Cocorico Patisserie, Cardiff

What do you do on a lovely bank holiday Monday? Well of course go to one of your favourite places to eat in Cardiff! And that is exactly what we did.

Welcome to the utterly fabulous Cocorico Patisserie (http://www.cocoricopatisserie.co.uk/) based on Whitchurch Road. 

(Artsy photo I know!)

This sleek, modern and minimalist patisserie is one of our favourite places in Cardiff for many different reasons. 

One of those is the bacon, which is heaven, we are serious, you haven't tried bacon until you try it here (we love bacon).

Another is the absolutely delicious pastries, cakes and treats all lined up just waiting for you to guzzle down, just thinking about them while typing this is making my mouth water for one of their éclairs, which is not like any éclair you'll ever have!

The coffee... words can't describe how good they can brew their coffee. If they were open earlier when I make my morning commute to work I'd be in there every morning getting coffee!

And the staff top it all off, they are very informative with all the treats and are generally lovely people who will always greet you with a smile and chat. 

(Yummy treats, drooling)

Obviously we were hungry and excited to get stuck into an incredible brunch... 

So you can imagine our disappointment when, this time, we came away slightly underwhelmed with some of the food. 

We started with drinks and first up we wanted to order their amazingly fresh orange juice, but sadly they had run out of oranges and we were pretty upset about that. But we can live without OJ, we can't live without coffee! 

Two flat whites and an iced latte. To put it simply, unbelievably nice.

The iced latte was just creamy goodness and we would say one of the best, if not the best, iced latte in Cardiff. On a hot bank holiday Monday, perfection.

The flat whites went like this, first sip "oh that's good". Second sip, pause, "oh my God". Again just perfect with the taste. However, unusual for Cocorico, the flat whites where not well presented. 

The coffee is roasted by James Gourmet Coffee (http://jamesgourmetcoffee.com/) based in Ross on Wye, you may have seen them floating round other places in Cardiff and the South West. I tell you now, they know what they are doing when roasting coffee and are one of our favourite coffee roasters, exceptional coffee Mr Peter James!

On to the food, two of us ordered the full breakfast and one of us ordered the scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, toasted sourdough and maple syrup with added avocado, mushrooms and a croissant. 

The scrambled eggs, etc, were great quality produced and cooked to perfection. Here I'm going to have to mention the bacon again because it is just too delicious. If someone told me all I could eat was Cocorico bacon, Id be a very happy man!

The sourdough bread is fresh and well made (not sure if they make their own in house or buy in, but it is superb sourdough bread). The scrambled eggs well seasoned with the mushrooms perfectly grilled and lovely ripened avocado.

There were absolutely no complaints about this meal, it came how we expect with Cocorico; tasty, perfectly cooked and irresistible.

The disappointments in food came from the two full breakfasts we ordered. Let us state, we have had full breakfasts at Cocorico before and they were phenomenal, in fact I think the first time I went there for brunch I had the full breakfast. 

The full breakfast includes two free range eggs (cooked how you like), merguez sausage, crispy bacon, sautéed chestnut mushrooms, roasted cherry vine tomatoes, baked beans and toasted sourdough. 

The bacon again was just perfect, and we love the merguez sausage. That different taste from the sausage is great in a full breakfast. The eggs were seasoned and nicely cooked and the sourdough was the same as the meal above, nice and fresh. 

The two disappointing aspects of the full breakfast were the baked beans, and the roasted cherry vine tomatoes.

All the previous times we have had their full breakfast the beans are beautifully homemade which were delightful, however this time they were just ordinary baked beans.

We were wondering if they have changed the beans, which would be upsetting, or if they just had a crazy bank holiday weekend and sold out of them. 

In any instance it was still disappointing not having those tasty homemade baked beans. 

In the picture of the full English you can also that were are no roasted cherry vine tomatoes and in their place just an ordinary tomato. Again is this a change in menu or sold out we don't know, but on the menu it does say roasted cherry vine tomatoes, also when we ordered the food we were not told that the tomatoes would be different. 

These two seemingly small (but significant) differences, added with the no fresh orange juice, poor presentation of the flat whites and them forgetting to bring over the croissant (which has actually happened a few times) are what gave us that underwhelmed feeling. 

We love Cocorico because it is something different. They give you incredible tastes with brilliant presentation, but sadly today some of that was lacking. 

