I love a pop up/supper club and I also love a bit of Middle Eastern food, where unleavened bread is king.

A supper club event in King’s Yards, Pontcanna (a venue that is actually in Pontcanna rather than Canton) by Welsh based Lahmacun (named after a flatbread topped with  spiced minced meat, hence the title) ticks an awful lots of boxes, with just the possible outdoor location (King’s Yard) + bloody awful weather conundrum to consider (it was during our delightful August/monsoon season).

We decided to take the risk, with me saying to J “I mean,  how long could it continue to rain?” (pretty sure Noah had a similar conversation with Naamah) in what was a “glorious” summer (of flood), and were rewarded with an actual sunny day (the beginnings of a rather nice late summer burst of sun as it happened).

We needn’t have worried as it was indoors, so there was no need to put our trust in the weather gods (the new religion, same as the old, old, religions).

Regardless of the fickle weather gods, we sought solace in the even older gods of greed and gluttony based on a fine looking menu.

On entry into King’s Yards, we were met with the sizzle of fire being vigorously applied to food (fish, meat and veggies) and assailed (in oh such a good way) with multiple enticing aromas.

I do like this most basic of cooking mediums, with no knob to turn it up or  down nor any fancy gadgets to go wrong.

Much to my horror the dining was “communal”, of which I am generally not a fan (being in J’s words “a miserable git” – a pretty accurate description to be fair). My initial dismay at the enforced communality was compounded by the instruction that the food would be served up to be shared in sixes, slightly odd with us ordering based on two sharing with our party 4. My horror was nothing, however, compared to the poor sods who by pure dumb luck found themselves sitting by me (and my party of 3). J created a buffer zone (herself) and instructed me not to be greedy or snippy.

On sitting down both J and I commented on how many people were there until one of our party pointed out that unless there was two of me (God would never be so cruel to this world) the wall at the back was likely a mirror (it was).  Still well attended, just not quite so well as we had first thought. Anyhow, on to the food (always get there in the end).

First up was a medlay of Middle Eastern snacks (a mezze is what I would call it)

The flat bread was whey better than I expected (😂 – with me continuing the punning , with a ” There is no whey this is made with whey”, until J threatening to stab me if I continued), with the whey giving it a pleasing tanginess

The labneh continued  the tangy theme

with a heavy hit of confit garlic. Very nice atop the “I approve of it being made this” whey bread (whereupon I extracted the fork J had stabbed into my thigh – she didn’t but I bet it more than crossed her mind).

Mackerel is one of those fish that is viewed as having star quality by most outside the UK , but seems to be oddly shunned here. This is a shame as it is such a lovely fish and one that has a great affinity for fire and smoke. I adored a bit of fire blistered iridescent mackerel skin and the oily flesh that sits beneath it.

The mackerel flesh, sat atop toasted bread, had been nicely imbided with the wood smoke,

with the oily richness of the fish nicely offset by pink pickled onion and a pomegranate molasses based dressing spiked with aleppo pepper and sumac.

I am usually a bit indifferent to the supposed charms of  watermelon, finding it a bit well watery and bland (the  courgette of the fruit world). Here, however, the addition of a dukkah and Moroccan olive oil (don’t tend to see it much over here but was rather good – very fruity and nutty)  really amped things up.

Really pleasing nutty crunch in the dukkah, with the spicing operating to enhance the often dull flavour of the watermelon flesh.

I enjoyed the combo of spice and refreshing watermelon such that we got multiple hits of the spice as it was washed through the palate by the watermelon juice. Seems to be a great vector for spice, watermelon

Very enjoyable starter, although the irregular size of the watermelon slices meant our +2 dinners were perhaps a tad short-changed.

On to the mains, we had a sort of intermediary course. This consisted of  plates of padron peppers and Turkish Kimchi(?) stuffed pepperdews.

The padrons had a nice blister to them and, joy of joys, I had my first ever properly hot one (real piquancy to a couple in the mix here). So I am about 2/10000000 of hot versus mild padrons to date.

The urfa berber infused aioli added a further spicy hit to the mix.

The pepperdews were a bit of an oddity, with “Turkish” kimchi (is there such a thing?) in the mix.

The Turkish bit, I assume, was the use of urfar beber (Turkish chilli paste) rather than Gochagaru.  Nice, but I didn’t get the sour, tangy, almost fizziness you get from kimchi I have had in Korean restaurants. Shortish ferment, I assume?

