Location: 157 Cowbridge Road, Canton , Cardiff CF11 9AH
www.theitalianwaycardiff.co.uk/
It was a cold April night in Canton, and surprisingly we were child-free thanks to grannie and the school holidays. After lengthy discussion of where to go (and i mean lengthy - as there are so many nice food places on our doorstep in Canton, Cardiff) we opted for a trip down memory lane to The Italian Way.
Since moving to Cardiff 8 years ago, the Italian Way is one of our oldest Cardiff friends. There with us from the start, it offered shelter, food, music, convivality. Offering traditional fayre in a traditional way that has remained unchanged for at least the length of time i've been here. Plastic printed table mats, over-the-top mirrors (and i mean in a good way), rustic faux-tiling and candlelight set the ambience for good food to be served.
It was tuesday, but i thought we'd better book (remembering times when they literally have to turn people away by the bucket load). We get a couple of bottles from Tesco, it has to be done - after all, The Italian Way is BYO with a zero-corkage policy and frankly, it would be rude not to entertain this offer. We then continue through Canton High Street past Bangkhok Cafe [full to rafters], Ichiban [full], Purple Poppadom [couldn't see - but guessing very full] i was patting myself on the back for taking the initiative to book, seeing that the grazers were out in force tonight.
We turn into the doorway, i was secretly hoping the troubadour would be there tonight - just for the ultimately-kitsch-aide-memoir, but alas, he wasn't and neither was anybody else. 8pm on a tuesday night and we literally had the restaurant all to ourselves. A far cry from the hubbub that i remember fondly - but hey, worse things happen at sea and we have had the most awesome food and evenings in venues when we are first in on an 'early-bird' sitting (fondly thinks back to Oscars in Cardiff) - and we take our seats after being told to almost unenthusiastically 'sit anywhere' - the choice aplenty, we instinctively navigate to the right hand side and set root and before you can say 'thin crust', we have the first bottle opened and wine flowing.
The waitress heads over and takes our order:
What we had:
Garlic bread with mozzerellaCost: £45
Lobster Ravioli
Cozze Italian Way (Mussels in tomato sauce)
Pizza 12inch / Ham / Spinach / Mushroom
Pizza: Spinach / Pepper Sausage / Sweetcorn / Mushrooms
Time for another glass and a half and our starters arrive.
Sadly the garlic bread was missing, and we prompt our waitress and she swiftly skips off and returns 5 minutes later with the garlicy goodness. As a mussel-enthusiast ( i can't think of a better term), i always opt for the mollusk option when ordering. I was sadly dissapointed. The sauce was nice (sorry - a bad, tepid term to describe food but emotions weren't plucked for anything stronger), but the mussels were over cooked, hard and the shells uncharacteristically brittle. I suspect the result of the machine that goes ping! Over to the ravioli, and the pasta was good but the filling rather reminiscent of what i would envisage lobster-thermadore-a-la-bebe to be like. That said, the food did get all eaten and empty plates were handed back to our waitress.
By this time, two other people had joined us in the restaurant and by all accounts, they were equally surprised by the emptiness.
Just time for another swift glass, and our main arrive. Pizzaaaaaaaaaaah
At first glance, the pizza looked great - the only thing grating our initial view was the rather large five gatherings of spinach located around the perimeter of each pizza. Tucking in and the pizza was great, the cheese - nicely unctuous, the base super-thin (i would say too thin, but C very happy) but was sadly let down by the wet, clumpy popeye-inspired spinach drops on both pizzas which did ruin each of our dishes which we both promptly scraped to the side.
By this point, the meal was not going great and several factors start to put you in a negative frame of mind. Missing starter, empty restaurant, owner eating at the side, chortles and laughter from open-kitchen area at back of restaurant, wet splodges of spinach ...
ESF Ratings Service:
Quality of Food: 5 / 10Child-friendliness: n / a
Service: 5 / 10
Ambience: 3 / 10
Final thoughts
A far cry from our prior-conceived memories. I hope that our visit was a one-off and that it's guns are blazing every other night. Has the Italian lost it's Way? Possibly. Will we be back? Only if we are invited for someone's event and i'm not washing my hair.
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