Chinese Fast Street Food
A work colleague of mine named Steph recommended that I visit Matsudai Ramen back in June of 2022:
Steph has a passion for Asian food, and she clearly foresaw the excellence of Matsudai, whose bookings rocketed following the recent praise by Jay Rayner in a review for The Guardian.
So naturally, when she alerted me to a brand new Chinese restaurant which had opened down the side of Next & Jollibee on Charles Street (an alley off of Queen Street), I jumped at the chance to investigate.
Some digging online proved fruitless. No website, no social media presence, and a total lack of information on Google. All I had to go off was two 5* Google reviews, and Steph’s recommendation that her Chinese friend described it as “a taste of home”.
The interior was wonderfully bad. Tables crammed together, a can of Fosters on the kitchen pass, and boxes of Kleenex dotted about.
Attempting to decipher the menu also proved a task.
And what I can only assume was a specials board on the wall didn’t exactly clear things up.
A young man (later we discovered his name was Ding) dressed in Nike Air Force 1s, jeans, and a North Face jacket takes our order and does his best to help, despite the language barrier.
We’re pretty confident that we’ve ordered a bowl of roast duck with rice noodles (£9.80), and a bowl of braised beef brisket with rice noodles (£9.80). Millie attempted to order the pork, before she was warned by Ding there would be “feet” in the dish, and he advised the brisket would be more apt on a first visit.
When we ask for some drinks, Ding points to the fridge in the corner and notifies us to help ourselves to whatever we fancy: “treat this like your home”.
I pluck what appear to be two lemon ice teas (£2.50 each), which are super sweet.
Food arrives in the shape of two large, steaming hot bowls of ramen, which are typically associated with Japanese culture.
A rich, nourishing, hot & sour broth, crunchy spring onions & beansprouts, fresh coriander, and tender roasted duck tangled amongst rice noodles. A big, fat bowl of comfort.
I sniffle in between sips of the broth from my wooden ladle. The cold that I have come down with in the last couple of days is suddenly disappearing, as all the colours in my spectrum return from a shade of grey.
It’s the best thing I’ve eaten this year.
The braised beef brisket broth (try saying that quickly), is similarly delicious, the beef even more tender than the duck. An effective remedy for the glacial conditions outside.
Our bill arrives courtesy of Ding in the form of a post-it note. Another nod towards the wholesome nature of this restaurant.
£24.60 all in is obscene value, not to mention the price of £9.80 for our substantial & delicious bowls of ramen.
Their card machine, we’re told, has been stolen, so I pop to the cash point which is located 90 seconds opposite. Ding tells us that his family have recently moved over from China and opened this place, he is also studying at one of the universities in the city.
As we leave, all the tables are occupied by Asian visitors, which is usually a great sign.
It’s near impossible to describe a venue as a ‘hidden gem’ in the city centre of Cardiff, amongst the chains and an abundance of competition. Though this may be as close to that description as I’m likely to unearth.
This is an absolute cracker of a place and I highly recommend that you get down here to try their food. At the very least it’s worth tucking into one of these bowls for under £10 per person.
💎