Apparently Mesen means acorn in Welsh and, without any fanfare and a lack of freebies for the “Influenzas“, the place seems to have slowly but surely been growing a “go to” reputation in Cardiff and beyond (hence my tortured title – harder than you think, despite their crappiness, to keep on coming up with them week in week out) for its open fire based cooking.

Without wishing to be too misogynist, open flame brings out the caveman (I’m sorry but Caveperson just sounds bloody odd) in most people. That primal urge to subject meat to an open flame that sees the firing up of BBQs across the land on the merest hint of the sun coming out.

The aim of said BBQers is to get that nice external char (and for the serious ones the triggering of the malliard reaction), whilst sealing in moisture and the all important flavour. The results, all too often, are an abomination of a banger/burger with a burnt outside and a pretty much raw interior.

I have had bought for me (by Mrs. SF) a kamado style (the tight arse in me can’t rationalise the silly money being asked for a real Joe or Green Egg) BBQ and the results are promising, with the ability to maintain a steady temperature and the ceramic’s heat retention abilities (meaning less charcoal is required/used) being the key benefits (for fast cooks, low and slow and smoking). Not cheap but so far, far superior to a conventional BBQ in my limited experience. The disadvantage of all this is that you have to do it outside (in the absence of a mighty extraction unit) and this County is not exactly renowned for its stable warm dry weather.

Back to Mesen, the food is very much based on liberal use of a whopping open flame, coal fired, grill in the kitchen (and presumably a mighty extraction unit)

The menu seems to change quite dramatically week on week, with the week before our visit a friend sending me a picture of the menu which,

by the time of our visit, had been subject to wholesale changes.

Interesting example of real life effects of inflation/shrinkflation with the beef size falling by 4 ozs (12.5%), but staying the same price (in a week!).

Apologies in advance for the photos being a bit shxte (well shixter) this week, which was due (at least in part) to friends who we dined with having little truck with my “Let me take a photo first” requests. In a number of instances, they had simply tucked in before I had a chance to snap.

In terms of the “snacks” on offer, we asked as to what exactly the Szechuan lollipops were and were told pork with Szechuan spices. I love the lip numbing, tongue tingling, quality of Szechuan peppercorns, so a couple of these were duly ordered.

Not sure why there were called lollipops, as they were just chops. I am also pretty damn sure they were lamb not pork.

Very nice with a good char on the exterior and a rather rare interior (suspect too rare for some, especially if think it is pork, but bob on as lamb for the bloodthirsty like me). The spicing was nice, but it didn’t really come across as Szechuan in nature (no lip numbing, tongue tingling pepperiness), with much more an Indian “masala” lamb chop vibe to them. So very nice, but not entirely sure why it was called a Szechuan lollipop. Great for the £4 asking price though.

A second snack (£4) was a seeming riff on, the classic Basque pintxo, the Gilda.

A nice sharp and tangy guindilla pepper and some paprika heat from the chorizo, with the scallops there to provide the sweet to add to the heat and sour. Individually, each element was great, but put altogether the pepper and chorizo rather drowned out the flavour of the (should have been the star of the show) scallop (was nice to see the roe, all to often discarded, retained).

Next up was a belter of a lamb dish (£14)

which had a very French onion soup (for those with teeth) vibe to it. Full on flavoured lamb brought a deep rich meatiness into play, with oddles of super sweet caramelised onion and salty parmesan all giving a big umami hit.  The crouton element came in the form of sourdough that has absorbed all these elements. Really liked this dish.

Peri peri chicken (£22 – pretty much half a chicken) was a winner,

with a nicely spiced and charred, crispy, skin and a juicy, well flavoured interior. The sourness of the pickled cucumber and whipped yoghurt work very well as against the spiciness and heat of the peri peri seasoning. A very fine bit of chicken cookery this.

I was intrigued by the pork cheek dish on the menu. I love pork cheeks as a cut when slow cooked, but the nature of the cooking here suggested more a fast sear. Based on the work the cheek muscle does, I would expect it to be tough if not cooked down for a long time. So how had they cracked the “cook it quick but keep it tender” conundrum? The answer regrettably was, they hadn’t.

The picture isn’t great, but actually shows what we left of the dish.

Nice char on the pork, but it was quite tough and chewy with the fat not having rendered down. As a result, it required more than a little mastication.

Good flavour to it, but it really wasn’t an easy eat texturally. It didn’t work for me this dish and we left a fair bit of it on the plate.

