Brief Notes: Purple Poppadom, Cardiff

Mr P doesn't eat Indian food. I know, I know, almost a deal-breaker but in his defence it's only because of an intolerance to a substance found in spices, and he makes up for it with a compensatory love of Thai cuisine. Still, whenever he is out of town I take my chance where I can get it for a curry affair. Usually I make my own, but this time due to a lack of necessary ingredients and feeling sorry for myself after a soggy walk home from work in the Cardiff deluge I decided to splash out (badum-chh). The Purple Poppadom has become something of a Cardiff institution on the Indian food scene, even recently earning a glowing review from Jay Rayner in The Guardian (see here),  so I dripped my way up the stairs to try it out. Fast forward 20 minutes and I'm hurrying home with my precious cargo. 

Needless to say the food was delicious. Fresh spinach and water chestnuts added dimension to delicately spiced onion palak pakoda. Cooling raita and sour tamarind sauce were perfect additions. Huge succulent king prawns were cooked in a chilli and coconut sauce that allowed each flavour to come through without overwhelming the delicate flavour of the prawn. Fragrant saffron pilav rice and peshwari naan with a sweet coconut filling were among the best I've tried. At £21.65 for a meal for one it's not cheap but it's so worth it... and I had enough left for an eminently satisfying lunch the next day. It's a big thumbs up from me and I'll be going back asap for the tasting menu.  

Purple Poppadom - Cowbridge road east, Cardiff; 02920 220026; website

Travel Diaries: The Swan - Wedmore, Somerset

With the arrival of Mr P's birthday in early January we headed to Somerset for the weekend to celebrate. Of course, it isn't a celebration in our household without a decent helping of gluttony so we spent the evening at the restaurant of The Swan, Wedmore. The team here is headed up by Tom Blake (previously of River Cottage) and the whole place sticks with the River Cottage ethos of local food (we're talking food feet rather than miles here) cooked without too much ponce.

Our table was booked for 7pm on a Saturday night and both the restaurant and bar were bustling by the time we arrived. You can always judge a restaurant by the quality of the bread, and we hoovered up two pieces of the Swan's homemade offering before we remembered to take a picture. Crusty outside and pillowy soft inside with butter, olive oil and crunchy, fragrant dukkah for spreading/slathering/dunking.

Clams steamed in cider were nice with the flavour of cider adding an interesting dimension.Beetroot and feta arancini were crisp and light, with plenty of earthy beetroot flavour. 

Mains were exemplary. Seriously, we're salivating at the memory of it. Braised barbecue short ribs were meltingly tender and served simply with creamy mash and kale. Porchetta was stuffed with the nontraditional but pleasing mixture of mushrooms and apricots, and served with a potato and celeriac gratin and more kale.

Feeling pretty stuffed, we moved over to our pudding stomachs to squeeze in a shared portion of apple cake. Sweet, spiced cake and tart apples were delicious but might have been improved a little by being served warm.

The Swan also have 6 rooms for those who want to go no further at the end of the night than stumble upstairs to nurse their food baby and take a bubble bath using the complimentary Bramley products (also produced locally and smell incredible). We stayed in one of the 'large' rooms at the front of the building (room 3).

Breakfast is served in the bar area, which is also open to the public for brunch. We both plumped for The Swan 'Full English' and spent a leisurely hour with our breakfast, plenty of tea and juice and the complimentary Sunday papers. Thick toast, creamy scrambled eggs and local black pudding, sausage and bacon were delicious (though Mr P was disappointed if not surprised at the lack of baked beans - too lowbrow we suppose...). Breakfast was included in our room price, but I might have been left a tad disappointed if I'd paid the £11 charged to the non-residents.

Quick version:

• Food - Lovely local produce cooked simply and with respect
• Value for Money - Mostly good but breakfast hits the only bum note
• Service - Attentive but not suffocating
• Atmosphere - Relaxed yet bustling country pub
• Overall rating - 4.5 stars

The Swan - Wedmore Somerset; 01934 710337 ; website

The Meating Place, Cardiff

Not to brag, but the Food Pilgrims make a pretty mean roast. And whilst we love spending a Sunday afternoon roasting our meat of choice, and making all the traditional accompaniments from scratch, we have to admit it does create an awful lot of washing up. So, when we do decide to go out for a roast, it has to be top notch grub. 

With that in mind we headed out to The Meating Place. Whilst we had never been there before, we had visited two other places in the same group; The Potted Pig and The North Star, which we both really enjoyed, so expectations were high.

Walking into The Meating Place, we got that warm fuzzy feeling. We were greeted with a hearty, rustic vibe. Oak beams on the ceiling, old fashioned high back wooden chairs. The only thing that was missing was a roaring fire.

The menu seemed reasonable, £15 for two courses, or £17.95 for three. We both decided pretty sharpish about what we wanted. Mrs P ordered the roast welsh beef (with fingers crossed it was going to arrive pink), and I went for the pork belly (my fingers were crossed for crackling!). 