On to the main mains, J and I had agreed beforehand to order one each of the meat and veggie options. We intended to share, so as to try everything on offer.

This didn’t quite work as we had intended as the meat was a singular pork chop and one end was pretty much just fat.

As J is very squeamish about fatty meat (🤷) and I am not, I agreed to the fatty end of the stick subject to me getting the crackling. I am far from adverse to a bit of fat, but I am no wife of Jack Sprat and like a bit of lean too. Not their fault mind as we’d choosen to share.

J did give me a bit of lean and it, with the fat, had a good flavour with the smoke being subtle rather than overpowering. The crackling was 👊 with a lovely crunch but not tooth shattering, and had a really nice caramelisation to it.

I rather liked the addition of stone fruit to the porky mix (a riff on good old apple sauce) with the added complexity of spice being applied to these. Also helped to cut the fat.

Sides included fattoush (or is it fatoush?)

and chapas batatas harra (spicy Lebanese  potatoes) with a salsa negra

Both very good, with the fat(t)oush heavy with fragrant mint and the batatas loaded with red chilli and garlic.

The veggie main was also rather good,

if not much of a looker.

Aubergine has such an affinity with smoke and here combined well with a spicy tomato and pepper combo (the matbucha) and a cooling dollop of ricotta.

All in all rather fine mains, especially if you had J’s end of the pork stick (🙄).

Moving on to the puds, we continued the sharing theme and dug into both the gooseberry

and strawberry numbers .

I am not usually a fan of anything with white chocolate in it. In my experiance, most “white” chocolate is overly sweet and just plain nasty (think tbe ghastly Milky Bar – a case of ” The Milky Bars are on me!”, ” Well that may be the case, but you can bloody well kept that synthetic shxte to yourself laddie!”.

Here the white chocolate was of a decent quality, with the tartness of the gooseberries (very underrated and underused fruit these days, much more orevalent in my youth) keeping the sugariness in check.   Nice  lightness to the mousse too. One of the best white chocolate based desserts (albeit there are not many and thus the “milky” bar is set quite low) I have come across

The strawberry dessert was a whole other level, with the smoking of the fruit working surprisingly well. The application of grill heat to the strawberry seemed to amp up their innate sweetness.

The blow torching of the meringue added a nice touch of caramel bitterness to the sugarfest.

Ashta (a sort of  Middle Eastern riff on clotted cream) added a touch of floral to proceeding (with orange blossom water in the mix, I think).

The final food element was a Turkish coffee affogato. Didn’t take a picture, but recall it being nice with the bitterness of the coffee (Turkish is only coffee I can stand sugar in and when I put sugar in it you can stand the sugar spoon in it) tempered my the ice cream.

On the booze front , there was a short selection of offer. Shame no Lebanese (Musar and lots of other quality producers) or Moroccan wines in the mix (rather partial to the great (RIP) Alain Graillot’s Tandem Syrah du Maroc), with the short list mainly Italian plus a smattering of Spanish wines in there, supplied by Cardiff’s WinesnVine (Llandaff North – must check them out).

We had a perfectly nice Percorino,

a wine from Abruzza, which coped well with the mezze style mismash of flavour we kicked off the meal with.

Nice limey nose, with green apple and a touch of pear.  Stone fruit and more tropical fruits on the palate, with robust acidity (made it quite the glugger). Think it was £24 on list here and it retails between £13-£14, so very fair mark up by UK standards.

On the red front, I often default to Spanish, and this evening was no expection.

I am a big fan of garnacha heavy riojas and this 100%  number piqued my interest, with it having ripe red fruits and oak making its presence known (but not being overblown).  Can’t recall 100% the price, but think it was about £25 (may be £30) which is not bad at all (by UK standards) when it retails at around the £13 – £15 mark in the UK.

The verdict

Rather enjoyed  my meal here, with the potent mix of smoke, fire and Middle Eastern flavours working very well together (a formula as old as time).

Decent value, based on quality and quantity at £45 per head (sans booze), it is  certainly one to keep an eye out for in terms of their pop ups and supper club  events going forward (as well as at Cardiff’s Riverside Farmer Market, for there less formal food offering). I will also be taking a look at what WinesnVines has to offer in Llandaff North.

Details

Website: https://www.facebook.com/lahmacuncardiff

Social media: Instagram – @lahamcumcardiff