I have always been rather disappointed by Cardiff Bay. Back in the 19th century when I first came to Cardiff it was a foreboding place, with us younguns (between munitions factory and chimney sweep shifts) warned not to venture over the railway line past the city centre into the deepest darkest docks. Pubs down there, back then, were very much of the “Welcome to the Docker’s Fist, will it be the usual pint of blood and teeth” variety, and we also had to constantly dodge the press gangs.

Too much fanfare it was then redeveloped and started off all shiny and new and became very much the place to go (for about 5 minutes). These days despite about a billion, trillion seeming relaunches (and no doubt similar amounts of money spent) it is somewhere rarely talked about (other than the Millennium Centre) in terms of a place to go out (certainly if chain restaurants are not your thing, but if you love a chain restaurant then it is positively Disneyland).  I mean The Red Dragon Centre down there is a desperately depressing place, being a restaurant graveyard!

As the Mystere Wine Club holds its monthly tastings in the Future Inn down the Bay and public transport from my Llandaff base is never very conducive to the 19.30 start time, I am often at a loose end for a while between arriving and the start of a tasting. An ideal opportunity for a bit of food, you would think, but from past experience the Bay is a bit of a food desert with drab chains dominating.

Meeting up with a mate (in advance of a “Dryanuary be bxggered” South American tasting) 

I spied from a Google search, Chan’s Noodle Bar. I feared it would be another generic (tamed down to meet Westerners’ bland tastes) joint, but thought it would probably be a better bet than most other available options.

On our arrival, the menu posted outside is a bit of a behemoth, which often sets alarm bells ringing (jack of all trades, masters of none) in my mind,

but we were drawn to the first page which seemed to focus on the place’s specials (sichuan being their predominante thing), which were duplicated (in full technicolour) on the wall inside.

This included some interesting (at least to Western guts) dishes such as spicy chilli oil pigs ear, saliva chicken with chilli oil (very much a lost in translation name, with it meaning mouthwatering rather than spittle flecked – suspect they would sell more of it if they called it “Mouthwatering Chicken” rather than “Saliva chicken“) and sichuan spicy diced trotters. Now, we thought, this is actually quite interesting and a million miles away from the Bay’s standard chain game. 

We decided on three dishes, plus rice.  One a little (to us at least) adventurous and two more conventional (to Western palates).

First up was the (at first sight rather intimidating) sichuan spicy diced pork trotters (£13.95) which seemed to consist predominantly of chilli, with a massive amount of them on the plate as well as a serious load of lip numbing sichuan peppers too.

When this arrived, I thought “oh god have we made a terrible error of judgement” and I feared my initial gut reaction and more so the risk of a subsequent “Johnny Cash” event with the next ” A Boy named Sue“.

My fears were not realised, with the copious amounts of chilli (surprisingly mild, even for a chilli wuss like me) and the load of  sichuan peppers providing more pleasing spice than ferocious heat. The pork was what I would call very roughly chopped rather than diced with the need to gnaw the meat and fat off the bones, with said fat having nicely absorbed the sichuan spices. Nuts provided a welcome extra bit of protein and again were coating with the zippy sichan spices. 

Really enjoyed this dish, with the balance of heat and spice working really well. My only complained would be the slight paucity of trotter meat (not that much meat on the bones here) in the mix.

Beef ho fan (£12.95) was a decent sized portion,

with a good ratio of beef (not tough, but with just a bit of chew to it) to big flat noodles all coated nicely in a smokey sauce from the wok. Crisp beansprouts added a nice bit of extra texture. Really good dish this and it probably just shaded the trotter dish as the favourite dish of the night for both of us.

The final dish we ordered was the kung pao chicken (£12.95) and this was the least favourite dish.

It looked promising with a good quantity of chicken, crisp vegetables and nuts bathed in a glossy sauce. The main issue with it was (on its own) it was overly sweet (without the balancing salty, sour, heat I associate with this dish) and, as a result, a bit cloying. 

Interspersing a mouthful of the kung pao with a mouthful of the sichuan spicy trotter dish did, however, go some way to resolving that issuing with the sichuan spices becoming the yin to the kung pao’s sweetness yan.  If, however, I had ordered this on its own I would have been disappointed by its one-dimensional sweetness.

We added plain rice (£2.95), as the filler, and it did it job without bells or whistles. Touch underseasoned, I would say, but when mixed in with the dishes that was not an issue.

On the drinks front, they don’t do booze and only have a small selection of pretty standard soft drinks

and a ropey looking self serve coffee machine.

I think it is a shame they don’t have a few Chinese soft drinks as I think the sour plum number I had at Chinese Fast Street Food in town (a while back)

would have worked a treat with the dishes we ordered.

We were told we could bring our own booze in (with Tesco just a few steps away) for no charge and my mate was dispatched to get something half decent from there beer wise (not an easy task). He settled on a couple of tinnies of Lost Lager, which worked perfectly well with the food. If going for wine, I think a German or even Aussie riesling would have worked as a fine pairing for the food.

The verdict

I thought the food here was interesting, plentiful and pretty tasty. Bar from the slight sweet misstep re the kung pao chicken (mostly rectified by interspersing it with mouthfuls of the sichuan spicy number), I was very happy with the food we had here.

It is pretty informal

and thus not the place for a lingering meal, perhaps, but if you are down the Bay for any reason (an event etc.) this is a pretty good option for a quickish in and out tasty meal (service was very efficient). Helps that  it is pretty much open all the time.

To me it is certainly a much better option that the multitude of chains down the Bay, with the ability to be a little bit more adventurous should you so wish (page 1 of the menu) or to stick (go to page 2 of the menu) to the more Westernised “classics“.

The details

Address: Unit 20, Mermaid Quay, Cardiff, CF10 5BZ

Website: https://chansnoodle.com/