One of life’s little pleasures is a long leisurely (preferably boozy) lunch and when abroad Mrs. SF and I nearly always make lunch the main meal of the day (the fact that Spain is often the destination and that the Spaniards eat dinner ludicrously late is a factor mind). 

The Anglosphere’s disregard as to the merits of lunch as a proper weekday meal is to me a great shame. A sorry arsed sarnie or a limp dick supermarket salad at your desk is to me one of the things that demonstrates that things have all gone very badly wrong.  

A lunch hour should at least be that and not a snatched 20 mins (whilst still tapping away at a keyboard) and in my view it should be as long as you like, certainly in my line of work, subject to you getting your work done on time!

Back in my law firm days I was required to be ultra flexible with working hours (with paid overtime an utterly alien concept and I recall the contracted hours being “08:30 – 17.00 or such time as is required to get the work done“.The “or” did a lot of heavy lifting as I am not sure I ever, in all those 30 odd law firm years, did a 08.30 to 17.00 working day). Doesn’t seem unreasonable for a bit of flex the other way does it.

I like a leisurely lunch, particularly on a Friday, and now being my own boss I have the ability to finish when I like and that allows me to indulge in a Friday lunch at my leisure to see in the weekend.

Despite lunch service being one of the first things restaurants seem to ditch when finances are squeezed (and boy are the pips being currently squeezed), I think one of Cardiff’s strengths is it fixed priced lunch game (so expect more on the subject from moi) and Pontcanna is pretty strong in this area, with the likes of Heaneys, Thomas and Ember.

I was in Canton picking up (being too tight to pay the £10 delivery fee) stuff from Oriel Jones including a big arsed rump (one of the tastier beef steak cuts in my opinion and much better value than the wildly overrated fillet) reduced to a mere £17.50 for over a kilo (one day only I am afraid)

and though I haven’t been to Ember for a while.

Both Mrs. SF and J declined my invite to lunch,  so I was dining solo. I don’t actually mind that, as quite like my own company, although when I arrived I thought I may  truly be dining solo as I was the only customer (thankfully it soon filled up).

Embers fixed price lunch menu, which offers any starter and pasta main for £27, with a mere £2 to add a dessert looked a pretty good deal on the face of it (especially if you add dessert).

The on the day menu was slightly different, with the rather alluring house venison sausage and mash starter sadly not present.

My interest was, however, suitably piqued by the ox tongue. An unfashionable item these days that sadly rarely makes it onto menus any more, but one I remain quite partital too (being much more commonly seen in my youth) and which is chronically underrated.

Here it had the added benefit of being breaded and coming with a peppercorn sauce.

Nice looking dish,  with the bonus of unadvertised sautéed potatoes and a herb (parsley) and raw onion salad.

Lovely crispness to the breading which gave way to a slab of yielding tongue. 

The tongue had a pleasing beefy savouriness to it that I would liken to brisket (and none of the offaliness that likely puts most people off a bit). I suspect that if this had been labelled as just beef then 90% of populus would probably never twig it was tongue and would probably love it.

The crisp cubes of potato were great for soaking up the sauce surrounding the tongue.

The peppercorn sauce had a zippy piquancy to it, leaving a nice tingle on the taste buds, and a creamy richness, whilst  the herb and onion salad operated to refresh the palate and offset the richness of the main elements of the dish.

Really good dish this and we really should eat more beef tongue. Done like this it is an absolute delight.

Also nice to see a decent sized starter, which would in many places be billed as a “small plate“.

Next up was a pasta dish, in the form of canastri with British guinciale, butternut squash (the menu called it butternutter – so an Instagramaaaaazing “it was insanely good” could have been actually semi appropriate), chilli and sage.

Good portion size and a pretty looking dish.

The pasta was well cooked, retaining just that bit of al dente bite that I like and the sauce was nicely emulsified (using the pasta water to thicken it, I would posit)

Nice ratio of guinciale (which was not overdone, but had the fat nicely rendered down) to butternut squash, with the dish having a good mix of salty, sweet and heat (the latter from the chilli which was not shy in making its presence felt)

Crispy sage added a final flourish of savoury earthiness.

My only slight quibble with this dish were the squash seeds. I applaud the use of them as part of a no waste philosophy, but there was a mix of nicely crispy one (adding a pleasing textual contrast to the dish, which presume came from toasting them) and some not so nice quite woody and chewy ones.

All in all though a very good pasta dish.

As it was only an extra two quid for dessert,

it would have been foolish to pass. 

I assumed (didn’t ask mind) that the cheese was off limits, so decided on the apple crumble choux bun.

Lovely dessert this, with the choux being au craquelin. 

Nice Autumal flavours here, with the stewed fruit laden with cinnamon and a toffee apple sweetness from a caramel. 

A sweeten cream filling added a final flourish.

On the drinks front, it was a Friday so “booze is back on the menu boys“, although they seem to have a decent on non – alcoholic section

As it was Friday lunch time, having packed up the PCs (my office looks akin to what I suspect most people envisage would be  a Russia hacker’s set up, with 6 screen), I was interested in the wine list.

With my beefy starter, I opted for a glass of the Vinha Grande from Casa Ferreirinha, a douro red.

Nice black fruits on display (blackberry and black plums), with some subtle cigar box notes. Easy drinking number with enough acidity and a decent finish. Retail, this wine is about £17 and on the list here at £45 (so about 2.5 x mark up which is not hideous by UK standards).

Nice to see some bit different stuff on the list like the Valdespino barrel fermented palomino (a vino de pasto – £66 on list and retails at between £23 and £27) on the list (shame only available by the bottle rather than glass as I would have had a glass if had been an option – what Corovins were invented for and why if you do some wines by the glass there is no reason why you can’t do all).

Verdict

I would say that generally the French have the right idea about lunch, when not setting fire to stuff (would monsieur care for an aperitif, a molotov cocktail peut-être avent le (fire)starter?), with in the past the French model requiring them to be long and often boozy.

Regrettably it seems even the French have succumb to the curse of the modern work lunch on the hoof, with the French Gen Zs seemingly happy with a short solo lunch (presumably, based on the current position in France, something flambéd in a bin using a makeshift flamethrower)!

Ember’s lunch offering is nicely judged price wise and delivers good flavours and decent portion sizes. I liked the fact that there was absolutely no rush in terms of the courses, with me able to linger over my food and wine.

Ember’s offering is my kind of food and I noted with some interest their Wednesday and Thursday night classics set menu.

which seems pretty keenly priced at £34 for 4 courses.

Long lunches are an underrated pleasure and the ability to have one at Ember for a very fair fixed price make it certainly worth trying in Cardiff.

Details

Address: 5 Romilly Crescent, Cardiff, Pontcanna, Cardiff, CF118NP

Website: https://www.embercardiff.co.uk/

Opening hours: