The Stable – pie and cider anyone?

We’ve recently made a couple of visits to The Stable – a cosy new joint in the ground floor units of the new Admiral building.

Started by Richard and Nikki Cooper as a single restaurant in Dorset, The Stable has grown to have a small chain of locations across the South which now includes Cardiff.

According to their blurb their original vision was to create a unique environment making food with local produce at decent prices. And lots of Cider.

So do they succeed?

You might have walked past the Stables without even noticing it, so dwarfed is it by the Admiral building that it is set in. However the missus is a sucker for twinkly candle-light and I’m a sucker for pies so it had all the pre-requisites to grab our attention by the curlies and we had made a mental note weeks ago to give it a try.

We have popped in a couple of times for a bite before going on to catch a movie because it’s very conveniently located for several city-centre cinemas.

First off they have a limited menu consisting of a variety of crowd pleasers made with some very interesting sounding taste combinations. Let’s step back and examine that sentence, shaaaaaall we…

A limited menu – it’s pies or pizza – so if that’s not your thing then (salad or ploughman’s aside) you’re pretty much out of luck. But hey – what’s not to like about pies or pizza?

Interesting taste combinations – herb roast potato, Perl Las blue cheese, roast onions and spinach pizza (The Blue Pearl) and Lamb, Rosemary, roast potato and honey pie (The Lamb Bam Boogie) for example – enough to make your mouth water just reading the menu.

As you might have guessed I’m a sucker for this type of food. I’m slowly working my way through the pie choices – so far I’ve had the ham hock, peas and mustard, and the afore-mentioned Lamb Bam Boogie. Both were excellent if a touch dry – maybe a little gravy-boat would be a good touch. The accompanying roast potato wedges were slightly overdone on the first visit but second time ’round they were perfect.

My other half went for the Billy the Kid pizza – goats cheese, mushrooms, spinach, caramelized onions and roast hazelnuts. We both agreed it was an honourable failure. Excellent ingredients and pizza base but maybe just a little too many flavours going on. Still – good enough that she’s ordered it on both visits so maybe we’re being a tad over-critical

If you’re a fan of ciders then your in for a treat as The Stable has a mahoosive selection

… And also some very good craft beers. I tried the Seafairer Pale Ale which I very much enjoyed.

And there’s an interesting wine selection –

The wife-ness went for a carafe of the Languedoc which was delicious.

Lastly a word about the ambiance. It’s all very casual and unpretentious. I assume partly due to a healthy number of visitors from Admiral the atmosphere was pleasingly buzzy.

And the lighting is just right – tons of twinkly candles that make the room feel intimate even though it’s quite a big open space. Perfect for a quiet meal for two or for a large group.

We’ll definitely be back – all in all a very enjoyable night out and highly recommended

Depot Winter Social

It’s dark, grim and persistently hammering down – it must be winter which means it must be time for the Depot’s Winter Social.

In dire need of cheering up we popped down there on Saturday evening to see what the £2 entry fee (free before 7:30pm) would get us

The place was pleasantly busy – enough to create an atmosphere but not so many that the food and drink queues were enormous. There was a great mix of people of all ages too.

The best thing about it was the chance to catch up with the Ffwrnes pizza boys

They drive their little pizza oven all over Wales in the back of Smokey-Pete the van delivering their superb wood-fired beauties to us undeserving rabble

Their pizzas are all made fresh with the best quality toppings on a sourdough base

These are my favorite pizzas bar none and at seven quid a pop they are excellent value too

Just look at those bad boys.

To finish off we decided to try the desserts from the folk at Science Cream

Their ice cream is made fresh to order and is quick frozen with liquid nitrogen giving an amazingly smooth and creamy texture

So good they even have the boy-wonder serving them.. Kapow Robin!

Our ice cream came sat on top of a creme-brulee.
My mouth is watering just remembering it. Delish.

All this accompanied by real ales and a real DJ playing a fab mix of retro and modern music.

