I have a love hate relationship with Chinese restaurants in the UK. All to often they are rather generic, dare I say boring, with fare clearly tailored for Western tastes. There are, however, many exceptions to this rule and Cardiff, having a large Chinese student population, has a fair few of what I would regard as proper Chinese places. When you find a good one, it can be glorious and makes you realise just how boring and bland the generic ones are.

One such place is North Point, in the studentville burb of Cathay, which is named after a district in Hong Kong (North Point, not Cathays with the latter being a poetic name for China based on the Tartar dynasty that ruled from Beijing from 936 – 1122)

Been to Hong Kong (for the Sevens) and it is quite an overwhelming place with everything crammed in and life seeming experienced at a million miles an hour. One thing I remember was really good food and thus a Hong Kong focused place in Cardiff rather appealed.

The place is diminutive,

with only 14 covers. I think we were quite lucky the weather was a bit manky in terms of getting a table, with people staying in and ordering stuff for delivery (there was a constant stream of pick ups by delivery riders) rather than venturing out in the drizzle.

The menu is what I would regard as not your regular UK Chinese one. It isn’t 37 pages long for starters (don’t get me started on the mains) and doesn’t have any of the Westernised favourites on it (sweet and sour battered pork balls, what I view as one of most depressingly awful menu items known to man, for instance). It is very much a quick in and out affair, that is seemingly reflective of the constant “on the go” culture of Hong Kong.

I was immediately drawn to the pork chops (but not the spam and cheese, with spam seeingly having a resurgence in popularity for unknown reasons) bun

and the other more substantial pork chop dishes.

I was only ever going to go for pork chop, with pork making up to 60% of Chinese meat consumption, amounting to a staggering 57 + million tonnes annually. As a result, the cuisine relies heavily on that meat and knows a thing or two as to how to best cook it. The question then was, will it be with rice or lo mein or indomie noodles? Whilst I considered my starch options, J ordered (as a sort of starter) the curried fish balls (£3.50)

Slightly odd texture to these (to Westernised palates at least), with J describing it as a bit like the bounce you get from a frankfurter (we eventually concluded it was more crab stick/surimi like).  Flavourwise the balls themselves were a tad neutral, but the curry sauce was nicely spicey (not sure they warranted the 2 red chilli warning on the menu mind, as I found the heat fine and I am a total chilli wuss) and made for a tasty snack. Real bargain for the diminutive price tag.

I was slightly jaded from a blind wine tasting the night before, having tasted 17 very different white wines,

and thus needed carbs. With the mandatory pork chop, I went for the lo mein (£8.90) to go with it.

Really good dish this, with a plentiful amount of spicy noodles and a robustly proportioned crispy pork chop. This was all topped off by a zingy spring onion sauce that worked really well as against the fattiness of the pork. On the subject of the pork, this was cooked on point for me with a pleasing crispiness to the fat but no dryness to the meat. My only issue with it was the difficulty in eating it with the supplied chopsticks. They gave me a knife and fork to cut it up with, but it sort of felt like cheating in doing so.

J also went for a lo mein dish with the spring onion sauce, but substituted the pork for the chicken (£8.90).

Again, the chicken had some lovely crispy bits to it, which I (unsuccessful) tried to nab under the guise of having a taste in return for a bit of my pork chop. J was having none of that, batting away my attempted incursions onto her plate and gave me a rather less substantial bit of her chicken (a less crispy bit to the one I had my eye on) to try.

Both dishes were just the ticket for addressing my state of post wine tasting jadedness and excellent value for their sub £9 price tags.

I felt the need for a bit of sweet and thought their egg tarts (£2.20) would be just the ticket.

Enjoyed this, with it being more reminiscent of a UK egg custard tart than a Portuguese pastel de nata, with a really short pastry and a creamy set custard filling. It wasn’t particularly sweet and I did rather miss the hit of nutmeg I associate with a good UK one or the sweetness of a pastel de nata.

On the drinks front, the menu has standard sodas plus some HK specialities

with the latter seemingly a throwback to colonial times (with the likes of ovaltine).

Back in my early school day, I recall a child having a penchant for a hot drink that was a mix of coffee and tea and (at the time) I thought, on that basis, he was quite mad. Seeing it on the menu, as Yeun Yeung, I thought perhaps he wasn’t entirely mad after all and may merely have had a rather cosmopolitan palate for a 10 year old.  As a result, I ordered it. 

Forgot to take a pic, but on tasting it I decided he was after all totally insane. It basically tasted like a very (and I mean tea bag been stewing since the start of the Ming Dynasty) stewed cup of tea. Now I like a good strong cup of tea, but this had such a strong tannic flavour to it that was way too much even for me. It really drew the lips back, such that I felt almost like it was the start of the mummification process  and thought I may have to re-enamel my teeth after just a sip. It left me so parched I had to take an emergency sip of J’s diet coke (which I normally regard as pointless, insipid, filth). The chap serving us must have noticed as he bought a glass of water to rehydrate me before I turned to powder.

I am not sure if it is suppose to be so tannic (assume so), but either way it was not for me.

The verdict

Really enjoyed the food here, not so much the coftea, which is filling, tasty and very good value.

One of the best value lunches you can get in Cardiff at the moment, I would say

I do rather wish it was a bit closer to my home base as parking around it’s Salisbury Road location is a bit of a bitch, if it was I would be in a lot, but it is very close to Cathays train station and easily walkable if you work in town.

The details

Address: 20 Salisbury Road, Cathays, Cardiff,CF24 4AD

Website: only online presence is on “Itsamaaaaaaaazing” as far as I can tell https://www.instagram.com/northpointcardiff?igsh=YTZvajNrNjM3enR3