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Porro Restaurant Review Llandaff, Cardiff

Porro has been on my radar for a while now since I heard about the launch of the Wellfield Road addition and no more since my return from Italy last week. I’ve never been one for pasta to be honest but probably because I’ve only ever really had it at home and when your mum has been known to burn it on the hob, yes a good few inches of pasta scorched and crusted on the bottom isn’t something too unfamiliar in my household. Well it sort of scars you for life.

From having nightmares of charcoal like embers of pasta clinging to sauce pans in my nightmares growing up, opting to go for an Italian when I fancy dinning out has never been at the forefront of my picklist to be fair so fresh silky smooth, buttery pasta ribbons haven’t entertained my insatiable dustbin lips all that often.

My 3 day trip to Italy changes all my perceptions of pasta. I don’t know how they could marry 2 or 3 ingredients, sandwiched between parcels of egg and flour to create such a desire to wipe devour all contents of the plate then place said empty plate to my face and lick every last drizzle of butter oil.

The porcinni mushroom, ricotta, sage and butter Ravioli at the Cantina de Spade in Venice just blew my mind. So simple yet it left myself and Mwsh speachless (well her for a whole 3 seconds, which is unheard of).

Anyway, still suffering from the holiday blues and still in Italy mode I wanted to see how one of the most popular Italian’s in Cardiff faired up against the real thing. With the weather being like it has been this week, I’ve lost all motivation to cook so a quick browse on the Wriggle App and Porro in Llandaff were offering any 2 pizza or pasta dishes for £15 a cool 50% discount last night. That will do nicely I thought and got on the buzzer to Mwsh, just to make sure she hadn’t got anything booked on and luckily she hadn’t.

The Venue

I won’t bore you too much with the details. We didn’t book and just turned up as it was a Wednesday and not as busy as I assume the weekend would be. We managed to park outside as there is space for disabled cars but as it was 7pm it was quite dead so was naughty and parked up. There’s some parking around the corner by the Cathedral though if you’re visitng on the weekend.

We arrived and were a bit suprised how quite it was, just two dinners in there at the time but that was a bit of a relief as we just fancied a bit of down time and a relaxed meal without shouting at each other to hear over a jam packed restaurant. This also meant we had pick of a table and not some crooked and wonky child table next to the coat hangers you sometimes get in places when they are pushed for tables.

I liked the decor, a more modern approach to that we had become accustomed to in Italy last week with the small traditional Taverna’s who probably hadn’t had a lick of paint since the war. Good lighting, spacious with nice brickwork and large front window view if you fancy having a nose out onto the high street if it’s busy.

The Food

As we had bought a deal on Wriggle our mains were a bit limited but to compare what we had consumed in Venice and Rome we had to do one of each so opted for one pizza, the speck, artchoke, mozzarella, rocket and chilli then one pasta dish with pappardelle with braised ox cheek, tomato and parmesan.

It would be hard to beat the mixed platter of Pizza from Pizza Zizza opposite St Peter’s Basillica in the Vatican, Rome. Well we did have about 8 different flavours but they were such magnificent pieces of cheesy goodness. The pizza at Porro was good but it was nothing special in all honesty. I think the rocket overpowered everything else as there was so much, wasn’t too spicy but just didn’t fill me with much love as something laden in cheese should do. I can’t knock the ingredients as they were all no doubt of the highest quality I just wasn’t bowled over by the pizza.

The braised ox cheek pappardelle on the other hand was simply divine. Silky ribbons of fresh pasta, clinging on for dear life were chunks of tender and rich ox cheek waiting to be slurped up into my eager mouth. I’ll be honest, I was gutted we said we’d do a sharsies and halve half each of both courses because I just wanted to demolish every last morsel myself.

The unlikely star of the show on the mains though was the bowl of chunky chips, lathered in elegantly perfumed white truffle oil. I’d had posh fries with truffle oil and parmesan a few times, tried it myself once too but these were something else. I’d probably had a cheap black truffle chemical shit storm in the past but this was so light with delicate truffly aroma. The best £3.75 i’ve ever spent.

Being against my religion to just order one course each when dinning out we opted to go for a starter each and pay the difference with them all ranging between £7 and £8 we chose the tortellini with garlic, sage and parmesan as it sounded similar to the raviolli dish in Venice and the braised leeks, talleggio on sourdough.

