Mezza House- Lebanese restaurant, City Road, Cardiff

No sooner had I noticed a new opening on City Road than I was contacted by regular readers (yes, both of them...) keen to share their early experience here. Enthusiasm like that is not only intriguing but contagious, so away we went, and it is in no way any reflection on the experience that it has taken me a week and a half to write it up. Blame my employer's insistence that I 'do stuff' occasionally, or the demands of a one-year-old who finds the world  a pretty engaging place. Damn it, blame the World Cup and the Tour de France too, while you're at it.

Mezza House sits on the same side of City Road as Dabbawalla Club (i.e. the side opposite Abo Ali, KBS, Shaam Nights, .cn etc) It has had several incarnations over the years; for most of them it was a pale-fronted Indian restaurant whose name currently escapes me, later becoming  a similarly pallid Italian). The greeting was warm and personable: my wife was asked if she had Arabian heritage and although the staff seemed disappointed she hadn't (for the record, Ghanaian-Barbadian), the food soon began to arrive.

And continued arriving.

And then more arrived, which necessitated some fairly prompt rearranging of space on our double table as our mezza and mains seemed to multiply before our eyes.

In short- portions are on the very generous side and a few were complimentary; which is very kind and obviously unasked-for, (how much would we have got if my wife had said 'well, yes, actually'...?) but pretty much beside the point if it's not something you want to eat.

Rest easy on that score, though, because this represents a solid new entry into the rather busy kebab panorama in this postcode.

The bread here is baked on-site and was a promising start: soft, hot, seeded and stuffed with cheese (fatayer jibneh), another with sumac-scented spinach (fatayer sabanekh). The accompanying dips- a smoky roasted aubergine mouttabal and a baba ghanouj- were excellent. Starters were always going to include jawaneh: I still crave the sticky, fragrant, parsley-flecked chicken wings at Sands on Queen's Road, Bristol (sadly no longer open) and any mention on any menu will have me snared. These came with a pretty punchy chilli dip, rather than the more typical toum or garlic paste. The wings were large enough to make it worth worrying at them with your (go on then, my) teeth, but small enough to start the motor for the main course.

A salad was a burst of green and  freshness: it couldn't have been any perkier if it tried. Tomatoes, onions, cucumber, olive oil, full of the vibrancy of the parsley and the zing of lemon: superbly simple muggy Summer evening food which punched way above its weight. Spicy sausages (soujouk: not a million miles from chorizo, but made of beef for the obvious reasons) and halloumi cheese (this had just the ideal balance of 'give' and ooze) were a winning combination and something I look forward to eating again.

A complimentary bowl of pickles was sharp and sour in all the right places; who would have thought a turnip to be so interesting? Pitta breads were an unnecessary addition and not up there with their own baking, though the hummous was excellent; four of us were beginning to suspect we would struggle to finish what we had ordered, let alone any kind 'extras'.

There's an old saying, which, translated from the Arabic goes- 'A City Road kebab house is only as good as its shish taouk'.

This didn't disappoint: good-sized cubes of tender meat, lent some smokiness from the bars of the grill. If it didn't yet quite hit the heights of Mowlana then that's no shame, and it had not been open fully three weeks when we visited. I had plenty of opportunities to try it, as my main was a mixed grill with the addition of chicken and lamb koftes: the latter had a good balance of herbiness with that background fattiness essential in lamb.

The saffron rice was plentiful and pretty much exemplary. Presentation throughout was functional rather than elaborate: you get the feeling the emphasis here is on people eating together, talking, dipping into communal dishes, sharing, laughing, leaving happy and full. I don't have the final bill to hand, but I do remember being taken aback it had come in at under £30.

All in all? A very pleasant place to while away an hour or two, staffed by warm, generous people. They are up against some hefty, long-established competition: but when simple, flavoursome food is done this well, and when the people are so full of smiles and cheer, you'd have to have a heart of stone not to wish them well. When we finally slumped back and admitted defeat, refusing proffered  desserts, our waitress was keen to hear what we thought. Her response? 'Chef will be happy.'

And he won't be the only one.


Mezza House
175 City Road, Cardiff CF24 31B
Tel: 077 92 380 775
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mezza-House/502330749893805