DUCK EGG BLEU | FOOD REVIEW
435 Cowbridge Road East, Cardiff. 029 2022 0993 / www.duckeggbleu.co.uk
Deep into Canton, standing stoic and pastel-shaded among charity shops and chippies, Duck Egg Bleu’s location is a gamble: like the (comparable, price and quality-wise) Purple Poppadom, but more so. It opened in December last year after persistent wrangles delayed it since early summer. When my friend and I arrive, albeit on a wet Tuesday evening, the only other diners are a table of four middleaged chaps.
The food is entirely worth going out of your way for, though, and the proprietors should be as confident as their culinary creations are vibrant. Head chef and co-owner Gareth Dobbs’ signature dish, it appears, is ham, egg, peas and chips, which is one of the starters. If you guessed that it’s presented in an ‘unconventional’ way, you were correct: a glass containing layers of braised pig cheek, pea puree, a poached egg and pain perdu. I note my colleague’s nuclear-glowing praise while enjoying my starter – delicate scallops, pliant braised pork belly and ‘purple bavarois’, which Google tells me is the name of a baddie in Final Fantasy IV.
Pan-fried duck breast, my selection from the mains, is as pink as a Steven Tyler simile in the Aerosmith song Pink. It’s bolstered by an equally commendable duck leg scotch egg and parsnip three ways: boulangère, puree and some discardable crispy curls. Across the table, chicken breast pals around with black pudding and hazelnut gnocchi, among other painstakingly assembled morsels. It’s hearty more than arty though, as it should be.
Desserts still feel necessary: good things are said about the cardamom panna cotta, while my coffee and almond trifle doesn’t fully reconcile textures and flavours, particularly passion fruit jelly. In the content of an overall excellent meal, it’s but a shruggable misstep. Three courses apiece, plus a bottle of Italian primitivo red wine, totalled around £85.
words NOEL GARDNER