious of how long theyíve been festering there sometimes but it was perfectly moist with just the right proportion of buttercream sandwiched in the middle and on top. The cheese cake came in a ceramic taps style dish and had a surprisingly uncompressed biscuity base under the strawberry cheesecake top but didnít detract from the moreishly addiction Iíd just acquired from both desserts whilst taking a stab at each on in turn with my fork.

Offers

After doing a bit of searching for Amesoeur online I noticed they were on Wriggle back last week with 6 plates and 2 desserts for £19.95 with a value of £33 so keep an eye on Wriggle Cardiff to see if they pop back up on there. If you use the discount code AUHPSS at the checkout on the Wriggle Website or going to refer a friend and add a code you get £3 discount off your order and get it for £16.95 for an even better discount.

They also did 3 courses and a glass of wine for £10 for black Friday so I’d keep an eye on their social media for the latest deals too.

Details

Amesoeur Bistro
98 Crwys Road
Cardiff
CF24 4NQ