If you’re stuck for something to do this weekend or you just have the winter-blues – get yourself down to the Depot Winter Social – I think you’ll love it

The Discovery

The Mrs is on a health kick (seemingly permanent but we can but hope for a change of heart). She wants to live long and prosper so everything home cooked tends to be veggie or Vulcan. Vegan – I mean vegan.
So it was a pleasant surprise last night when she expressed her overwhelming desire for a pizza. We headed over (on spec) to the Heath area of Cardiff to the wondrous Anatoni’s only to find it packed out so there was no room at the inn. We were offered a later table by the lovely lady hostess but opted to try The Discovery pub which is bang opposite.

Truth be told I was kind of hoping that might happen as I’d heard a lot of good things about the pubs in the Knife and Fork Group and had been dying to try The Discovery since we first …… discovered it (see what I did there?).

For all their obvious efforts there’s no mistaking the air of it being a reclaimed seventies pub from the outside. Inside however the atmosphere is warm and ever-so slightly shabby-chic with the lighting pleasingly but not too subdued. There are lots of old black and white photos on the walls of leaping dogs and bucket-wearing pandas that stay just the right side of kitsch. The wife wanted to bring some of the eclectic collection of un-matched chairs home with us but we couldn’t work out how to smuggle them to the car.

The restaurant is reached through a large bar area, empty-ish when we arrived but packed and very cosy-feeling by the time we passed back through to leave.

The restaurant itself was busy but not overcrowded and we were happily able to get a table without a reservation

(This is a promo-pic – it was full on the evening we visited)

The Knife and Fork Group rightly make a big play of the fact that their ingredients are seasonally appropriate and locally sourced and that their menus vary day to day accordingly. So all the meals are listed on blackboards rather than printed menus and the lists are pleasingly short. I do love a menu that shows the confidence of the chef to list a few good meals rather than the usual death by a thousand and one mediocre cuts.

Last night we opened our account with hummus, bread and olives

It sounds simple but often it’s the simple things that are hard to do well. No worries on that account here. The olives were very more-ish and the apparently home-made hummus had the consistency and flavor of a warm hug. Lovely.

For mains the Mrs went for the roast cod with chorizo (“well – it was only leetle leetle slices of sausage – and it had kale so it was almost vegetarian” etc etc)

The cod was super, perfectly cooked and subtly flavored and the accompanying chorizo was peppery and delicious.

I on the other hand, after agonising briefly over the “plank of pork”, went for the slow braised ox-cheeks with pomme puree (aka mash), red cabbage and kale.

It’s so hard to put into words how good it tasted I’ll let this picture explain:

It was so good I found myself giving an involuntary groan of pleasure with each mouthful. My kind of food. Simple, good ingredients, perfectly cooked, no messing about. Nom, nom and indeed nom.

Desserts were a little bit disappointing with nothing really grabbing our imagination

In the end we shared the snickers tart with salted caramel ice-cream. Very nice if not up to the standard of the mains – maybe I just don’t have a sweet enough tooth

Overall the meal was excellent. And at fifty quid for a three course meal of this quality for two (including wine and coffee) it was also very good value. In fact the mains ranged from £8 and up so it would be possible to have a cracking meal for a very reasonable price.
We’ll definitely be back to work our way through the rest of the menu. I’m already thinking about trying the plank of pork and the sweet potato gnocchi. Oh and the mushroom risotto. Fish and chips looked good to. And they do a rib-eye steak…..

Very highly recommended

Day of the Depot

After seeing Spectre last week and being very taken with the opening Mexico City set “Day of the Dead” scene we decided to make an effort to get out to a Halloween party. A quick scan of what was on in Cardiff and we decided to give The Depot’s “Day of the Depot” a bash:

As it was a last minute call we had nothing in the way of Halloween cozzies to wear so there followed a mad dash into town on Saturday morning and a tour around every charity shop the ‘diff had to offer, trying to find something suitable to make Spectre-themed outfits.

