I know some people don’t rate the Sunday roast as a meal. Not sure why as oven roasted meats from elsewhere are often raved about, think cochinillo asado or lechazo asado in Spain, porchetta in Italy, Kleftiko in Greece and Peking duck in China to name but a few. These dishes are rightly lauded when done well, but tend to be awful if not.

Personally I think there are few thing more satisfying than a top quality bit of ruby red, roasted, dry aged beef and who doesn’t like a crispy skinned roast chicken or leg of lamb or crackling encased pork joint and if you don’t like proper meat jus gravy well I am not sure we can be friends!!  Of course, as with the others, a roast is dire if done badly, with overcooked, poor quality, meat and veg. (but that is the case for pretty much any dish).

Regardless of my seemingly  unfashionable opinion as to the merits of a roast, I am not wedded to having it on a Sunday and am happy to eat whatever. As such a belated Mother’s day meal (the week after, so I could easily get a booking and didn’t then have to put up with the special “captive market” menus that abound on that day, especially as it coincided with Wales allegedly “playing” rugby) led me, Mrs. SF (dog mum) and my Mum (idiot – me – mum) to the Purple Poppadum in Canton and their Super Sunday Menu.

Basically, you get all of these to share which on the face of it looks a pretty good deal for the £21.95 per person price tag.

We started off menu, apologies for the weird colours in the photos which was due to the inhouse lighting,

with some (not included in the price) poppadum shards and pickles to share (£5. 95).

Bit pricey I thought (when compare to the price of rest of the meal, but there were plenty of shards to share – Mrs. SF told me off for being greedy) and the pickles were quality. My favourite was a pungent tangy lemon pickle number that had just the right balance of sweet and sour. The coriander and coconut number was also on the money (the other one, a mango number I think, was just a tad on the bland side).

Starters were an interesting mix, with a top notch aloo tikki (bag loads of flavour, that made me think for a milli second that being a veggie wouldn’t be so bad – before I concluded nah it would) served as a chaat with a topping of various chutneys (coriander and tamarind included), crunchy sev and yoghurt being the star of the show.

A juicy bit of tandoor cooked chicken had a citrus zing to it from coriander and freshness from mint.

The cheese and potato croquette was a bit of an oddity. Well made, with a nice cheesy hit and a crisp outer shell, it lacked any real Indian sub continent markers (other than the blob of coconut and coriander chutney it sat on) at least to my jaded palate. I assume the cheese was paneer, but the lack of spice (in terms of the  croquette itself) made it seem a little out of place on the plate.

Mains are shared with two curries, a side, rice and bread

Murgh Lababdar was far from a dog’s dinner of a dish 😂, with it living up to the richness of its name,

with a thick robust, chunky and well spiced, tomato heavy, gravy. Not a lot of heat here, but a nice level of spicing gave it a pleasing tang. Generous levels of juicy chicken in the mix here made for an all round very pleasant dish.

The thoran had a good mix of crunch from the veggies, sweet from the coconut (liberally lacing it) and heat from a generous apportionment of green chillies.

Good dish this that worked very well with the murgh lababdar.

The seafood curry dish, in the form of a prawn moilee, was a bit disappointing (and easily my least favourite dish of the night).

Nicely cooked (but rather sparse in number) butterflyed prawns were good (overcooked prawns being the downfall of many a promising prawn dish), but were let down by the moilee being quite thin and lacking in spice and flavour other than coconut. It thus was all a bit one dimensional.

We were back in the groove, with a very generous portion of naan bread.

Crisp, but not too much so, exterior with a bubbled crust and a fluffy exterior.  These worked well in mopping up the mugh lababdar and for shovelling the thoran into the mouth.

Plentiful rice had good grain separation and seasoning.

It all made (bar perhaps for the underpowered moilee) for a super Sunday supper and a pretty good substitute for a more traditional Sunday dinner.

Booze wise, it is nice to see some Indian wines on the list (Sula sauv Blanc and cab. sauv.), but I think a slightly off dry riesling (God’s own grape) works a treat with spicy food and thus was just the ticket here.

Nice orchard and stone fruits on both the nose and the palate, with good acidity and just a touch of honeyed sweetness that worked really well with the spice and heat here. Only 8.5° too, which is less than some beers these days, so suitable for those who don’t like their booze too heavy on the alcohol, and very quaffable. Bit pricey at £33.95, when it retails at around a tenner, mind.

The verdict

Nice alternative to your standard Sunday dinner (nothing wrong with one of those to my mind though) this, with good flavours, nice spicing (bar from the somewhat disappointing prawn dish) and very fairly priced.

With booze, the extra poppadums and a tip (service is automatically added, which I dislike), with the service very good, the bill was £118.53 for 3 of us. I thought this pretty good value.

We were in there at 18.00 and it was initially very quiet for sit ins, with a more brisk take away trade, but the eat in trade picked up after sunset with, I suspect, iftar dinners (good way to break your fast this).

The detail

Address: 185A Cowbridge Road East, Canton, Cardiff, CF11 9AJ

Website: https://purplepoppadom.com/