Cardiff on a Fiver: Cegin, 1 Cathedral Road, Cardiff

1 Cathedral Road, it took me a couple of minutes to realise, is actually the Transport House building, and Cegin (the rebranded Café Unite) is effectively its works canteen.

So why am I covering it?

Well, for two reasons I suppose: because I've had a tip that this would be a great place to start my search for the best value in town (hence the imaginative hashtag); and secondly, and more intriguingly, because this is the new project of Chef Kuldeep Singh.

Kuldeep, you'll recall, was head chef at the much-missed Munchesters. Since April he has been running this new kitchen, with one guiding principle: to keep it simple, and to give his customers value. I suppose that's two guiding principles, but you take my point.

Which is where this post comes in; because when I asked Twitter (that fount of all knowledge, wisdom and good taste) where I should search for the best local value, Cegin got an early mention among the long list of responses.

Happily, Cegin (the rebranding has not yet extended to the window decals which advertise the café's current incarnation as Spiro's Café Unite) is just focussed at present on feeding people, feeding them well, and at a good price. And as rationales go, that takes some beating, no?

To wit:

This came to £7. That's a mild chicken curry, rich with onions and garlic and tomatoes, rice, a spicy potato side dish flecked with mustard seeds (mine), a subtly-spiced carrot and sweet potato soup with light, fresh croutons and a slice of granary bread (my wife's) for seven pounds. Mine qualified for the quest by coming in at a sterling £4.50 (sterling... The chickpea curry was the vegetarian main course choice and kindly added as a 'taster'. And pretty punchy it was too).

So that's chicken breast curry, made from scratch daily, with rice and a side dish, for £4.50. Food packed with flavour, freshly made, by a Chef with an enviable CV; by my reckoning, that's less than a Big Mac extra value meal, and considerably cheaper than several Subway choices.

Obviously, with someone like Chef Singh at the helm- and particularly recalling his expertise with pastries and chocolate- the business could develop in any number of ways: this is still a fledgling operation but it is clear word is spreading. While we were eating among Unison office staff, there was a noticeable volume of collections from local offices. With this quality, and at these prices, it makes a hefty whack of sense.

The menu changes daily: our day (Wednesday) is always curry day but other options include a Thai theme, roast chicken, Chinese, meatballs... There's a soup of the day, depending on what takes their fancy from the morning veg delivery; as a company canteen, lighter choices are also to the fore (breakfasts include a bacon butty and a cup of tea or coffee for £2, or homemade granola) with sandwiches, jacket potatoes, salads and the like also available.

All in all, good start to the search for Cardiff's best food for £5 or less.