We were aiming for this:

And I have to admit a certain chuffed-ness that with just a few hours to do it and by rummaging in charity shops and pound shops we got quite close:

Now the tickets for the “Day of the Depot” event included big screen coverage of the Rugby World Cup Final but we wimped out of that as a whole afternoon and a whole night on the alcho-pops is beyond me these days – although the Mrs could probably manage it.

We got there at around 8 pm by which time things had morphed into a full-blown Halloween party:

We arrived stone-cold sober and in our own gang of two to find that the party was slowly getting started again after the rugby and the Depot, being a big, pretty cavernous space, was just beginning to fill up with the evening crowd looking for a bit of spooky fun. So we were a little trepidatious to be honest. It looked like it could easily be a luke warm affair (Luke Warmaffair? wasn’t he in Star Wars?) and we could be set for an early night after all.

We needn’t have worried as, far from being the only fancy-dressers in the village, fancy dress was the norm for the night (the night norm? the evening standard?) and from the first zombie attack (actually a very nice squaddie who spotted our awkwardness and started chatting to us to break the ice) everything rattled along at a great clip. My theory is that fancy-dress makes people feel incognito and strips them somewhat of their inhibitions. That and alcohol. Alcohol definitely helps.

The place was abuzz with people having a great time. There were zombie congas and table-top dancing. The DJ was hitting just the right groove of floor-filling music and everyone was in a party mood.
So we chatted and chatted with loads of dead celebs and off-kilter movie characters. We met the teams from Dodgeball:

We had a hug from a bunch of zombie
Tele-tubbies:

We met Lilo and Stitch with Daenerys Targaryen and her leetle dragons :

The gang from “The Wizard of Oz” were there (poor Dorothy has let herself go):

There were cuddly werewolves:

And Daphne and the rest of Scooby-Doo’s pesky gang turned up:

We even meet Johnny Rotten and Vivienne Westwood (although maybe that’s just what I wanted them to be – I’m not sure it’s what they came as):

You might have noticed that at some point in the evening Her Wifeness ditched the mask and went for a full face-paint job:

which was done (totally gratis!) by the lovely ladies at Shelly Drew-it-on who had been on the go all day and were pretty knackered by the time we to them.

But they still managed to do a fab job:

It kind of lost the Spectre look but it did mean wifee had a fabulous full-on Mexican-stylee day-of-the-dead look going on which was appreciated by the passing Mariachi:

There was food on offer from various vendors including the lush Meat the Greek, A Lot of Waffle, Goodfillas and fabulous wood-fired pizza from Doughboys. We went for the latter and loved both their Margarita and their hot (I mean Hot!) Chilli Americano:

And then to top it all they had a live band who also played a great bunch of floor-fillers:

After that it was on to town for a night-cap of the living dead. St Mary street looked full of zombies:

But then we realised that was just the usual Saturday night crowd!

All in all a fantastic night’s fun and another great night out in the ‘diff.

It’s a big well done from me to The Depot for getting Halloween spot on.

Chapter Oktoberfest

Popped down to Chapter tonight for a bit of Scran and a film (Everest – see separate post) and we stumbled into the annual Oktoberfest.

Tons of German biers on sale, schwarzbiers from Saxony, kölschs from Cologne, Bavarian weissbiers.

And curry wurst, giant schnitzel dogs and burgers.

We went for our usual Friday night pizza , margarita and Palma ham with mushrooms

Oh – and a side of sweet potato fries with mayo.
You won’t get a better pizza in Cardiff – stone baked, wood fired and delicious. One of the few places we go back to again and again (and again)

And free live music..