We were back in clover, with the rib of beef dish.

Cooked nicely rare, but with a good char on the outside, it had that lovely nutty butteriness you get from quality dry aged beef. Personally, I don’t think it needed the beef sauce. Regardless, said sauce (or as I like to call it gravy) was rich and gloriously beefy  Not cheap at £47, but worth it to my mind (good beef always is).

On the sides front, smoked new potatoes (£7 – good portion size for that) had a subtle lick of smoke, a crisp exterior and a fluffy interior.

Copious amounts of butter added nicely to the mix.

The second side was less successful. We ordered (at least I thought we did) the wood roasted greens, but what we got wasn’t very green and looked very much like the radicchio dish on the menu. Rather than wait for the greens, we decided to persevere with what we had (having been slightly tore between the two in any event)

Perfectly pleasant, with a decent vinegar based dressing making it akin to a slaw. If, as strongly suspected, it was the radicchio I didn’t get any of the promised burnt tangerine or walnuts. If they were in there, they were very elusive. Think someone might have gotten a piece of walnut, but there seemed to be no sign of the advertised burnt tangerine (shame as I think its sweetness would have worked well as against the slightly bitter radicchio and walnut).

On the afters front, I am a sucker for cheese and was intrigued by the hobnobs in the mix in the cheese offering (£8).

Really enjoyed the tangy sourness of the blue cheese (Harrogate Blue, I would hazard a guess) and pickled red berries as against the sweet honey, but found the hobnobs a little bit dry and dusty. Preference would have been more standard crackers.

The other pud ordered was a sticky cola pudding (£8), with ice cream and a caramel sauce

Good pud this, with the sugary cola working very well as the sticky element and it bringing (on top of the sweet) citrus, cinnamon and vanilla to the party.

On the booze front, I could tell pretty much instantly where they source their wine, or at least the majority of it, from (I would wager a fair amount of money it is Cardiff based Fine Wines Direct).

I would describe the list as just a tad on the pedestrian side and certainty think they should do more wines by the glass to allow a bit more freedom in terms of pairing as against the somewhat divergent dishes on offer and the sharing/small plates format.

After much humming and harring as to what to order, based on our quite diverse menu choices, I defaulted to rioja.

Easy drink number this from David Moreno, in La Rioja Alta, with tempranillo and a fair blob of garnacha (15%). Red fruit to the fore here, with strawberry and raspberry. Not particularly complex, but you wouldn’t expect that at this price point and it was pleasant enough to have us ordering a second bottle.

Talking of price this wine retails at around the £11.50 mark and was £34 on the list. UK wise, that is a pretty fair mark up. Looking elsewhere on the list, the top priced red, La Capella, is £26.99 retail and £82 on the list. Again, a pretty fair mark up for the UK. That can be contrasted with the top priced white, the Chateau Peyrassol Blanc, which I have seen for £13.50 retail and is on the list here for a whopping £79. Unless I am missing something (i.e. it is not the wine I think it is), that is a pretty egregious mark up and oddly out of kilter with the rest of the prices on the list.

The Verdict

I would say on balance the food here is pretty good, with mostly hits. It is fair to say I was happier overall than Mrs. SF (who hates sharing).

When the dishes were good, they were very good. A couple of dishes, however, didn’t work for me (or indeed the rest of the table). A case of choose wisely and you will have a fine meal, but maybe tread a bit more cautiously the more off piste you go. I dearly wanted the pork cheek dish to work, but it seemed my gut feeling about the perils of a fast cook was right. I do, however, like the inventiveness and willingness to experiment on display here.

The menu seems to change almost completely weekly and I would, maybe, like to see a few dishes (on top of the seemingly always on beef) as regulars on the menu.  I would certainly want the peri peri chicken dishes again on any return visit.

On the booze front, more wines by the glass (to allow you to mix and match as against different dishes – easily done with the state of wine preseveration technology these days) and a bit more of a dynamic list would also be a plus for me.

Had heard from a friend that they do corkage. This has been clarified as a was a one off due to a big birthday rather than something they usually do.

So a few growing pains, perhaps, and I dont think they are quite yet at the mighty oak stage, but it is still early days and overall lots of green shoots in terms of the potential of this place.

Details

Address: Hoel-Y-Deri, Rhwibina, Cardiff, CF14 6HF

Website: https://www.mesenrestaurant.com/