When out with Oscar, my dog, I often fancy something to eat and at the weekends (for the morning walk, we do an afternoon one too if Oscar can be arsed – rarely), breakfast is generally the meal in question.
Our walks tend to focus on either Llandaff and Pontcanna fields.
or (when Oscar is not feeling up to too long a walk, increasingly the case these days as he gets longer in the tooth) Victoria Park (have to say we are very lucky in Cardiff with our ability to access green spaces).
These walks allow me access to various places in terms of getting my hands on a portable (rather than sit down) breakfast.
Two of my favourites for an on the hoof (or should that be paw) breakfast are Nomad Kitchen in King’s Yard, Pontcanna (in the old Lazy Leek micro unit) and Pettigrew Bakeries (opposite Victoria Park).
Nomad Kitchen
Saturday’s often take me down to Pontcanna’s farmers’ market (great for getting my Ty Caws cheese fix, good veg place too – please can we have one veg producer at the Insole Court monthly farmer’s market) as a break up of my walk around Llandaff and Pontcanna fields.
At the 11.00 time I tend to get there I have built up a bit of an appetite and Nomad Kitchen’s breakfast offering is just the ticket (meat based of course).
I am usually not a huge fan of most smoked bacon (love unsmoked, I mean it is bacon) as the smoke can just overwhelm everything and is often a tad artificial (suspect the majority of smoked bacon wouldn’t know wood smoke if it bit it’s (Boston) butt) in nature. I am also much more a brown sauce than a red sauce advocate and as such, at first blush at least, it didn’t seem to be my thing. I, however, was seriously hungry and other elements certainly appealed.
Fine looking beast this, both at first sight
and when I lifted the bonnet.
I am not 100% convinced by the ongoing love in for brioche buns (they have there place, but are over used in my opinion), but here the innate sweetness worked rather well with the underlining spicey elements in the form of the gochujang mayo, the siracha ketchup and the gochu beef fat.
The egg element was a spinach laced egg slice/frittata (I would call it the latter). Good flavour and texture too this, which worked well as a replacement for the traditional fried egg (with the benefit of being a lot less messy).
Plastic cheese (my guilty food pleasure) added a nice tawdry tanginess to proceedings.
Enjoyed this somewhat unconventional spin on a breakfast bap. Not cheap at £8, but very tasty and thus worth it in my opinion.
Address: Kings Road Yard, Pontcanna, Cardiff, CF11 9DF.
Website: https://www.facebook.com/nomadkitchencdf
Pettigrew Bakeries
Oscar can be a little bit of a lazy bugger on a Sunday (can’t think where he gets that from)
and the pair of us often (as a result) sojourn to the closer Victoria Park as oppose to Pontcanna or Llandaff fields. My breakfast bap needs are more than adequately provided for here by way of Pettigrew Bakeries’
Sunday Breakfast Club (with the very sociable 13.00 end time more than late enough even for “lazy bones” Oscar himself).
Slightly cheaper than the Nomad one, you get a more traditional breakfast bap here with the choice of bacon and/or fried egg.
Again on a brioche bun (the sweet works to an extent with the salty bacon, but not quite as well as with Nomad’s spicier number).
Under the bonnet, the egg yolk could (if I was being particular picky – oh I am) have been just a tad runnier,
but for portability purposes that is probably for the best (I am messy eater at the best of times). The Trealy farm bacon was cooked bob on with a good level of crisped up fat to lean. Proper (rather than flabby, flaccid) bacon here, thank the Lord. Really good flavour to it too.
Nice to see brown sauce (far superior to tomato ketchup – I find the Heinz muck disgustingly sweet) and the Welsh Lady sauce had a good level of fruity spice and tamarind sour to it.
All in all a fine breakfast bap to scoff whilst ambling around Victoria Park, with the scent of bacon cajoling Oscar to follow.
Great as a hangover cure today, induced (presumably for most in Cardiff) by the drowning of sorrows as a result of yesterday’s international in Cardiff
Address: Cowbridge Road East, Victoria Park, Cardiff, CF5 1BE.
Soliciting Flavours 