AND no eating allowed in the cinema! No crunching, slurping, chomping…

Chapter Arts – top place. Nip down for a bite or a pint or both – you won’t be sorry

Locke and Remedy

So this was a first, invited to a “soft opening” for a new venue in Cardiff called “Locke and Remedy“. What on earth I’ve done to deserve it apart from a few scratchy blog entries I have no idea but it was gratefully accepted none the less.
This is a new restaurant based in the old library building which is bang in the centre of Cardiff and is a pretty stunning venue both inside and out but for some reason had been a graveyard for the hopes of various business ventures over the past few years. Cardiff’s very own version of the Bermuda Triangle. 
We arrived fashionably late by about ten minutes in teeming rain and were warmly greeted at the door with a cocktail called a Welsh Princess – a delicious prosecco and aperol (no – me neither) based beverage which hit the spot nicely thank you very much.

At the behest of very persuasive mixologists (ok – they didn’t have to try toooo hard) we tried various other cocktails during the course of the evening including an Old Wives Tale (an exquisite citrus flavored gin and limoncello based potion) and a
Sailors Hydranger (a toffee and spiced rum libation which started promisingly but was cloying by the end of the glass)

The mainstays of the menu at “Locke and Remedy” are pizzas and burgers which may sound a bit basic but that’s definitely not the case here. The pizzas have some atypical but very well chosen flavor combinations and the burgers are hand-crafted with relishes such as American mustard and ketchup hand made in the restaurant.
In order for the guests to try a little of everything, pizzas prepared in-house and cooked in wood-fired oven were sliced and offered around the tables as pseudo-starters.

I loved the pizza’s perfectly crisp thin crusts and they had some interesting flavor combinations.  The salty mackerel on the mackerel and prawn went down surprisingly well for me but the missus is a traditionalist when it comes to pizza so she wasn’t overly keen. The spicy chicken and pepperoni had a delicious chili kick and the goats cheese and black olive pizza was a definite favorite. The mozzarella pizza had a lovely oregano flavor but my particular favorite was the palma ham and chorizo.

For mains we were offered a choice of burgers combined with a mix of fries (plain, cheese and sweet-potato)
Now I must admit I’m not normally a huge burger fan – too often the texture is poor and they’re an excuse for poor quality mince. So I’m happy the report that the glazed short rib burger I tried was pretty stunning, quite possibly the best I’ve ever had. It had more of a pressed steak texture the a mince and the american mustard relish gave it a pleasing dry spice kick. It was really (really) good.

The chicken burger was also good , moist tender breast in a batter with more than a hint of an upmarket “colonels secret recipe” spice going on.

For dessert, the chocolate cookies with vanilla ice cream were moist, gooey, malty and fab.

In the name of over-indulgence we tried a few more of the cocktails and eventually hit on our joint favorite which was the Margarita Rosa

So can “Locke and Remedy” escape the clutches of Cardiff’s Bermuda triangle?

On this showing I would give it a definite yes. Good food and drinks with imaginative flavor combinations, prepared and served with care and attention in wonderfully ambient surroundings

Highly recommended

Street Food Circus

So Cardiff is definitely having a moment. There seems to be so much good stuff going on, so many “happenings” that it’s hard to keep up. One of the latest is the Street Food Circus

Head down past the Radisson Blu Hotel, past the pugnacious Peerless Jim Driscoll, under the railway bridge and you’ll find it tucked away behind “No Fit State’s” home:

There’s pretty much something for all tastes, Meat and Greek’s souvlakis cooked over open coals, Hangfire’s award winning slow BBQ offerings, Anand George’s wonderful spicy wraps, the Hokkei Box Boys with their Asian fusion offerings. And so much much more. Pizza, fish, burgers, slow pork, churros…. Too much to take in in one visit:

Inside the big top they have plenty of tables and benches, cosy lighting, and two (count’ em, two) bars selling cocktails and real ales.

We shared a Souvlaki from Meat and Greek and a wrap from Anand George’s Street Kitchen. Both were delicious, generous servings and excellent value. Couples with Margeritas and lashings of ginger beer – top nosh.

There’s a rumor of circus acts too but we had to dash before that happened – maybe we’ll get to see that tonight when we go again.

