My partner and I have been very excited to come here for a long time due to the creative and…read moredelicious looking meals they post on their social media, as well as a good vegan menu. We took the family here as our first time eating there, and we have never been more disappointed or embarrassed with the food - especially after hyping it up to the parents just how good this place is supposed to be.
We all began with a sharer starter which consisted of Glamorgan sausages, olives, chorizo, dipping bread, and (I forgot the name) bacon wrapped around prunes/dates. Most of this was pretty tasty in all fairness, besides the olives which for some reason seemed to be pickled, or at least heavily doused in something acidic - these were not nice at all and not what we expected when ordered. This was all fairly tame and not much of an issue. The mains however...
Two of us, including myself, had the pork belly. The menu only mentioned that there was going to be pork belly, purple sprouting. cider gravy and black pudding. What arrived was a big plate of unpleasant surprises. There was a few sprigs of *regular* broccoli sprouting, which was hidden amongst all the less desirable asparagus - neither of these are substitutes for purple sprouting! The potatoes were drowned in what seemed like half a jar of mustard - even if I did like mustard, this would have been way too much and killed whatever other flavour was there; having some with the pork still tasted overpowering. The gravy was very sparse and didn't give add much moisture or flavour to the pork. The pork skin/crackling was really thin and chewy instead of being crunchy. To give credit where it's due, the pork was quite nice, it just needed some gravy and more attention to its crackling. The flavours on this plate just generally did not mingle well at all. Also we didn't realise that we were not given black pudding until 2 thirds of the way through our meal. Cobbles did compensate us with free cake as desert so I will not knock them for the black pudding. Unfortunately this doesn't make up for the rest of this disastrous meal.
One of us had the 'white' (why not just say the fish?) fish and chips. This was largely fine apart from the triple cooked chips. These chips looked like beastly wedges of quartered potatoes, and go figure, they were really under cooked and firm in their centres and the skins were not very crisp. Triple fried chips done wrong is quite an impressive feat for the Welsh Restaurant of the Year...
My partner had the vegan to-fish which we all agreed was the most miserable dish out of all of us. The chips were the same as previously mentioned, but the 'to-fish' was just a huge slab of tasteless, un-marinated, unpressed tofu wrapped in a sheet of seaweed (forgive the lack of proper name for the seaweed, my memory can't recall). Granted, the seaweed tasted kind of fishy, but it did not cut through and balance well with the big watery sponge of tofu. It seemed like a really poor effort on what was an attempt at a vegan fish and chips. We appreciate the inclusiveness of vegan items on the menu, but please do not put something so slap-dash and tasteless on there. As feedback we suggest battering or frying the tofu, or perhaps do a battered mushy pea fritter instead which we have known some chippies to do. But as it is, it is just an expensive and tasteless insult.
Just an additional note, we were sat right next to the kitchen's music speaker. It was quite deafening for my partner who was sat there, and couldn't make out the conversation we were having after being blasted with Linkin Park in one ear, and Ed Sheeran in the other.
Not all bad though! The service was lovely, and the cakes were delicious. Including the vegan Oreo cake (you really wouldn't know it was vegan). I will always credit a restaurant for sourcing their meat locally and free range too. If this restaurant becomes honest with their customers by coming clean with what is out of stock and what will be on the plate when the food arrives, then maybe this could have been a 3 star review. Tweaks to the vegan menu is much needed also.