Again we decided to do halfsies on both plates so we only really had a little bit of each one but no complaints on either course. The tortellini was quite small for the price, not sure I was still in European prices were we got a whole plate of quality pasta for 11 euros but £7 for 2 tortellini pieces cut in half was a bit mean but the flavour was on par with our Venice raviolli. Sage, pasta and oil/butter is such a good compbo although the porcini and ricotta pairing added extra creaminess and umami kick.

The braised leek and tolleggio was decent in portion size, you definetely got your leeks worth with this one although a bit less generous with the talleggio cheese. Luckily for me I had a little nugget of the stuff on my half but Mwsh had to try and stab a goey morsel from my plate before I’d consumed it as she didn’t get much on her bit of bread.

We both had a glass of the Sauv Blanc, which was a perfect match for the starters. we even enquired about the bottle and took a snap to try and find it for the house. At £7.50 for a large, it’s not the lightest on your wallet but then it was a corker. We didn’t go for the house wine though so there were more reasonably priced wines to choose from.

We would of both gone for a dessert had we not gorged on cake from Pettigrew straight after work so can’t comment on them unfortunately.

The Verdict

I’ve not heard a bad word said about Porro from anyone and did enjoy our meal there. It was an off the cuff thing and as we had a deal from Wriggle we were stuck with the pasta and pizza option althought the braised ox cheek papadelle would be on my hit list again.

Next time around I wouldn’t mind sampling the grill or meat menu, once I’ve fell off my pasta and carb fest I’m currently stuck in. I’d have no qualms in recommending the place although I’d opt for a pasta dish as they didnt’ dissapoint or try a meat dish. The pizza was ok but just that. Had I not sampled some of the best pizza in my 31 years of existance in Rome last week it might of been a different story but the bar has been set high from there.

The bill came to £31 for the two starters, two wines and truffle fries plus the £15 Wriggle deal for the mains so £46. The real price would of been £61 had we not used the wriggle deal.

Although they aren’t on every night I have seen Porro discount crop up a couple of times of the past few weeks on Wriggle so keep an eye out on the App / website and rememebr to use the code AUHPSS in refer a friend, redeem code on the app to get a further discount off your first order.

April 12, 2017/0 Comments/by nicky batchelor

Review

Meat at 156 Burger Bar Review in Cardiff

So we were invited to the launch of Cardiff’s latest arrival on the ever expanding burger scene recently on 156 City Road aptly named Meat at 156.

The burger joint is an independant set up by three friends and look like they are pitching at a hole in the market for good, no frills affordable grub just outside the city centre.

The food

Myself and Mwsh were joined by a whose who on the food blog scene in Cardiff to sample some of the menu items on offer. We saw the menu but they were just going to rustle up a few different items so we could have a nibble on a variety of different options between us rather than picking one item each off the menu.

I was suprised by the entry level prices of the burgers and were a lot more accomodating those looking to grab a bite to eat on a budget and was definitely family friendly compared to some of the well known burger places in town at the moment. Prices started around £6 for the Classic consisting of beer burger topped with american cheese and may to the Volcano at £6.95 consisting of beef patty cored with melted cheese and jalapeno.

Also on offer were a selection of steaks with a rump at £9.95 and a 14oz T-Bone setting you back £17.95 with all coming with a choice of sauces from the spicy one, shrooms, cracked pepper and garlic infusion.

We got to share the Southern Crunch Burger containing beef patty topped with fried jalapenos and onion strings in a crispy southern coating with house fries. As it was a pre launch and didn’t get to choose the burgers were just being brought out to sample so wasn’t asked how we wanted it cooked and was a bit on the well done for my liking. I enjoyed the toppings that gave a nice crunch and texture with a little heat from the jalapenos but was missing a bit of moisture especially as it came with no sauce. A minute or two less on the grill and a dollop of ketchup, bbq sauce or mayo on the bun and it would of been on point. The fries though were lovely. Thin shoestring fries cooked to perfection.

Next up was the Volcano as described above and was the most expensive burger on the menu. This made up for the first burger as it was cooked a little less and retained that much needed beef juices and the molten spicy cheese helped deliver a juicy beefyness to my taste buds. I didn’t find it all that spicy considering the name but you do have the option to spice things up a bit and going mega hot with the chiptole chilli sauce but i’m not sure if ours already had it on as there was some kind of spicy red sauce but not what I would consider hot.

Out came a few sides to snack on such as the cajun onion rings and the hot crunch jalapenos we had on top of our first burger along with a small pot of slaw. I’d never tried deep fried jalapenos until now and they went down a treat I have to say and so did the onion rings and slaw which added a well anticipated hit of spicy greasiness I’d hoped for.