Great stuff

Il Pastificio

Wow! What a meal. Sorry for the spoiler but there you have it. Another amazing Italian restaurant shock. Not sure what is going on with Cardiff at the moment but it seems to have an explosion of tremendous indie restaurants. Fresh on the heels of an excellent Italian meal at Anatoni’s we stumbled into another gem of a place, this time it was Il Pastificio on Wellfield Road in Roath.

The restaurant itself is a little corner unit – previously home to KL Canalog (which was another of our favorites), close enough to Chaiholics that the chefs could and did wave and gesture to each other through the large windows.

As well as pointing out and telling us how good the neighbouring competition was the head-chef also explained the menu and daily specials to us with typical theatrical Italian hand gestures and when I mentioned my seafood allergy told us not to worry, we could basically have any combination of the ingredients we preferred – now that’s what I cooking.

We ordered a bottle of red – Amanti Primitivo to get us started. Damsen and sour cherry indeed. Delicious.

Starters were a sharing platter – well it was a birthday meal and sharing platters are always a good barometer of what’s to come:

The forecast from this one was fine, buttery artichoke hearts with a hint of vinegar, green grassy olive oil with sweet balsamic and warm crusty bread for dipping, smooth ripe olives and slices of Italian sausages cut through with spices, big blobs of delicious lardy fat and nuggets of pepper and pistachios. The future looked good.

The mains were spectacular. Don’t you love it when the chef is so proud of what they’re cooking that they bring the uncooked produce out to show it off? The fish, fresh from Cardiff Market looked excellent so it was tuna for me and king prawn for the missus. We’d previously been told how good the fresh hand-made pasta was so D2 went for that.

My tuna steak was just-cooked, pink-in-the-middle perfection topped with courgette spirals, excellent black ink tagliatelle and a gorgeous chilli and garlic sauce.

The spinach and ricotta stuffed panzerotti came in a sage and butter sauce. I got a taste of this and it was my favourite dish of the evening.

The sweet pepper risotto with king prawn was irresistibly dramatic with a grilled colossal crustacean sat atop a mound of saffron yellow rice cooked to a barely soft-enough bite.

Now, as a family, less is usually more, so we invariably go for just mains or at most two courses. But this was so good we had to do dessert and coffee as well:

The missus went for a wonderful tremulous panna cotta topped with sweet sharp strawberries.

D2 had the mango cheesecake, as recommended by the waitress and it was velvety with just the right level of mouth-puckering sharpness.

My tiramisu was big enough for a small assault force and packed enough calories for a march to the south pole. It didn’t touch the sides – delectable.

A fantastic meal and another big recommendation.

Anatoni’s Pizzeria – Cyncoed

Decided to try another BYO tonight and had heard good things about a little pizza place in Heath called Anatoni’s. A quick phone call and we were in – which was lucky as the place turned out to be pretty busy.
My first impression was surprise that a little authentic Italian pizza place with a huge wood fired oven tucked away in a modern housing estate. And that after 15 years in Cardiff I had no idea this place was here.

My second impression was amazement that just opposite it there is also a (Knife and Fork Group) gastro-pub called The Discovery Inn. What the…. had we walked into an alternative reality? One day all new house builds  will be made this way. What was it about this tiny cul-de-sac that warranted two eateries that much larger connurbations would fall over themselves for either one of ( quick note to self – I must give The Discovery a try too).
We were seated in a lovely spot by the window where we could take in the ambience of the restaurant and also do some people watching as the night drew in outside.
Anatoni’s walks the fine line of adorable Italian atmosphere and fake Disneyland kitsch with the skill of the great funambulist Blondin crossing Niagara Falls. It’s all there, photos of Sophia Loren? Check. Photos of beautiful people on Italian scooters? Check. Opera and Italian folk songs playing on the hifi? Check. Checked table-cloth? Check. But it’s not laboured at all. You know there aren’t another ten of these scattered around with identical decor so it doesn’t feel forced. Rather it just feels like the owners are proud of their heritage and this is their shorthand for getting that across.  It’s very cosy and irresistible. You can’t not enjoy sitting in a candlelit Italian restaurant drinking your own choice of Italian red (a very modest £2.50 corkage) whilst listening to Jussi Bjorling belting out Verdi, alongside tacky versions of “The Godfather” and “Angels” (sung in Italian of course) and watching the dough being shoved into the biggest pizza oven this side of the Appian Way.