Fast forward ten minutes or so and our little table was presented with two huge plates. The meat looked and smelled amazing, as did the home made gravy (though a garnish of salad was a bit of an odd addition). Bowls of seasonal veg shortly followed, along with a dish of cauliflower cheese to share. With that we tucked in. I'll confess, I am a gravy man. I like to drown cover all of my roast in it. The gravy tasted homemade, with a splash of red wine. It was delicious, and the only problem was there wasn't enough for me (Mrs P kindly helped my predicament - I guess that's what marriage is for!). The roasties were OK, I'd had better, but I'd certainly had worse. The veg was cooked nicely, truly 'al dente', not raw as some trendy places like to serve, and not boiled to within an inch of its life.All in all a really good roast (and yes, Mrs P's beef was indeed pink).

For dessert, or 'pud' as I like to call it, was an easy choice for both of us...sticky toffee pudding. Whilst it was only a small portion, it was just what you needed after a big hearty dinner. A soothing sweet that melted in your mouth, and gently cwtched up in the last little space in your stomach. 

Quick version:

• Food - Tasty home style roast, with a few tiny let downs that could be totally forgiven, especially as we didn't have to do the washing up!
• Value for Money - At £15 it's not the cheapest roast in town, but the quality is there for all to see (or rather taste)
• Service - Service was with a smile and a joke. Get there early as they were having to turn people away by 2pm
• Atmosphere - Nice and relaxed. Music was great (hello Clapton, Hetfield and Bon Jovi)
• Overall rating - 4 stars

The Meating Place - St Mary Street Cardiff; 02920 224757 ; website

Yakitori #1, Cardiff

Having finally become 'The Pilgrims' at our wedding last weekend but unable to take time off during the week, we had planned to go away on a mini-moon this weekend. Apparently though, trying to book on Friday to arrive on Saturday in one of the most popular tourist areas in the UK doesn't cut it, who knew? So we decided to play tourist in our own town and visit a few places we've been hankering to go in Cardiff. An excellent meal at Yakitori #1 tonight prompted us to finally start writing the food blog we've been chatting about for ages - that coupled with the fact we now share a surname that allows for a play on words. Everyone loves a good play on words. On to the review... 

Occupying a unit at Mermaid Quay in Cardiff Bay, independent Japanese restaurant Yakitori #1 has already earned a bit of a good reputation (currently top 10 restaurants in Cardiff on tripadvisor) in spite of only being open a few months. The interior is crisp and minimal, with large tables and benches occupying the middle of the restaurant and smaller tables around the outside, with an open kitchen where you can watch the chefs prepare your food. 

A few minutes after taking our seats we got chatting to a man who didn't introduce himself by name, but had the air of the owner of the establishment about him. He spoke to us about the menu and gave some of his recommendations, as well as telling us that some things will be changing slightly with the introduction of a new menu next week (he was so keen he even got up his paper mock-up to show us). There's so much more to this place than raw fish (though the raw fish, supplied by channel fisheries was excellent, but I'm getting ahead of myself), with a range of cooked japanese goodies from the grill, noodle/rice dishes and salads sitting alongside the choice of sushi and sashimi. We decided to skip the mains for tonight (though a fixed price menu of £15.95 for a main and starter/side will most definitely be on the radar for our next visit) and ordered a bunch of small plates to share.  

Tempura prawn maki (£8.50) was Mr P's favourite - maki rolls generously filled with tempura prawn and cucumber and topped with avocado and marie rose sauce. The tempura batter was a nice contrast with the soft prawn and the sushi rice was also worth a mention for being deliciously sticky and not falling apart even with the obligatory soy sauce dunking. 

Teryaki salmon (£8.95) was one of the highlights for me - exactly as teryaki salmon should be with crispy skin, just cooked flesh and a slightly sticky glaze. 

Tuna nigiri (£4.95) and scallops with soy, sesame and crispy ginger (pictured bottom left, £7.50) were both excellent. 

With the only slight hitch of the night, chicken gyoza (£5.60) and chicken yakitori (£6.20) arrived a little later than the rest of our food but this gave us time to wolf down the other offerings. The crisp outside of the dumplings gave way to a well-seasoned filling and the yakitori was juicy with great flavour. 

After all this, the owner came back with an offering of the new chicken katsu hand rolls that will be added to the menu from next week, which we sadly gobbled without time for a picture. Plenty of crispy nori, more of that sticky rice, panko covered chicken breast and punchy marie rose sauce (will be priced around £4.50) would make an excellent snack or light lunch.

The service at Yakitori #1 was efficient, friendly and enthusiastic (yes, three adjectives) and we'll definitely be back for more. 

Quick version:

• Food - Delicious and excellent quality (which is important if you're going to be eating raw fish!)
• Value for Money - It's not cheap but the quality means we think it represents good value for money 
• Service - Excellent, the staff were more than happy to help/chat about the different aspects of the menu and it was easy to get their attention 
• Atmosphere - A little quiet when we arrived (we're early eaters) but music playing at an acceptable volume and more buzz as the evening went on 
• Overall rating - 4.5 stars

Yakitori #1 - Mermaid Quay Cardiff; 02920 495050; website