I love a pop up, especially one that is within spitting distance of my home (in Insole Court, the pop up not my home)

Add to that the rather fine (in my experience) pan Asian flavours that you get with Cardiff’s Nomad Kitchen and you are on to a winner.

With a fab looking menu, with some interesting ideas such as fish sauce in a dessert,

a table for four was booked.

Mrs. SF had to pull out at the last minute (too late to cancel with payment in advance) so we had in theory 4 meals between the 3 of us (I wasn’t complaining).

First up was the seemingly on trend bread course. I love bread, but I tend to view it as an accompaniment to other dishes rather than (the seeming current trend) as a course in its own right.

The shokupan (milk bread) was suitably soft and fluffy,

with sufficient retained heat to melt the miso butter. The conscientious of opinion on the table was the butter was a bit light on the promised miso element, which was a shame.

The shiitake and tofu pate on milk bread crackers intially filled me with dread, not being a tofu fan, but these were surprisingly good with the tofu adding a pleasing creaminess to the earthy shiitakes. Nice crisp crackers too.

Prawn wantons were titanesque in stature,

with a crisp outer shell and a robustly spiced (lemon grass heavy) minced prawn interior, thankfully lacking in the rubbery texture that often blights such dishes. Nice hit of chilli on the top added heat, but neither overpowered nor made the wonton wrappers soggy.

Cured salmon was nicely done, with the cure delicate enough not to overawed the fish. Not sure of cure composition, but star anise definitely figured.

Pickled cucumbers added a nice tangy counterpoint to the rich fatty salmon and sago and seaweed crackers a nice textural contrast.

I am a big fan of all things fried and love a good KFC (Korean fried chicken rather than the Colonel Sanders muck).

Lovely interpretation of this every popular genre here, with the hot sticky mess that was the gochuhang sauce outer layer smothering a crisp shell and an interior of tender buttermilk marinaded chicken. Good level of spice, without it blowing your socks off.

It came with sticky rice,

which I tend to find sweeter than other rice and as such a good match for the reasonable heat of the chicken

Crispy shallot rings and batons of spring onions added nice alium notes to the dish.

We were all rather taken aback by the volume of the next dish, even allowing for it being for 4 rather than 3.

Nicely cooked bavette (one of my favourite cuts of steak, but an unforgiving one that is ruined if overdone – goes tough as old boots), which had just a touch of chew, good level.of rareness and bags of flavour (I expect no less when the meat is sourced from Meat Matters). It was liberally doused in a zingy crying tiger sauce, which has the trademark trifecta of heat, sweet and sour, which worked really well with the steak.

Veggies were sadly not morning glory (I lamented the fact that this meant so many limp jokes I had lined up went to waste, but I managed kept a stiff upper lip above it), with tenderstem in its stead.

Nicely cooked, with a touch of bite still retained and a good (spicy, smokey, sweet and sour) nim jam sauce.

Sesame featured in the form of the seeds and what seemed like a tahini type affair (probably something entirely different), which added a pleasing nuttiness.

The veggie option (one of our party is not a fan of beef – not a veggie just dislikes beef, the weirdo) was a squash (crown I would say). Didn’t taste it, but she enjoyed it.

Dessert was rather intriguing, with a fish sauce caramel. Fish sauce is pungent stuff and here (luckily) there was a steady hand on the pourer (God knows what it would have been like if that hand had slipped).

As a result, it added just enough tangy saltiness to the rather fine caramel atop a good proper vanilla ice cream. Crushed peanuts brought a welcome bit of texture, as well as flavour, to the party.

On the booze front, I did enquire regarding corkage as I think a riesling would have been just the ticket here (and have plenty of them in the wine room). I was told the Potting Shed was doing the booze, which I took as a no.

Started off with a beer

and moved on to a NZ pinot noir (actually a decent pairing with this sort of food, with a lack of tannin which tends to clash with spicy food)

Decent enough drop this, with raspberry to the fore both on the nose and the palate. Think it was about £25, which with it retailing at around the £14 mark seems to me to be a pretty fair price.

Personally I think an off dry German riesling would have worked best here, but J would have undoubtedly not countenance it (even if corkage was available) as she (deep sigh from me) turns her nose up at any white that isn’t “Atacama desert” dry (I still have much work to do in training my wine padawan it seems).

The verdict

Very enjoyable meal this with hearty portions and a nice mix of pan Asian flavours.

We had loads left over and they happily provided us with a doggy bag (dog was having none of it)

Good value for the (I think) £45 price tag per head.

Nice to see the Potting Shed in Insole Court, putting on these sort of events. Looks like they are becoming a (very welcome) regular feature.

Nomad Kitchen seem to be doing lots of supperclubs/pop up (already been another one at Twenty Six in Canton in December) on top of their Pontcanna takeaway operation in King’s Yard (do a cracking breakie roll). On this showing, they are certainly well worth looking out for.

The details

Website: http://www.nomadkitchen.uk/