You probably read the title and gave up?! Ha ha! I ain’t mad at you. It is welsh and if you were hoping for the phonics of the word, so you can sound it out? Err… not gonna happen people, solz! I don’t know it either! Why are we in Wales? Aside from Wales being home, it’s Mama G’s birthday too. Who is Mama G? she is Neal’s mom and her name is Angela but I call her Mama G, why? because my mama raised me right and culturally, we don’t call older people by their first names – no can do! gotta have some
Neal’s parents, who we lovingly call ‘the oldies’, are avid fans of our food adventures especially Papa G (Neal’s Dad). He always wants the intricate details of whatever photo we share in our chat group, bless him! Any way, we decided to treat the oldies to their first taster menu and here we are at Tyddyn Llan. This place is extra special because Head Chef Bryan and his team went out of their way to serve as an impromptu lunch taster menu for Mama G. The taster menu is only served as dinner, yet, they graciously obliged and served us some lip-smacking food. One time for Welsh hospitality, they good like that.
If you haven’t worked this out yet, Neal is more of a beef /meat lover while I am well into my sea food, blame it on my Filipino heritage. Well that is not entirely correct because I do appreciate a good pork belly, crackling, adobo, pork chops yep anything pig related solz…I digress, now, where was I? Oh yeah? sea food.
We had a fantastic sea food salad- dressed crab and langoustine with fennel salad, avocado and radish! phew talk about fully loaded! Trust when I say, I have had the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to sea food based salads. I reckon we all, at some point, have had salads that have 3 lickle pieces of prawns / shrimp, lettuce leaves and a dollop of salad cream / mayonnaise and you’re like WTH? The generous amount of avocado was also very welcomed (y’all know this is needed). In hindsight, really not surprised by the portion sizes, we are UP NORTH! Northerners are not shy when it comes to portions and in this instance I say praise the LORDT!
Now, I have a love / hate relationship when it comes to the onion family, I DON’T DO ONIONS! I don’t like the texture, the lingering after taste nor do I like it sliced, diced or finely chopped in my meal either. If it is ground, in paste or powder form then we good bruv! Having said that, I actually didn’t mind the fennel in this salad – it was not OTT and went well with the crunchiness of the radish. The dressing though? ohh chiilee, the dressing was just scrumptious. Chef Bryan has a winner with this one for sure. You know this set the tone for all the other sea food courses – griddled scallops with cauliflower puree, pancetta, caper and raisin dressing as well as the wild sea bass with laverbread butter sauce. The dressing and sauces here are just the bomb! The soup? the most comforting Jerusalem artichoke soup ever that came served in a mug!
The duck breast served in apple cider sauce with confit potatoes with hispi cabbage and faggots which is minced kidney and livers – DELISH!!! The duck was perfectly cooked and juicy from the apple cider sauce. Duck meat or duck dishes can generally be quite heavy, but it was just the right amount of fullness. Besides, one of the perks of doing a taster menu, you can linger over each dish, enjoy the wine and create more room for the rest of the food, #winning!
The cheese selection was equally fab as it was a selection of home-grown cheese and you know it, my favourite – blue cheese, made the list.
Pudding included panacotta with pomegranate and grappa as well as rum baba with vanilla ice cream and black berries – I mean holy s****, it was soo good! We were then invited to take a seat in what I like to call the ‘grand room’ where we had after flavours which included macaroons, fudge and some good o’ cognac! The oldies absolutely enjoyed themselves, SUCCESS.
Cheers
Ndidi
p.s. whilst we were having cognac, head chef Bryan signed our menu as a keepsake!
