Be Excellent To Each Other

Was so impressed by my lunch out this work break-time, I had to sneak this in here…

If there’s one place you have lunch in Cardiff city centre make it Café Minuet. It’s utterly excellent. It’s in Castle Arcade and is about the size of a shoebox. Step through the door and you have the kitchen area to the left behind the till, a space about the size of a sandpit crowded by the fine eccentric Italian chef and owner Mr Marcello and his two young and rather pretty daughters.

Marcello loves classical music, deeply and passionately. Plastered upon the walls you will find photocopies of Deutches Gramophone record covers, printed-out portraits of famous composers and score sheets. A signed well-wishing poster of soprano Emma Kirkby adorns the far wall, of whom a recipe is named after. In fact nearly all the dishes are named after famous composers, tenors, sopranos and notable musicians. The creamy mushroom tagliatelle in nutmeg and white wine sauce is called Don Giovanni, for example. On each table a large A3 sheet laminated poster sits, each one peppered by the intense stares of various composers, with a little autobiographical history beneath the name of most dishes. Meanwhile a stereo plays whatever Marcello fancies at the moment, be it a light opera, rousing Slavonic symphony or Italian waltz.

So how’s the tucker? Filter coffee puts a fair few expensive café roasts to shame and is a mere £1.50. Pro-tip, drink it black and savour, it’s quite mellow and sweet. This meal myself and my friend Alice plumped for two spinach dishes. I went for an Involtini Gioachino Rossini (Rossini composer of thirty nine operas, most famous being the comic Barber of Seville) and Alice for an Emma Kirkby (English soprano and famed expert of early music).

Both were spinach pancakes done a little differently. My Rossini consisted of three beef burger sized pancake wraps containing chopped porcine mushroom with a soft cheese and spinach, smothered in a delicious, zesty but happily none too aggressive arrabbiata sauce. The entire affair was melt in the mouth delicious, but with a feeling of pleasing substance too; perfectly balanced between stomach filler and a light concoction. It came with a side dish of garlic bread for no extra charge, generously consisting of two long half batons of home baked bread, both crunchy, decently seasoned and again meltingly good.

Alice proclaimed her meal just as delicious. And the total bill for two meals and two coffees? A staggeringly cheap fifteen pounds exact. Despite being incredibly busy on a match day lunch time the service was swift if necessarily a little formal, and there were no compromises in this rush hour feast.

My verdict? Whilst the Vegetarian Food Studio down in the Cardiff suburb of Grangetown remains to my mind the best restaurant in town, it merely edges ahead of this charismatic café bistro. Obscure, independent, with flavoursome dishes that are quite unique and run by a legend and served up by two rather attractive sisters, this is the best place you could eat out at in the city centre. Alas, it closes at half four, but for a luncheon and a good atmosphere it can’t be beat.

This wins the coveted BETEO Restaurant Award Rating of…



Any others out there I should know?

Although I doubt I'll ever go there, that was an excellent review.

I could picture it from your excellent descriptive prose. Glad you had a good lunch.

Good review. Can we have some screenshots to see how it tasted?

I recommend Ramons restaurant in Cathays. The cheapest and most sensible way to give yourself a pleasant heart attack.

Ramons is indeed mighty. It's been too long since I've been there.

Top gossip! Lord Rixondale when he was a student once had his student loan fucked up by the admin eejits, effectively denying him money for ages. He would have starved only he won a raffle at Ramons for a year's free breakfasts there. Ramons evidently figured that the humble winner would eventually after a few weeks turn up only for weekends, or for the odd morning. Not Dixon. So broke was he, and so mighty the breakfast goodness, and so Yorkshire was his blood, that he turned up for NEARLY EVERY ONE.

I salute him for it, and still do. How Ramons wept and bitterly regretted their folly.

But you should visit this cafe, Dix. Your mouth will love you forever.

I will eat at Café Minuet the next chance I get. Thanks for the tip, Pete!

Also feexed:

A true story. What Pete forgot is that I won the raffle on my 21st birthday. And Lady Rixondale got me the Man with the Golden Gun on video on the same day. Best day evah.

Cafe Minuet is lovely. I've only eaten there twice but both times I have been really impressed, look out for their Slippers; thin slices of pizza or garlic bread. That place also make the arcade smell great.

I think it's very presumptuous of Pete to describe his own review as 'fine'. I think we'll be the judge of that, thankyewverymuch.




It's a top review.

Got take for lunch here today by a couple of guys who've eaten here 3 times a week for 4 months (neither of them have popped yet) and again it was fantastic.