This is were most mere mortals would of paid up and been on their way but no, we were being slowly tortured with death by meat! Not that I was complaining as a big plate of ribeye steak and another portion of the freshly fried fries. Can’t beat a fresh batch of oil for fries as most the time in takeaways you don’t know when they’ve changed it from one year to the next and you can definitely taste the difference.

No way were we expecting the third and final plate of meat but it was greatly received. Nice looking scorch marks on top but not sure if that was just for taking some pics for the social media pages as they didn’t do the moisture levels many flavours when we sampled the meat. The ribeye was an 8oz and although it looked quite big in circumference it wasn’t all that thick so it didn’t need much time on the grill and could of done with just 2 minutes each side but it came well done. Couldn’t complain as they were catering for everyone and we weren’t paying plus if we were paying dinners we would of got a choice of how we wanted it cooked and I have no doubt they would of delivered as requested.

At this point I was considering air ambulance rescue mission to winch me out of my seat just as they came out with a sample of some of the desserts. Luckily they were just bite sized pieces just to try and we cauciously nibbled on a small nugget of brownie topped with a little ice cream. There was a decent moisture content on the brownie and the ice cream was just a frozen ice cream van type ice cream but did the job. There was a bowl of tantalising golden toffee laden sticky toffee pudding doing the rounds but I thought I might of died had I eaten a single more morsel of food.

The Verdict

I think Meat at 156 definitely fills a hole in the market in Cardiff for people looking for a no noncence, unprotencious and affordable burger. They do a meal deal add on so you can top up your burger for £2 and get fries and a soft drink meaning you can get a burger, fries and drink for under £9. For a family of 4 that is much more economical compared to some of the burger making big guns like Got Beef and Time and Beef with a Burger, fries and drink probably costing you £15+ nearly double what Meat at 156 are offering.

Ok the burger concoctions aren’t as boundary pushing as Burger Theory @ Kongs but being alcohol free they appeal more to teenagers and families who don’t want to eat in a pub or bar and can make it much more cost fiendly to dine out in a group or family without having to put up with drunken punters.

I probably wouldn’t drive out of town to go there on an occasion but if I’m hungry and passing or up on City Road i’d consider calling in for a bite to eat rather than fire up the oven when I get in for the price factor.

April 7, 2017/0 Comments/by nicky batchelor

Recipe

Really easy Tabbouleh recipe

This should feed 4

Ingredients

300g bulgar wheat and quinoa mix (I got mine from Waitrose but seen them in Tesco too)
1 red onion
2 large tomatoes or 10 cherry tomatoes
1/2 cucumber
2 cloves of garlic
1 lemon
100g flat leaf parsley
50g fresh mint
Salt and black pepper to taste
Good olive oil
Sumac (I bought a small tub in Tesco in the world food aisle white label area)

Optional

Feta cheese
Pomegranate (Out of season when I made it yesterday so couldn’t find any)
Chilli

Instructions

Use a large saucepan as the grain mixture will treble in size and the bigger it is the easier to mix all the other ingredients together too when assembling at the end.

Cook the bulgar and quinoa to packet instructions. Mine said to rinse then cook for 15 minutes, then drain and leave to stand for 10 minutes. You need the mixture to cool beofre mixing the other ingredients so you can do this an hour or two in advance if you like. You need a very fine seive to drain or I used a bowl pressed up against the pan just watch you don’t burn your hands as it gets boiling with the water draining through.

Finely grate the garlic cloves into a small dish along with the zest of the lemon. I used a fine grater I use for parmesan. Cut the lemon in half and add the juice of half to the garlic and lemon zest to the small bowl. I did this as the acid in the lemon will cook the garlic slightly so you don’t get that harsh raw garlic taste, which doesn’t seem to agree with me.

Dice the red onion, tomatoes, cucumber. Finely chop the flat leaf parsley, fresh mint and chilli then either add to the large saucepan with the bulgar wheat and quinoa or if you don’t have a pan big enough empty all the ingredients into a large bowl and mix to combine.

Add the lemon and garlic juice and squeeze the other half of the lemon into the mix. Season with a good helping of black pepper and a bit of sea salt to your liking. If you have any leftover parsley you can always chop that up and sprinkle on top as some recipes use a hell of a lot of the stuff and you might as well use it up.

Drizzle with a good olive oil and sprinkle a couple of teaspoons of Sumac over the top.

This is great as a side for some crispy grilled Ras el Hanout spiced lamb or I used a middle eastern dry rub tin from Marks and Specer mixed with some olive oil then rubbed into the lamb with finely grated garlic and left for an hour to marinade.

