I don’t know why the term “tapas” is so widely abused. Anything remotely small plate/snack in nature inevitably gets labelled as tapas when most of it clearly isn’t. How you can have Asian tapas is quite beyond me, to be honest (I suppose the Phillipines, with its Spanish colonial past, could have a marginal claim to Asian tapas).

I mean if I started calling paella, a European Biryani you would no doubt call me an idiot (been called that and a lot worse, if truth be told, mainly by Mrs. SF and J) and you would be quite right to do so.

Notwithstanding my loathing of the use of the term tapas for bloody anything that is not a full on main course, I found myself outside of a place whose strapline is Asian tapas!!!

Perhaps it is a compliment to the enduring charm of the tapas concept that use of the terms has become so bastardised. Regardless, I internalised my seething at the use (for no apparently reason) of the term tapas and in I went. 

I actually quite liked the looks of the menu,

with it seemingly a blend of Japanese and  South Korean.

On the day they also had a few specials on.

It may be short, but at first blush it looked potentially quite sweet.

The bits I was drawn to were that archetypal Japanese street food in the form of takoyaki and the rather intriguing sounding oden (the croffles, a hybrid of a croissant and waffle, popular in South Korea, also sounded fun).

Despite the rather fine weather we are currently having  I was drawn to the oden, a Japanese one pot/soup dish.

It seems to be one of those slightly whacky Japanese dishes that doesn’t translate that well to Western palates with the typical use of daikon/mooli, fish balls and Japanese  fishcakes/chakuwa (made from surimi, which is what the crab sticks they use to sell in the pubs along with cockles back in ye olden day) as add ons to a hot, kombu dashi broth.

Despite having been looked after (and as a result often fed Japanese food) by two Japanese au pairs in my youth, I am not much of a Japanese food (I have been following Gourmet Gorro’s Insta feed on his trip to Japan with huge envy – boy does the food looks good) connoisseur and as such I can’t vouch for the authenticity of this place. My ramblings here, therefore, are merely as to the question of whether it tasted good or not to me.

I decided to double up with the takoyaki and the smaller (2 add ons) of the oben cups.

A street food originating from Oaska, takoyaki are filled (usually with octopus) wheat batter balls, made in a takoyaki pan requiring constant turning to get a crisp outer shelled spherical bite size piece, which are them adorned with takoyaki sauce (sort of like Worcestershire sauce but thicker and fruiter) and bonito flakes

Whilst octopus is the most traditional filling, they also do a cheeesy sweetcorn one here. Covers both the veggies and those a bit squeamish re cephalopods

Personally, I am a sucker for a cephalapod and thus decided to stay trad. and go for the octopus ones (£7).

The balls had a gently crisp shell and a just verging on the gooey interior, with a fair bit of diced octopus in the mix. The latter added a textural contrast to the soft batter, but were just a tad on the too chewy side for me.

The toppings of the fruity takoyaki sauce, kewpie mayonnaise, bonito flakes and crispy seaweed added seasoning and textural contrasts to the mix. Enjoyed these, without being wowed by them.

I found the oben slightly odd, if I am honest, with it coming with kelp and diakon radish as standard and me going for fish balls and chakuwa as my two add ons.

I enjoyed the daikon, which had nicely soaked up the kombu dashi broth, and the kelp, which was slippery but tasty. I was not so keen on either the fish balls or the chakuwa.

The former were quite neutral in favour with an odd texture (a sort of mix between a wet sponge, too wet dough and a mozzarella ball)

The chakuwa was better texturally and had soaked up some of the flavour of the broth,

but was still a bit bland for my tastes.

The broth itself was very delicately flavoured, verging (again) on the bland.

Overall not entirely convinced by this dish. It wasn’t pricey at £5.50, but I found it all a rather unsatisfying thing.

My mate had the Korean fried chicken (£5), which he said was nice.

It didn’t really look like Korean fried chicken to me, lacking the sticky chilli sauce glaze and any pretence of a crispy shell.

I tried a bit and it was flavoured (again rather subtlety, verging on the boring) more like yakatori chicken (soy and mirin) without the trade mark smokey char from charcoal cooking I associate with yakatori.

Drinks wise, I went for a remune (orginal – supposedly lemon and lime),

which didn’t really warrant the krypton factor effort (it is stopped by a glass ball that you have to pop in the bottle using the plastic lid) to get it open. When my mate asked me what it tasted like, I said it was tricky to pin down but the closest thing would be sweetened alka seltzer.

The ice tea he ordered

was much more sucessful

The verdict

Perhaps this type of Japanese food is just not to my taste, but I found the food generally a bit underpowered on the flavour front (not what I generally associate with Japanese food) verging on the bland.

Despite my ire at the odd use of the term “tapas”, I  actually  wanted to like this place. Regrettably it didn’t really float my boat and I don’t think I will be in any hurry to go back.

I walked back to the train station via the market and thought (as I did) I would have been better off eating in there.

The details

You can eat in or take out, with it fair to say it is perhaps more set up for the latter

Address: 28-34 High Street Arcade, Cardiff CF10 1BB

Website: https://www.facebook.com/share/1Xtu3YSqPf/

Opening hours: