Dinner the night before we travel

It is now 14 years since we began the tradition of eating 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.

For the third year in a row we made our booking in Matsudai Ramen, the delightful restaurant recommended by Jay Rayner.

What I love about Matsudai Ramen, as well as the gorgeous ramen is the regular variation of ramen styles that they have on their menu. This is eating as education.

Travelling to Matsudai Ramen 

 

The bus from Tongwynlais to Cardiff only takes 20 to 30 minutes, as long as the traffic isn't bad, so with our meal booked for 5pm we caught the 132 in Tongwynlais at 3.52pm.

We arrived in the City Centre at 4.20pm to the tremendously loud noise of Fontaines D.C. a band I'd never heard of, who were performing at Cardiff Castle this evening, the castle being right in the centre of the city, near where the 132 stops.

We walked from Greyfriars Road, down Westgate Street and then down the side of the river. What appeared to be a regimented band of seagulls were sailing like a flotilla up the River Taff:

The last time we had been along the river side we were with Robin and Liz Croft after a meal at the Vegetarian Food Studio nearby. At that time the buildings beside the old Brains Brewery were merely metal shells, they are now almost complete.

Matsudai Ramen 

 

We arrived at Matsuadai Ramen at 5pm and were seated in the same seats in which we were sat the last time we were here, last September! A pleasant coincidence

We choose three starters to share. The secret to eating here is to get your starters before ordering your Ramen - otherwise the soup can come before the starters.

We began with Cucumber tataki, we had had cucumber dishes here before, but never this particular take. It was made of large chunks of cucumber with whipped tofu and chilli crisp - the tofu and chilli have a great tanginess to the crunchy cucumber, a flavour explosion with every bite.

Our second starter was Karaage mushroom, these triple-fried oyster mushrooms with karaage (light Japanese curry) were also delicious. We've had them many times before, but love them again each time.
 

Our final starter (in the order they arrived) was Pork gyoza, a new dish on the menu here. It was a pork and vegatable gyoza with a soy dipping sauce, this traditional Japanese dish is done very well here, with soft wrap and a tangy filling.

For his main Drew had the traditional Shoyu ramen, this golden chicken chintan and seafood dashi double-soup with shoyu tare, wavy noodles, chiyu, pork shoulder chashu, menma, nori and seasoned egg, is the flavour that attracted us to the restaurant the first time we eat here. Since last year we have tried traditional Ramen in Japan itself, during our visit to Tokyo, and the one here is as good as that high quality location. Drew really enjoyed it.

I opted for a new item on the menu, the Iekei-inspired tonkotsu-shoyu ramen. This Yokohama-style ramen has a rich, salty pork and chicken bone soup with iekei shoyu tare, chiyu, iekei-inspired noodles, pork belly chashu, spinach, nori and seasoned egg. This new ramen flavour was right up my street as far as flavour goes. I really loved the chicken bone and pork fat broth, apologies to vegetarian friends! The vegetables and meat with infused with the delicious taste of the broth.

The restaurant explains more about the background to this delightful dish here. 

I opted for the rice and extra nori, recommended with the Yokohama ramen, Drew decided not to miss out and had rice and extra nori too, only my version is photoed.

There was none of my juicy, slightly fatty, ramen left - this meant we could see the logo at the bottom of the bowl. Note the dai of Matsuadai being used to form the Welsh expression Da Iawn - very good - and it truly is just that here!

Back Home

We left Cardiff at 7pm and were home by 7.30pm. We checked everything was ready for the off tomorrow and got to bed at 10pm, so we can be up and fresh ready for the morning.