You can also knock up a quick mint yogurt sauce combining some mint jelly or sauce you have on your Sunday roast with some greek yogurt. Season to your taste with salt and pepper, maybe some lemon juice and if you’ve got any left some cucumber and red onion and a sprinkle of sugar.

Stuff it all in a pitta bread with some griddled halloumi and devour with a good glass of red.

March 8, 2017/0 Comments/by nicky batchelor

Food, Review

The Pot Bistro Restaurant Review Cardiff

I first came across The Pot Bistro back last year whilst researching French restaurants in Cardiff to compile my list of places celebrating Beaujolais Day. After doing a bit more digging and seeing some of the pics of the food they are banging out of the kitchen i’ve been desperate to go try it there.

The only sticking point is it’s based up on Whitchurch Road, just down from Got Beef and Society Standard and being a French restaurant it’s against the law not to have a glass or two of wine to wash the food down with so that’s driving out and the price on Uber getting is recidivous.

Not one to follow tradition I didn’t fancy going out for food on Valentines night and basically pay double for what is pretty much the same food with just the odd dash of champagne tossed in the dessert and on the table so opted to go out on 15th instead.

I bit the bullet and offered to drive so we could finally sample The Pot Bistro, having to make do and ration a small glass of vin du for the entire evening with my meal, who said love is dead hey?

The Bistro is a no nonsense back to basics approach to decor and you couldn’t help but think you are sat tucked away in a back alley cafe in the shadows of the Chateaux de versailles, where I spent quite a few trips away with work back at my time with a well known French Aviation company a few years back. This being the reason I grew fond of French cooking, feasting on Foie gras for the first time, realising lamb could actually be served medium rare instead of resembling tree bark that i’d grown accustomed to with my nans Sunday roast, how much meal time was such a social event out there and how much wine they consumed with their food even at lunch time at the onsite restaurant in the office!

The Pot Bistro had an open plan kitchen setup with a little bar in front of the kitchen proudly displaying the array of spirits on offer. The place was a bit busier than I had expected being mid week but there were probably a few others with the same idea of me not wanting to be vomiting in a bucket watching new loves gazing into each others eyes over a candle lit dinner the night before on Valentines night.

The place isn’t huge though i’d say seating for around 30 but we did have a choice of seat from the waitress. It was just my luck I picked the worst seat i’ve ever perched my booty in, it was beyond painful to sit and basically had to lie back with my head just above the table to find a sweet spot on my back. All the chairs were different though they seemed to be miss matched so it could of been that was the only one like it in the restaurant. I should of just asked to swap but it was quite intimate in there and i didn’t want to make a fuss so my own fault for putting up with it really.

The waitress was lovely and went through the menu with us on what we could have and any extra we had to pay for some more expensive items as we had a 3 course and glass of wine offer through Wriggle Cardiff the app and website specialising in independent restaurants and offering daily deal type offers. Take a look here for more info and discount code AUHPSS will get you a bit more off your first order if you sign up, go to invite friends in the app and add the code in the top right.

The Food

I know i should start making my way through some different items on the starter menu but when you like something it’s hard to deter from that so I went with the seared scallops, french sausage, bacon and sweet potato puree. Mwsh liking scallops just as much as me gave me the death stare on announcing my option to the waitress so felt compelled to try something different and with her utter contempt for soup it was only going to be one runner up and that was the pate.

The scallops were perfectly cooked with nice golden sear on the outside yet succulent and tender in the middle. It was nice to have scallops with a bit of saltiness from a cured meat with the bacon but the herby French sausage brought through different levels of flavour I’d not had with the standard chorizo or black pudding that every Doug or Geraint knocks up in the kitchen of most restaurants these days. The smear of sweet potato gave a bit of sweetness to the salt and meatiness of the sausage and bacon.

The pate was presented in a nice little mason jar that has been a staple in my work bag the past few weeks filled with proats although this was a little smaller but still very generous portion size for one. The pate was so smooth, protected by a thick layer of set butter. I don’t know why but it always seems to be the case that you could feed a family of four with the portion size of the pate in almost all restaurants i’ve ordered pate at yet you only a portion of bread to feed an 8 year old child. Mwsh made her way through about half the pate, which tasted of velvet offally goodness when she ran out of bread. Then here comes the dilemma of do I just leave it or do I look like someone feeding pate to a dog by spooning it on the knife and smearing it onto your tongue scraping it off with your lips.

