The night before we travel

It doesn't take long for us to establish a tradition, but it is clear that some traditions last longer than others.

A tradition we developed back in 2011 was to eat out the night before we travel. As I said in my blog post back then:

For us holidays always start the night before, rather than having pots and pans to wash and dry, we go out for a meal.

The question of where to eat has changed over time. Currently, and this is a tradition which only started last year, but which we are continuing with this year, we go to Matsudai Ramen, the delicious ramen restaurant just .8 of a mile from Drew's place of work. 

Matsudai Ramen

Matsudai Ramen first sprung to fame during lockdown when the owner, moving from delivering pop-ups across the UK began to deliver Raman Kits to people's homes. The arrangements are well described in this Cardiff journalist students article at the time. Following this success the team opened the restaurant in 2022 as a Wales Online journalist describes. The restaurant went from strength to strength, especially when it was catapulted into national fame with Jay Rayner's review in the Observer in February 2023.


I tell you what, Rayner was not wrong, the food here really does provide what he calls: "Bowls of deep care and thoughtfulness". 

Having tried Matsudai Ramen in May 2023, we are now making our fifth visit to the place, and have been delighted by the changing menu which it provides exploring a range of Japanese flavours. These flavours even more appropriate for this year's holiday when we will be spending our final days in Tokyo.

One warning if you visit, if like us you like your starters before your mains (in this case raman) then don't order the raman until you are well into your starters. The menu does warn that food is brought in the order in which it is cooked, but we did forget once and had both our ramans before any of our starters - we coped, but prefer it in a more traditional order.

Starters

We ordered four starters to share, the first to arrive was the Tsukemono or pickle plate, this tangy morsel of tongue tingling delight is always a treat. This is the third time we have had the pickle plate and the third time that two of the three items on the plate had been new to us - they pickle what is available. The oyster mushrooms (right in the photo below) work perfectly with the pickling liquid, none of the soft slushiness that can happen to oyster mushrooms if cooked for long, rather a crisp raw mushroom texture with the tangy flavour. The Japanese cucumber (left in the photo) is another veg that can turn quite damp if not treated with car, but here it was crunchy and delicious. The central ingredient, one I didn't immediately recognise, was a specialist form of radish often used in Japanese and Korean dishes, it was soft, and not the easiest item to eat with chopsticks, but was so delicious that both of us made a good effort and ended up clearing the plate. Yum. Any rumour that I might have picked the plate up and drunk the remaining pickling juice is just as rumour - there is no photographic evidence. 😂

The next starter to arrive was the Mini Chashu Don, this soft seasoned rice is sprinkled with aonori and topped with a generous portion of pork belly burnt ends. There is something that always feels a little sinful about this dish. The juiciness of the fatty part of the pork belly, rendered to a crisp texture feels exceptionally decadent, the rice melts in the mouth, and is sticky enough to be manipulated with the chopsticks and the green algae offers a salty counterpoint to the other flavours. 

The third starter is an old favourite of ours, Lemon Karaage Mushroom, we had the chicken version of this dish on our first visit to this restaurant and have had the mushroom version previously too.  It is triple-fried oyster mushrooms with a lemony vegan curry mayo, the lemon freshness, and the vibrant yellow of the mayo is a picture all of its own. The crisp mushrooms just need a dab of it to bring out a whole new layer of tangy, fruity flavours. Crisp and subtle the whole experience of eating the dish is delicious.  

Our final starter was Lemon Taffy Wontons, this innovative dish is, for us, a first time visitor to the menu. It uses lamb, chicken and leek in wonton wrappers with Caerphilly cheese and chives served with a soy and vinegar dressing. Lamb, leek and caerphilly cheese shout Welsh produce, seeing them used here in a Japanese style dish is a great celebration of using locally sourced produce in any kind of cuisine. The caerphilly and the leek were strong enough to be tasted with the meats and together they formed a harmony which, one assumes, must have been the chefs objective - lovely.

Mains

We ordered our mains when the Taffy wontons arrived and this worked very well as our bowls of raman arrived within a few seconds of each other.

Drew opted for Triple-Yuzu Shio, a raman with golden chicken and seafood broth with shio tare, yuzu juice, yuzu peel, hand-pressed noodles, pork belly chashu, menma, yuzu kosho, half egg. Shio, which means salt in Japanese, is a good name for this broth, the salty tang has a sweet aftertaste which distinguishes it from other ramans. The yuzu provides a citrussy background flavour which made it perfect for Drew's palette. 

I went with the Tokusei Shoyu, this has the same golden chicken and seafood broth base but with shoyu tare, hand-pressed noodles, menma, nori with both pork belly, chicken breast chashu and a whole egg. The shoyu has that great mix of salty (from the soy) and deep umami flavour. Each of the individual items in the broth were cooked to perfection and between them they provided a mouth-filling, heart-pleasing flavour. 

We also ordered an extra portion of nori for each of us. Experience has told us that nori is great for dipping in the soup, and that if we shared a plate, we'd argue about who had the final piece, so let peace (and seaweed) reign.

Dessert

while the restaurant focuses on its savory more than its sweet, there are often little pieces of sugary niceness to tempt a Drew. In this case it was a Yuzu Crème Brûlée, the yuzu is a versatile fruit, a hybrid of mandarins and a chinese variation on a lime, so the flavour it offers is like the famous St. Clements - i.e. orange and lemon, subtle not overpowering, but enough to lift the sugary goodness of a Brûlée into an ecstatic expression of delight. I even heard Drew give a little squeak of glee as he had his first mouthful. 

Good Night

Having had a delightful meal we walked back from the restaurant to catch the 132 back to Tongwynlais and completed our final checks that everything, apart from our electric toothbrushes that we'll need in the morning, were packed and ready to go. We went to bed just before 10pm, ready for tomorrow, the start of our travels.