I am quite partial to a roast dinner and have always been rather perplexed by its detractors. If it is done well, with good quality meat, properly crunchy roasted pots, well (as in not over) cooked veg. and a good rich meaty gravy, it is one of life’s joys to my mind. Simple it may be, but so are many classic dishes. It is also a rather good way to eat seasonal veg. such as swede, parsnip and winter green when the supply of other “more glamorous” veg. is limited. Of course we can ship stuff from half way across the globe to assuage our seeming unquenchable appetite for the semi exotic, but surely it is better to eat local on a seasonal basis rather than stuff from thousands of miles away.

Personally I think we should go back to eating more on a seasonal (grown in the UK) basis and a lot of  this lot, in seasonal now, lends itself to a roast

Certainly seems a lot better to me than eating french beans from Kenya and  asparagus etc. from Peru.

Another point in favour of a roast is leftovers. A large chicken will not only feed you on a Sunday, but likely Monday and Tuesday too and then there is the added bonus of getting a good amount of stock from the carcass (I freeze it in ice cube containers and it is a million times better than a stock cube).

I suspect many of the detractors think it is a lazy meal, but its origins link to religious and social reasons, as well as necessity (protein at the start of the week to see you though the week and use of the local baker’s oven, not used for bread on a Sunday, to cook it in when you were at church on your only day off).

Also, if you call your roast [name of meat] al forno or arrosto or somethings of that ilk,  I suspect many a detractor of a roast would droll over same said roast. Substitute roast chicken for poulet roti or stuffed roast pork for porchetta or call a selection of roasted meats arrosto misto or sui mei and these would no doubt be regarded as fine examples of a far superior food cultures.

I’ll grant you that a badly done roast is a monstrosity, with overdone meat and veg, gloopy gravy etc, but so is any badly done dish.

So I quite like a good Sunday roast (for a number of reasons) and J had given Mrs. SF and I a voucher for Sonder for Christmas. I had heard tell, from reliable sources, that the Sonder Sunday service was pretty good and, after a week in Cornwall and a long drive back the previous day, we didn’t fancy cooking and thus decided to wander down to Sonder to use our voucher.

The Sunday menu looked pretty good, with a nice selection which seems to cater for most tastes.

Before we had a chance to properly peruse the menu, a gratis amuse bouche sort of thing arrived.

A  surf and turf affair, with a crispy (nicely cooked) king prawn sat atop a beef tartare which in turn was atop a rosti.

Nice enough, especially as free, with the prawn (not over cooked and with a blob of good chilli jam and a slice of peppery radish) the star of the show. The tartare lacked a bit of the punchiness you usually get from the cornichons, caper, raw shallots and mustard (that I like to see in my tartare) and the rosti was just a touch greasy.

We rather unnecessarily ordered some snacks from the al a carte menu,

which is also on, on Sundays.

A trio of mini tuna tacos (£9), have a lovely citrus zing and a pop of chilli heat that worked really well with the meaty tuna.

The cauliflower and smoked cheese rosti (£8) was less successful, with the same slightly greasy rosti and not much smokiness evident in the cheese sauce. It was OK, but just that.

On to the mains and I choose the roasted beef sirloin (a not inconsiderable £33) and what arrived was a fulsome and handsome beast

Good quality beef this, from Oriel Jones, cooked rare with plenty of flavour packed fat.

with a rich, glossy, gravy and an impressively puffed up Yorkie.

A horseradish cream condiment, with the beef,

was a bit underpowered lacking that pungent nasal clearing quality I yearn for with roast beef (cuts through the fattiness and richness of the meat). To better suit my tastes, it needed more horseradish and less cream in the mix.

There were a large bowl (8 large pots in all) of good roasties,

which had a crisp outer shell and a pleasantly fluffy interior.

A bountiful supply of other veg. on the plate included squash (in both roasted and puree form), charred cauliflower florets and some verdant winter greens.

A good gravy, with the right level of viscosity, tied it all together nicely.

A side dish of celeriac and cauliflower in a smoked cheese sauce also made an appearance.

Personally I didn’t think it was needed and I would have preferred the celeriac without the cheese sauce, which was a bit thin and again had little evidence of the promised smokiness.

Mrs. SF had the chicken (£24), which came with the same sides (including an unnecessary, to my mind, yorkie).

I didn’t try any of the chicken, but Mrs.SF said it was nice if a little less generous portion wise (certainly nowhere near a full breast) than the beef I had (not that with all the accompaniments it wasn’t more than enough).

On the booze front I have previously commented on this in a post on their al a carte offering and the same points made in that post regarding the wine list equally apply.

We ordered a bottle of rioja from Macques de Caceres (£40, retails at about £13.50 so a pretty much a par level 3 x mark up) 

which was pleasant enough with our lunch (if just a bit of a “by the numbers” rioja).

The verdict

I enjoyed the roast here, with a bountiful portion size aligned to top quality meat (from Oriel Jones, I believe) and accompaniments. It certainly ain’t cheap, with the £33 for my roast sirloin dish very much at the top end of the Cardiff (and to be honest elsewhere) price range.

Do I think it is worth it? On balance yes I do, based on size and quality. It is certainly a fill your boots meal, so skip breakfast and bring loose, comfortable, clothing. I was very glad of the 30 + min trot back to my gaff to walk off a tiny proportion of the calory intake.

If you don’t fancy a roast then al a carte is available on Sundays

and for details of my thoughts on that click here.

The details

Address: 72 Llandaff Road, Canton (in their website it says Pontcanna, but it ain’t in my book), Cardiff.

Website: https://www.sonderbarandbistro.com/