Times are tough for pretty much everybody at the moment, with the hospitality trade getting it both barrels. Costs are increasing (pretty remorsely, despite what the official figures may say) and income is being adversely affected by a lack of spending power from hard pressed punters. An empty restaurant is a sad thing indeed and sadder when you think of the cost of staff, ingredients, energy etc. all having to be met with no income that serves to offset such cost. As such, restaurant are having to be a bit more inventive in terms of their offerings to get the punters in, especially at those ..read more

Oscar my dog can be a bit of a dick (well they do say dogs are like their owners) and can be somewhat intransigent as he gets older (I do somewhat indulge the little troublemaker and would happy transfer a few years of my life to enlongate his if that were ever possible, as he thinks I can do no wrong and in that he is very much in a minority of two – me and him). One of Dick’s favourite walks is up behind the cathedral in Llandaff, by the Taff (I have to drive him up there as otherwise it would take an eon to get him up the hill to the village from my house, as he sniffs and pees on eve ..read more

Fun fact the Jurassic period is named after the Jura Mountains in France, with rocks of that age first studied in Jura and this is where the blog goes this week.  Not done a wine post for a while, mainly due to me not having been to too many tastings of late. Has, in some cases, become a bit more of a chore than a labour of love (with seemingly more admin. than imbibing), with other commitments having curtailed my attendance at both the Bristol and Cardiff wine tasting clubs. The Bristol one does allow me to take more of a back seat (and to see my Dad). Now my wine posts tend to be ..read more

I tend not to like to be too preachy on the blog (bar from about wine pour sizes – serve dry sherry in a 50/75cl pour and expect to see me outside setting up a pulpit for the purposes of raging against the injustice of it all), as why would most people care what I think in a food and drink blog about the current de riguer social issues. I have no interest whatsoever in being a social justice warrior, but I do have a lot of admiration for people (with better hearts than my ice cold “devil’s advocate” one) who look out for those less fortunate than most of us. Lots of us think times are ha ..read more

The oldies amongst you may (possibly through gritted teeth) remember the song from Max Bygraves about tulips from Amsterdam (younguns will have no idea, which is probably for the best) and “I wanna to tell you a story” about a first stop off in terms of using the 2024 iteration of the Cardiff Wine Passport in the form of Daffodil in Cardiff’s city centre. Long ago, back prior to the Permian extinction, when I started working in the legal profession (not quite the quill and ink era, but when we had typewriters, carbon copies, faxes, telex and MS -DOS, with no such thing as emails) Windsor ..read more

I know some people don’t rate the Sunday roast as a meal. Not sure why as oven roasted meats from elsewhere are often raved about, think cochinillo asado or lechazo asado in Spain, porchetta in Italy, Kleftiko in Greece and Peking duck in China to name but a few. These dishes are rightly lauded when done well, but tend to be awful if not. Personally I think there are few thing more satisfying than a top quality bit of ruby red, roasted, dry aged beef and who doesn’t like a crispy skinned roast chicken or leg of lamb or crackling encased pork joint and if you don’t like pro ..read more

I am a big sci-fi/ fantasy geek and have railed against the ruination rained down on beloved franchises like Star Wars (the last trilogy was utter garbage and that is an affront to garbage – controversially I rather liked the stand alone Rogue One, as I love a unhappy ending and it still riles me that the ending of Die Hard was not Hans Gruber nonchalantly blowing John McClane away and pulling off the heist). One of my favourite sci fi book is the first Dune novel and when I heard it was being (again) made into a film I had mixed feelings. The first attempt back in 1984 (with Kyle MacLac ..read more

I have never really understood the term brunch. I have no issue with eating any sort of food at any time (I mean who hasn’t finished off the previous night’s dirty kebab for breakie the next morning), but I am pretty sure that the all day breakfast easily outdates the advent of the Americana brunch fad. There is also the fact that night/shift workers have been around for yonks and they eat meals/ drink booze way out of sync in terms what us standard 9 to 5 day time workers may  regard as the norm (just look at when the early houses pubs around London’s market are open for business). So w ..read more

A long postponed catch-up with friends (yes, I have others J and A) who were also old work colleagues (one my old boss, who has retrained as a maths teacher – the absolute looney – and the other my ex. work wife) gave me the opportunity to give a place I have been wanting to try for ages a go. I love a good burger and, by all reliable accounts, one of the current best in the South Wales area (soon to be renamed Greater Pontcanna – when in 50 million years all the continents have recoalesed I am confident said super continent will be Pontcanngaea) is Tom’s Smashed Burgers. The smashed burger c ..read more

I love a bargain (getting tighter the older I get it seems, other than with wine where my purchasing habit/buying addiction seems to be going the other way) and with hospitality and their customer’s really feeling the pinch it is a tough act to get (increasingly skint) customers through the doors (and still turn a profit). As such the February offer at Victoria Park’s Twenty Six looked at first blush a pretty good deal. With the price seemingly very right and it being a relatively short hop from my gaff and dog friendly (had Dick the dog in tow), Oscar was actually very good, probably a ..read more