Cardiff on a Fiver: Mashawe Arabian Cuisine,Crwys Road

Mashawe is a new name in the increasingly interesting options on Crwys Road. They were in their fourth week of opening when we visited, although they have previously existed in takeaway form.

 The emphasis here is pretty much all on value: as we had that strict £5 per head limit, we headed straight for the 'Midday Meal Deal'.

It's a calm- and calming- space, this. Whereas the other elements of our meal were prepared in the kitchen, the accoutrements are up to you. Fill your boots- or your flatbread, at least.

Red onion (It always baffles me, why so many restaurants serving this kind of food prefer to serve only white onion), tomatoes, cucumber, sliced green peppers, shredded cabbage, lettuce, the works; an array of sauces (minted yoghurt, chilli, garlic).One lamb, one falafel, the latter coming with a good slather of hummus, the baked flatbreads all present and correct with that killer heat-blistered crisp versus soft chewiness.

A tender lamb kofte or firm, crisp, spicy-herby flattened falafel? Both were good value at £4, with a bottle of water taking it to an even fiver (a nice touch, again, to serve water in an iced glass, with plenty of icecubes, rather than the bottle alone).

A mango chutney, an Iraqi twist on the typically sweet condiment, had a spice completely unrelated to the version lurking in your local tandoori's poppadom trays, and combined well with a lacing of tahini. More sauces were supplied at the table, all of them clearly labelled with a 'made on' and 'use by' date.

With the option to load as much salad as you fancy into your bread, this can be a pretty hefty beast of a lunch and the breads and starring elements were right on the nail. A promising first visit to Mashawe, then, and another option worth investigating as Crwys Road strengthens its claim upon the hungry and the frugal.

The quest continues...