And so we come to the food (at last you say). I love a short menu – it shows confidence in the food and a kitchen that knows what it does well and sticks with it. Anatoni’s has an admirably short menu. A list of pizzas with various toppings sandwiched between a handful of starters and a choice of four desserts. You could also opt for spaghetti or lasagna but once you’ve had an eyefull of the pizzas coming out of that furnace there’s no turning back.

We started with two shared platters (for two) between the six of us

These came with excellent herby, salty garlic bread, palma ham, salami and a dressed salad with marinated sweet red peppers – a really good appetizer although it dawned on us that the bread was probably a mistake when we saw the pizzas.

After that we ordered a selection of pizzas between us including a “Salame e Caprino” (delicious – salami, unctuous goats cheese and sweet red peppers with added chillies), palma ham and rocket, Florentine (spinach and egg) and the Italian in the group even went totally off-piste and went for a custom build pizza which was noted down and served up without a murmur.
The pizzas all had that heat blasted charred crustiness that comes from a real 500 degree pizza oven and they were all pretty amazing.

We had to try the desserts though so some of the pizza was boxed up to be eaten for breakfast, dishes were promptly cleared away and tiramisu, ice cream and chocolate brownies dutifully ordered and served. The tiramisu was excellent – the perfect mix of sweet, dark cocoa and alcohol and (we were informed) it had been allowed to sit for a day to get the correct consistency. It was so good I ate it before remembering to take a photo. And all washed down with huge cups of Italian coffee. Fabulous.

I use a fitness app (Strava) that counts calories burned in pizza slices. After this wonderful night at Anatoni’s I’m going to need to cycle for a week to burn it off – was it worth it? Absolutely – highly recommended.

Escaping with Houdini Dax

Chapter Arts….
We made our second visit of the weekend on Sunday evening to the Chapter Arts Centre – an oasis of culture hidden away in the heart of Cardiff city centre. You have to be looking for it to find it – which selfishly is just how we love it.
At this point I should say that if you’re only here for the music review then skip down a few paragraphs – if not stick around while I describe the delights of The Chapter.

Our first Chapter visit of the weekend had been on Saturday to celebrate my mum and dad’s birthdays with a meal and a movie.
The Chapter is Cardiff’s premier alternative arts venue with an amazing range of events happening. You can eat, drink and people-watch in the lively social area, catch a (predominantly art-house) film on one of the two cinema screens, watch a theatrical or dance production one of the performance spaces, visit a modern art exhibition or attend one of their music events – which is what we returned for on Sunday – more on that later.
The food at Chapter is always excellent. The restaurant proprietor is Laurentiu Florea, a hugely likeable Italian who always makes an effort to chat with us and whose passion for the food they produce comes across every time we talk.
We have our favorites from the menu and usually go for a shared burger and pizza combination – which sounds a bit safe but the char-grilled chicken-breast burgers are spiced with harrisa and served with sweet potato fries and the pizzas are stone fired with superb flavour combinations – what more could you ask for? This week however we went for another couple of favourites – mackerel with salsa verde and saffron potatoes, catalan fish stew and rump steak with pepper sauce:

Also can I say that, invariably being des-driver, I really appreciate the Erdinger non-alcoholic beer. It’s a bloody marvel and one day all bars will be forced to sell it.

