The Bombay Café: Tiger Bay thalis, Cardiff Bay, Cardiff

The Bombay Café is a place with a sense of its own history. The legend above the door proclaims it was 'established 1953', yet this place has been open a scant seven weeks. What gives?

It transpires the original Bombay was a few doors down on the same street and can lay proud claim to being among the very first Indian restaurants in the country. The current owner's grandfather, who arrived in the UK in 1940, opened the restaurant in (you guessed it) 1953 and ran it until the 1980s. This new venture is in the former Bute Dock Hotel.

 Wall-mounted clocks run on both local and Bombay time, and a stretch of wall tips a wink to the area's maritime past.

Mugs adorned with the faces, wit and wisdom of  prominent Indians Tagore, Shankar, Gandhi-and honorary companion the erstwhile Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, or Mother Teresa to you and me- attest to a pride in, and conscious evocation of, the founder's home. 

There's a welcoming cosiness to this place. The air is fragrant with incense and the lighting warm: this is clearly somewhere you can relax with a coffee and a cupcake, and stay to be tempted into a mutton thali.

Of which, more later. 

We started with a sharing plate of Bombay City Snacks (£3.50) ; a spiced potato croquette (aloo chap) and a chilli-flecked fish cake accompanied a crispy bhajee and a crispier vegetable samosa. The sticky mango chutney mentioned on the menu had been replaced with a subtly-spiced mint raita, which was the kind of thing you always wish there was more of. 

 A word on drinks: there is no alcohol sold on the premises. However, the owners are more than happy for people to bring their own. They do squeeze oranges to order and carry a range of soft drinks. Actually, here's a better idea- pop into The Mount Stuart over in The Quay, pick up a couple of their rather excellent The Crisp- and mosey on over. (What actually constitues a mosey, I wonder- as opposed to an amble or a meander...) Yes, I know it's a Wetherspoons, but they're quietly becoming unexpectedly good in parts.

Anyway. Mains were harder to settle on; my wife went for the masala king prawns (£7.50), while I, unable to resist anything with 'kebab' in the title, had the Nawabi kebab at £8.95.

 Prawns were butterflied before the blistering heat of the tandoor gave the shells the telltale char and the flesh a marriage of heat and sweetness. A light but flavour-packed course.

The kebab thali achieved the unlikely feat of making courgettes tasty, while the tarka dahl was thinner in consistency than I'd have usually liked but had a nutty, mild heat. The salad (kachumber) was a crunchy contrast to the meats, which were as tender and as well-spiced as you'd like. A keema naan was a handy dahl-mop but served only with this choice. Typically, the other thalis are served with rice; perhaps a handy roti would be a useful tweak to the menu.

The Railway mutton curry (£6.95) - hot with cloves and cardamom and chilli powder- bore the marks of long, patient cooking. How refreshing to find meat served on the bone in that home-cooked style, and how delicious to suck at bits of bone marrow that had given the sauce its gloss and depth. This is too often neglected- have diners been too squeamish, too prissy in the past?- but a sensuous joy. (There's a very good reason Thoreau chose such a hands-on approach as a metaphor for conscious, dedicated, intense living) Nibbling and gnawing at bones isn't to everyone's taste, I know, but count yourself fortunate- the thought crossed my mind that, left to my own devices, I'd be dipping a straw into the bowl and draining it dry. I have a real 'thing' for mutton; this was an example of just how good it can be when you leave it blipping away for a few hours on a gentle heat. 

 'The Bone Sucked Clean...?'

So. A new enterprise finding its feet, but already producing some very well-priced and flavour-packed food: this is very much a family concern with mums and aunties doing the breakfast shift. At only a couple of minutes' stroll from Mermaid Quay, and offering something quite unusual in the city (the newly-opened Dabbawalla have clearly had some similar thoughts about empty market niches), you could do a lot worse than Bombay Café. A well thought-out menu of genuine home-style cooking; a wealth of experience and a proud heritage (the family owns the Juboraj chain); the intriguing 'Bombay Tiffin Club' and its replenishable lunch tins; the fact that Mermaid Quay options can often be on the formulaic, not to say uninspiring, side. In short- a very welcome 'new' face. Get in there before you have to queue.

The Bombay Café
West Bue Street
CF10 5LJ

029 2048 1148

 https://twitter.com/TheBombayCafe

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