This is also not the first time that some of the small points, that make Cocorico stand out above the rest, have been missing. We feel that they are sometimes inconsistent, which can be quite bothersome when you go expecting the usual high quality that they normally deliver. 

On to the verdict then! 

Even with the small inconsistencies, Cocorico (or as we like to call it Croc, I don't know why...) still delivered on incredible coffee, bold flavours and the all important perfect bacon.

On previous occasions I wouldn't hesitate on giving them a ten out of ten. However for this visit we have decided on an 8/10.

We know they can produce some of the best brunches in Cardiff and we can't wait to go back again and again. 

We hope you enjoyed reading. 

Much love, 

The Cardiff Brunch Club Team. 

Servini's Cafe, Cardiff

Today the Cardiff Brunch Club team set our sights on a lovely and relaxed cafe in Wyndham Arcade, which runs parallel to Mill Lane. 

We'd like to welcome you to Servini's Cafe (http://www.serviniscardiff.co.uk/).

Upon entering you can feel the relaxed, easy and quite quirky atmosphere with good music playing and the seats seeming to be made out of synthetic grass. Wooden pallets on the walls with lots of green around gave the inside a natural, eco-friendly vibe. 

You can't miss the big "Servini's" sign on the wall too! Also made out of synthetic grass, which is pretty damn cool. 

We sat down and after a few minutes the waitress came to see what we wanted. We all agreed that she had some good banter on her and her service was excellent.

In fact the service was brilliant all round, the food came quick and with a smile, chat and no mistakes. As we are usually always hungry, so quick service with good high quality food is a must! And we feel we had that at Servini's. 

The coffees came first with two flat whites and one black, the beans are from Verdes Coffee (http://verdecoffee.com/) which are roasted in Barry, which is local so that is a big thumbs up from us. We all agreed that the coffee was of a good standard and very nice to drink with smooth textures from the flat whites and bold flavours from the black. 

Swiftly after the arrival of the coffee came the food, which leads us to the tasty part of this post! 

First up was the Avocado Muffin, this was mashed avocado mixed with lime, tomatoes and onions producing a fresh and "top draw" taste. On top of this was two pleasantly seasoned poached eggs which, very importantly for poached eggs, were nice and runny! As with any food to make it better, we added bacon, because we love bacon. All this was on top of a lightly toasted breakfast muffin.

The avocado mixed with these elements combined well to provide a good and fresh tasting start to the bank holiday Sunday. 

Next up was the Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon. This was a pretty standard Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon. Breakfast muffin, smoked salmon, poached egg and hollandaise sauce. 

The muffin was lightly toasted with the salmon not tasting not like it was cheap. The worst thing we find is if you order your Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon and they gave you cheap, tough and stringy smoked salmon, it just ruins the whole meal! However Servini's was not like this and so we were happy! 

The first poached egg was a little too hard and so not significantly runny and we feared the second would be the same, however upon cutting into the second egg it was perfectly runny and absolutely delicious. 

Now we know we started with stating it was a standard Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon, but there was nothing standard about the hollandaise sauce.

This hollandaise sauce was absolutely delicious and easily one of the best hollandaise sauces I've ever had the pleasure of tasting! They state that it is homemade and we would like to applaud the chef who made it! If I was at home I would have licked the plate clean!

And finally the Servini's Breakfast with added hash brown and black pudding. We ordered the bacon crispy and it came impressively crispy which is just great! 

The Servini's Breakfast, all-in-all, was a no frills fry up and there was nothing to complain about it. Perfect if you are hungover or feeling the need for a fry up and we all thought that you got good value for you money with the amount of food. 

So to the verdict then.

We feel that Servini's is a very good cafe for brunch, the service was excellent, the food came quick and was pretty tasty and satisfying. However, apart from the hollandaise sauce, we felt that it was a no frills, simple cafe and a good atmosphere. This isn't a bad thing what-so-ever, sometimes simple, good food works and this place definitely made it work. 

In the way of negatives we had no complaints at all and enjoyed our time there sitting outside in the arcade chatting, eating good food, drinking good coffee and watching the world go by. 

We also feel that with the recent renovations it has brought it in line with its competition in Wyndham Arcade, giving it a fresh and individual style. 

We give Servini's a solid 7.5/10 stars and definitely recommend it.

We hope you enjoyed the post.

Much love,

The Cardiff Brunch Club Team.  

Cardiff Street Food Circus (The First Post!)

First Post!

Well hello there, and welcome to the first post of Cardiff Brunch Club! We hope that you enjoy all the exciting and new content that will be posted on this site and that you come back to share in this foodie adventure of ours! 