All rather marvelous which unfortunately is more than I would say for the film “Still Alice” which I found to be the typical “Illness of the week” Hollywood oscar-bait but which to be fair to it had it’s good aspects and which the rest of the group thoroughly enjoyed. Moving swiftly on…

The Music bit…..
If you’ve skipped to here for the music – how dare you! Get back up and read the rest right away….. Done? Ok then we can continue.
Back to Sunday and we had been lucky enough to get free tickets to the BBC Wales Horizons (Gorwelion) concert – a scheme which runs annually to showcase up-and-coming Welsh bands over a twelve month period. The event was spilt over two stages, one downstairs in the social area and another in the upstairs theatre.
We went specifically to see Houdini Dax (more on them in a bit) but managed to catch sets from some of the other acts as well.
I’m not familiar with most of the bands on the bill so you’ll have to forgive me if I use the lazy device of comparing them to acts to which I think they sounded similar. In this instance hopefully it’s a useful short hand to give an idea of how the bands sounded.

Kizzy Crawford:
First up on the social area stage was Kizzy Crawford who reminded me a great deal of Leanne La Havas, which can never be a bad thing, with a bit more smokey jazz-club also going on. Very good.

Climbing Trees:
Next we caught a part of the set in the upstairs theatre by Climbing Trees – a four piece band from Pontypridd. I was struck by the excellent musicianship of the band with one guy playing what appeared to be an upside down right-handed bass which he later switched for a standard-strung left-handed acoustic. The sound reminded me a little of War on Drugs, who I love, and a little of Snow Patrol who I’m pretty ambivalent about. I enjoyed the set though and look forward to seeing how they develop.

Baby Queens:
Back in the social space we then caught a couple of songs by the Baby Queens and I have to say (being as shallow as I am) I was originally slightly put off by their name which sounds a bit manufactured-girl-band but the band surprised me playing a soulful brand of Alicia-esque bluesy R&B

Houdini Dax:
Then it was back upstairs to get in position for The Dax (you do call them The Dax don’t you?) where we caught the very end of the last song by Tptp which to me was very reminiscent of the Kings of Leon.

Cards on the table here, Houdini Dax were the band we’d actually come out for. They are a three piece consisting of Jack Butler (guitar & Lead vocal), Owen Richards (Bass & vocals) and David Newington (Drums & vocals). These boys we have seen before a few months back at Clwb Ifor Bach so I knew we were in for a quality set. They’ve been together in one form or another for eight or nine years and are as tight as a camel’s ass in a sandstorm. They did, maybe still do, share a house in a set-up reminiscent of the movie Help’s version of those loveable mop-top Beatles and their close friendship shines out. They play crisp garage rock tunes with witty and acerbic lyrics such as “Apple Tree” (I love the line about being like “Cameron Diaz before the botox”) and “Love on the Dole” but they also have an irresistible foot-stomping sound captured by the rabble-rousing “Get Your Goo On” that for some reason reminds me of the best 70s glam-rock a-la Slade which means it’s impossible to just stand still and watch without at least stomping along (or performing full-on air-drums as one audience member did throughout the set).
This last twelve months have seen the band perform on the BBC Horizons events, play the South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas and even do a mini-festival tour of India. As a result they have really come of age with the lead singer Jack Butler in particular oozing confidence. He has charisma to spare to the point where is impossible to take your eyes off him.

The boys played a set of banging tunes that were simultaneously modern but at the same time harked back to the best of the sixties mod movement – I’m talking Ray Davies’ Kinks or The Small Faces (with even a hint of early era Jam thrown in) and I can give no higher praise. To paraphrase their own “Legs” – they’ve got it going on – I love the Dax and everything they stand for.

A sad and very sour footnote to this post, as it turns out that the day after Sunday’s gig the boys had their van and £10k’s worth of gear stolen. In their words  “Everything that makes our sound has gone”. If you live in the Cardiff area and hear anything about the theft or of any gear that comes up for sale that may be off their list of their stolen stuff (details on their face book page https://m.facebook.com/houdini.dax/posts/787471037988945 ) then please contact them through social media.