I had Mendelsson pasta; taglatelle in spicy tomato and soy sauce with chicken. It was lovely, just enough for lunch. Would have been better with a few glasses of red but we didn't have too much time.

Next time though, I think I'll be trying one of the spinach dishes that Pete had, one of the guys had it today and it looked superb.

Er...really?

I'm wondering if I've been there. I shall try and remember to go next time I head down to see my sister, which should be within the month. Also: BeeX mini-meet, should I ever get round to doing so.

Spelling of tagliatelle or the soy sauce? I am assuming the soy sauce, so yes really. It makes the tomato sauce taste very, very rich and compliments the chilli. I've tried it at home a few times but it's only really worked once.

You'd probably remember it if you had been there, it's quirky enough. I'd be up for a mini meet, especially if there's a chance of an afternoon beer.

Your dinner, so I'll take your word for it. Interested in the name though. I can imagine Mendelssohn sat in a cafe somewhere going "Fuck it, I'm a free thinker! I refuse to be constrained by tradition!", pulling out his bottle of soy sauce and liberally dousing his pasta.

All of the cafés dishes are named after composers. Also I put soy in all my tomato based sauces. Is that weird, then?

I think that's exactly how it happened.

I can't remember if there were any other oddities like that in any of the other dishes, I will investigate some more. I'll keep eating there until Pete tells me somewhere else I should eat, I trust him and only him to choose my food for me now.

It could well be delicious. It's the provenance that's weird.

Soy and tomato sounds foul. Which doesn't mean it is, it just sounds it.

I've decided I probably haven't eaten there after all.

Hurrah! I'm the new Jonathan Meades!

Egg, have you tried the Vegetarian Food Studios on Penarth Road? I very strongly recommend them. Their Aubergine Ringan Nu Saak and Masala Mushroom Nu Saak are off the hook, and quite mild. If you fancy kicking it up a notch try their Atom Bombs, curried battered potatoes with a refreshing cooling garlic infused core. Dishes are quite cheap, samosas are lush and only 60p each and they do delivery. Menu's here: http://www.vegetarianfoodstudio.co.uk

ALSO.

to another Beex meet. Been too long it has. And this time we can drag Lord Rixondale along. In fact I was talking about the idea with him last Meal and Movie. We could all grab food at Minuet and then trawl round some nice pubs.

That ain't going to be a problem for the Egg.

A good Guardian guide to more Cardiff cheap-eat places here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2010/m ... udget-food

I've been to about a third of them (Waterloo Gardens, Vegetarian Food Studio (incredible!), Gwdi's) and I rate them highly, so they seem to know what they're talking about.

Really nice singer in the library today. Lawrie Evans is her name. Good songs, beautiful voice. Did an acoustic cover of Sweet Child of Mine too. It was remarkably uncheesy. Nice.

I want to eat with Pete!
But I'll be fucked if there's no meat.

Trust me, the texture and the flavour of VFS is so utterly amazing that you won't miss the meat at all. The aubergine curries are off the hook, as are the mushrooms. Really. And Rixondale agrees with me, and he's an avowed 'meat in everything' eater of dishes.

Where do you live anyway? I'm happy to meet up for nosh.

Do they let you BYOB?








Bring your own bacon, that is.

Fleetwood. Maybe bring a bag of goodies up for the camping meet in the Lakes?

That I need to organise...

Are all meat-eaters the same as me then? In other words, do you too find that you immediately disregard any vegetarian dishes on the menu in any restaurant you go in as not fit for consumption?

Actually, no. Depends what I'm having. Lunch, I'll happily look at the non-meat options. Dinner, there's very little chance I'll be going for something meat-free.

Yes. If I'm paying I want meat.

However, I will not refuse a vegetarian dish shoved in front of me. For instance, MRs Z makes an AWSOME Veggie lasagne.

Well, I'll look at them too. Then my eyes will race off to the meaty stuff.

I called in to Cafe Minuet the other week...
Very small, pretty busy, and smells incredible. The missus had a spaghetti dish (she loves pasta), and gave it a 10/10, (with 11/10 for the garlic bread), I had king-prawns wrapped in bacon on spicy rice, which was good - but a teeny over-salty (which I am guessing comes from the salty bacon) so only a 9/10 from me. (I did want the feesh but they had run out of feesh earlier in the day... maybe a tip to get there at the start of lunch rather than the end)
Anyway... very nice place, and will definitely go there again next time I am after lunch in town