So lets get to it, however we haven't started with a brunch! 
We decided to start with something big for the first post (don't worry though, brunches will be starting very soon!)

Cardiff Street Food Circus

Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the award winning, most fabulous and tasty Cardiff Street Food Circus! 

Based at Sophia Gardens, Bute Park the Cardiff Street Food Circus (http://www.streetfoodcircus.co.uk/) has been open from the 18th August and finishes on the 25th September. It is open every Thursday (5pm-11pm), Friday, (5pm-11pm), Saturday (2pm-11pm) and Sunday (12pm-6pm). 

This is definitely the place to be in Cardiff during those times and a must do for the great (rainy) Cardiff summer.

If you are someone that likes to try new delicious foods, freshly prepared in front of you while soaking up a lively bohemian feel atmosphere then get yourself, your mates, your secret crush (go on and ask them on a little date, this is the perfect place for it!), your parents and even your goldfish here. 

When we arrived we did what any respectable adult would do in this situation... and that is head to the bar! The drink of choice was a medium Cider called Blindfold from Blaengawney Cider (http://blaengawneycider.co.uk/). 

They are based in Caerphilly and produce some brilliant cider that they take all over the country for the delight of cider lovers. You may know them for their Hallets Real Cider which has won multiple awards. 

After the thirst was suitably quenched it was time to have a look around the many different vendors that the Circus have to offer. 

The Circus boasts different areas to satisfy all of your taste buds, these are the Farmyard with foods from ethical traders, Singha Street for the more exotic, spicy flavours (pictured above), The Block for a more downtown street food feel and the Milgi pop-up restaurant which is a 40 seater yurt that they say booking is essential for. 

Now I know it wasn't a Tuesday, but we saw The Bearded Taco (@thebearedtaco) van and tacos were immediately on our minds. These tacos were absolutely delicious and were eaten pretty quick! 

Pictured above is the "Let's Avo Cwtch" and "The Pork-A-Cola", I hope you enjoy their play on words as much are we did. 

The "Let's Avo Cwtch" was made of California gin & tonic tempura avocado with honey, lemon slaw and chipotle aioli. Now the chiplotle aioli was completely dreamy, and I want more of it! (For those of you that don't know what a cwtch is, it is a cuddle, but not just any cuddle! A proper Welsh cwtch is the best cuddle you'll ever have in your life!) 

"The Pork-A-Cola" was made of Mexican slow braised pork shoulder with roasted tomato salsa, fresh coriander and red onion. With the pork just so melt-in-your-mouth and juicy it was a big hit. 

Both the tacos were made fresh and ultimately irresistible, sprinkle some of their chilli oil over your tacos and you will be leaving there with heaven in your mouth and begging for more once you have devoured them!

Next up was pizza! And who doesn't love freshly made, wood fired pizza with delicious cheese, tantalising tomato sauce and a soft, well balanced dough that is full of subtle flavours, add some exclusive pepperoni and you get a Dusty Knuckle Pizza (http://www.dustyknucklepizza.co.uk/). 

When you take your first bite into one of their pizzas you can definitely taste why they were listed as one of the top 25 pizzerias in the UK by the Sunday Times Magazine. 

The flavours and aromas from this pizza were incredible and hit the spot brilliantly, however they didn't have any chilli oil to put on the pizza, we don't know if we just missed it or they had ran out that night but for ourselves a perfect pizza needs a little drizzle of chilli oil so that was slightly disappointing, but not enough to take away how great this pizza was! 

After the tacos, pizza and cider the bellies were feeling very full and so we relaxed, chatted and soaked up the atmosphere of this truly unique place. If you are still feeling peckish after that though and have a little sweet tooth then don't worry, as there are plenty of dessert stands to get stuck into as well! 

And now to the end of the first post and what you have been waiting for with baited breath, the verdict. 

The Cardiff Street Food Circus is a brilliant experience and a lot of fun for all the family and the taste buds, with lots to offer. There are some minor negatives, which were we thought the main tent was a bit small and it would have been good to have a big dance area. The queues we felt were a bit long and if the venue was bigger we feel that this could have been managed better (though we are British and the British love to queue!). 
We feel that they could have supported more local brewers

With all this in mind we are giving this visit to the Cardiff Street Food Circus a big 9/10 stars! 

We hope you enjoyed our first post come back for the next.

Much love,

The Cardiff Brunch Club Team.