Whilst I rather enjoy working full time from home (being an irascible old git, who just wants to be left alone, is not that conducive to an office environment), I do miss a mooch around Cardiff’s indoor market (plus the company of my ex work wife Rachel – she would never forgive me if had failed to say that, but then couldn’t be arsed to come into town to meet me 🤔).
It has certainly been a while since I have been to the market (and town for that matter) and with the weekend beckoning (and me thinking I may as well pack up the PCs early on a Friday) I thought I would pick up a steak from the market and kill two birds with one stone and meet up with a mate for lunch.
The food offering at the market had certainly expanded, with a veritable smorgasbord of cuisines now available for your lunchtime delectation.
The pick up a steak idea was a busted flush as, much to my horror, one of my favourite Cardiff butchers (K. Blackmore & Sons – did fab steaks, pork chops and Barnsley chops all cut to order) seems to have gone 😱, with me finding in its spot a Greek (not a butcher) place (nothing wrong with that sort of place, but just a crying shame that another good butcher has gone – not many left in Cardiff these days). I do hope this is not a portent of thing to come when they redevelop the place, as it still needs to be inherently a market, rather than just a food hall (not a market then is it), in my view.
Back to the food stall element, one stall that caught my eye was the Real Ting (in the unit that housed the much missed Franks), which (somewhat unsurprisingly) is a Jamaican focused stall.
I have very much developed a taste for Jamaican food in recent years with its blending of spice and heat. You get that real ting(le) of heat, without blowing your socks off, such that you can still make out the array of spices used (allspice, ginger, cloves, cinnimon and nutmeg).
Interesting menu,
with a fair few of the usual suspects on there such as jerk, chicken curry, salt fish and achee. Goat curry and brown stew, however, oddly not on there. I suppose too big a menu would be tricky in what is a smallish space
Not cheap, with bowls at £11 (meat based)/£10 (veggie based), I was interested to see portion size.
Ordering is easy, with a ticket issued on payment
and a quick (ideal for the office worker on the lunch hour clock) turn around.
Hot sauces are available should you wish to add a bit more heat to proceedings
I went for the Portland Bowl with Portland being a district of Jamaica encompassing the fabled Blue Mountains (very pricey coffee) and from my (albeit cursory – you would expect nothing more from me) research the home of jerk seasoning (Boston, Portland, to be precise).
This wasn’t jerk based, with the protein element a chicken curry.
Portion size wise, justifying the price tag, it was a weighty bowl filled to the brim with a good amount of chicken curry atop plentiful rice and peas.
The curry had a good flavour (as seems the Caribbean way it was a bit boney, which I don’t mind as we are far too sanitised food wise here and bones et al mean it ain’t cooked up frankenfood style in a bio reactor!!) with ginger, coconut and thyme to the fore. What it perhaps lacked was that real scotch bonnet fruity punchiness (toned down for UK lily livered tastes perhaps 🤷). I added a generous slug of hot pepper sauce to mine, which (to an extent) brought the sought after fruity heat back into play.
I love rice and peas and these had that woody fruitiness from allspice berries and thyme. Nice level of coconut, with it avoiding clagginess, but again it lacked that fruity scotch bonnet heat.
All in all a well flavoured and hearty dish (possibly just a tad underpowered heat wise), the only thing that was a bit off was the dumpling.
I expected the dumpling to be crisp on the outside with a fluffy, light interior.
This one was rock hard and a bit of a challenge to eat if I am honest. Also it didn’t exactly look the most appertising either.
I reckon David could have used one of these things to take down Goliath!
Not sure what caused this issue, but maybe the fact that they are likely reheated rather than cooked to order from scratch (tricky I suppose)? To me, the dumpling just didn’t work and the dish would have been better off without it.
My mate had the jerk bowl, which he said he enjoyed. No photo of that as my phone (clearly programmed by the Met Office) had by then decided it was too hot (being about 75°c and thus dangerous akin to being slightly warmish) for the camera to operate
On the drinks front they have cans (saw Jamaican ginger beer and assume Ting available too), but I was intrigued by the natural juice concoction
Pleasant this, with a good underlying ginger zing.
Whilst I would have liked it a bit tarter (the sorrel in UK – pretty tart – is not the same as sorrel in Jamaica where it is what they call hibiscus), it was quite refreshing which was a boon on the day (we had an actual warm day this summer – which I assume had the Met Office rolling out their equivalent of Corporal “We’re doomed” Fraiser to tell us all to lie in the bath covered in damp towels with the lights off and shutter blinds down until the emergency passes and we get back to the standard – still a factor 500 bazillion summer sizzler – 56°f with pouring rain) in question.
The verdict
Nice little set up this, with well flavoured and plentiful food. Not the cheapest with the bowls topping a tenner, but there are lower priced options like fried chicken bites and ackee and salt fish (both £6), and the bowls are quite substantial (I was full enough come the evening to only need nibbles).
If I was being hyper critical, it could have done with a bit more fruity chilli heat and a rethink re the dumplings would perhaps be a wise move. All in all, however, an enjoyable lunch.
One of a number of new and interesting food stalls in the market, I do slightly worry that the market element is being somewhat muscled out and with the pending redevelopment it is all pitching towards a full on food hall. Bit of balance required, I feel, as it would be a shame if Cardiff lost its market.
The details:
Address: Ground floor, North, Cardiff Market, Cardiff city centre.
Soliciting Flavours 