Strange days this week. My youngest turned eighteen. Yes all my kids are now adult and I am officially redundant as a person.
In ancient times I would expect the tribe to be looking for opportunities to bop me on the bonce with a large bone and to leave my body out in the snow for the bears. So with anxious glances for family members bearing mammoth-mandibles I decided to distract then by taking them for a celebratory meal at the new Bar 44 on Westgate Street in Cardiff.
We had already previously eaten at the Penarth Bar 44 where we had one of the best tapas experiences outside of Spain due in no small part to the excellent service we had at the hands of the head waiter. So on the eve of our visit to the new Bar 44 we were slightly freaked out to be served cocktails in Las Iguanas in Cardiff Bay by the same (now ex) head-waiter – a bad omen?
The new Bar 44 location is on the site of the execrably named and now defunct “Feather and Bone” (which never appealed to me – can’t think why with that moniker). It’s a prime spot that for some reason has failed to find it’s crowd – hopefully Bar 44 can remedy that.
The restaurant interior is very stylish with low vaulted-ceilings, white tiles and fancy bar fittings.
We opened our account with cocktails of the two-for-one variety – start as you mean to go on I say. Imaginatively concocted featuring figs, lavender and egg whites and all manner of unusual ingredients, they were subtle, stunningly colored and delicious.
The menu was helpfully divided into meat, fish and veggie dishes so we ordered a selection from each segment.
Garbanzo salad with parmesan shavings was excellent as were the Bacalao and Dorado dishes. The Grrrl particularly liked the merluza – served filleted and grilled.
I could have done with a sour dough loaf to mop up the stunning chorizo stew
I’m a meaty boy though so the chicken thighs and lamb were my favorite dishes – just gorgeous.
And little add-ons such as the olives and sour-dough with olive oil were just stunning.
We finished by splurging on vintage sherry which tasted of raisins and honey and had more legs than all of Rod Stewart’s ex-girlfriends, was almost as expensive but just as worth it.
It was a week of strange omens. I saw a business-man in tailored shirt and trousers wearing star wars deck shoes and another carrying a Tupperware box full of faggots and gravy. I saw the ghost of head-waiters past serving cocktails on the eve of my visit to the new restaurant so the week kept getting weirder and weirder.
And then I heard my daughter freshly returned from a holiday in Spain say that the tapas in Bar 44 were better than any she’d had in a whole week in Majorca.
What can it all mean? Better tapas in Cardiff than Majorca? Is it the end of days?
All I can say is if this is the rapture then bring it on.
Very highly recommended.
Eat see hear Cardiff 