With some gentle persuasion she asked if there was a spare bit of bread to help mop up the remnants of the mason jar filled with prime french inspired livers and they were more than happy to accommodate the request without a second thought. I don’t know why i’ve never tried this before but sometimes us British are just too damn polite when it comes to dinning out. The extra bread about 3 or 4 toasted slices of baguette were greatly received and meant I could wean another portion off the plate for my own gratification.

The mains and the gloves were off once again with both myself and Mwsh favouring the same plate off the mains and I went with the duo of lamb because it reminded me of the best plate of lamb cutlets I’d ever had whilst on a trip over to France and wanted to relive the sumptuous occasion being in a French restaurant, which is a rare occasion for me in Cardiff with little other options in the City until recently.

She was more than welcome to have the same but we do like to sample a few different dishes so we can share when dinning out but her option might go some way in showing her stance on me picking the best two items off the menu as she went for the bouillabaisse. Basically a fish stew featuring my worse nightmare…salmon!

Out came the mains and my eyes widened with pupils dilated on the delivery of such a thing of natural beauty bestowed upon my stunned open mouth. The thing was epic but soon brought me down to earth with the upside down smile bent thrown across the table in disappointment compared to her dish. Mine was a monster and even though the bouillabaisse looked like it was a well of flavour waiting to be lapped up adorned with a huge prawn it did look a bit like a stew. Reading from the menu we both thought it would be more of a pie as it had potatoes and we saw something on the Instagram account that resembled the description but the potatoes were a side dish of crispy cubes but the place was more of a fish soup and she hates soup.

I was informed the lamb would be cooked medium rare and I was more than happy to agree to the Chef’s recommendation when ordering. There was a decent sized hunk of lamb rump, browned to perfection but plump and glistening with pink and red whilst expertly sliced with my steak knife. There were two lamb cutlets accompanying the rump, generously coated in thick, rich red wine jus. The cutlets were a bit thinner than my plate in France but they didn’t come with a thick juicy rump of lamb so I wasn’t too disappointed. The dish came with a big wedge of tartiflette, which must be French for potato gratin. Not quite as divine as my favourite potato dish, dauphinoise but couldn’t fault them and it was a decent portion compared to some measly slices i’ve had in the past.

There were a few nuggets of my newly acquired taste of black pudding, paired with sautéed leeks within the jus that offered another layer of flavour to the dish.

I only had a little sample of the Bouillabaisse as I’m not a fan of salmon but Mwsh did work her way through the array of fish chunks sitting in the bowl. She said it was tasty i think it was just the image of soup she couldn’t get out of her head as she was expecting a fish pie with fondant, crispy potato swirls pipped on top of the fishy underbelly of the dish. What was lacking in my eyes though as anyone who has a soup, pie, stew of any sort there’s one thing that is universally agreed upon is the broth must and i repeat MUST be mopped up with a big hunk of fresh crusty bread but there was none in sight. I’m sure the waitress would of offered if we had asked but we’d already asked for more bread on the previous dish so didn’t want to take the piss.

There wasn’t a flambeed crepe suzette in sight on the dessert menu thank god but wasn’t sure what to opt for on the choices that were on offer. Mwsh opted for the Cointreau bread and butter pudding with creme anglaise so I opted for the chocolate torte and cream so we could sharsies.

The bread and butter pudding reminded me a bit of a softened bara brith flavour wise and I couldn’t find any hints of the Cointreau but it was a heavenly plate of sugary stodge and the creme anglaise was the perfect touch.

My chocolate torte was so rich, it left swathes of chocolate inches thick inside my mouth and tongue on each spoonful. The creme added a good balance of creaminess to the plate and the smear of raspberry coulis gave a extra hit of flavour to the chocolate party going on inside my mouth.

The Verdict

I was impressed with the nights events and the food we ate and would definitely recommend it to anyone. The breakfast is next on my list there as it sounds right up my street and I need to start ticking off some places for breakfast in the city as I’ve only sampled a handful. There’s a decent selection of wine on the drinks menu, I didn’t enquire about cocktails and I didn’t’ see any draft beer on tap as I was driving but I’m sure there would be a few bottled European options to choose from.

The food was on the ball and the service was excellent. I would recommend the owners or waitresses to try sitting on the chair I was sat in and either take an axe to it or put a new back rest on it as it was so uncomfortable I was actually in pain sitting down and don’t be shy with the bread with the pate starter or the Bouillabaisse but apart from that I’d definitely go back.

They have a midweek deal on at the moment £20 for two courses and a glass of wine or keep an eye out on Wriggle to see if the £20 deal for 3 courses and a glass of wine.

February 17, 2017/0 Comments/by nicky batchelor