Milgi vegetarian restaurant, City Road

A couple of weeks ago I came to a bloggers' event here. The occasion marked ten years of Milgi, and I was rather impressed by what we ate that evening.. So impressed, I went back a few days later with my wife. There's a small menu- starters, small plates, mains and desserts- which is augmented by daily and monthly specials: and in one of the more surprising CV entries of recent times, Chef has come straight from The Potted Pig.

I've not eaten here for a good while: so long ago, in fact, there was still meat on the menu- a token nod to us pesky carnivores and our stubborn ways- and plenty of arty visuals. That's long gone: these days, Milgi serves nothing with a pulse and has acquired an admirable reputation in the city, even attracting national plaudits from The Observer Food Monthly for what they call 'everyday plant-based eating', and the plasma screens have been replaced with chalk boards and trays of sprouting greenery. 

If there's one cuisine which you can rely on to make the most of vegetables, it's Indian: so the street food platter was a must, and it didn't disappoint, with a baton of oozing, marinated paneer tikka, a couple of crisp bhaji-type chickpea and coriander concoctions (superb, these) and an aubergine and pea pakora. The pakora wase a little on the dry side but the dips rode to the rescue- a coriander-laced raita and a tart-sweet onion chutney. The salad leaves were dressed with a mild mustard and toasted coconut lent it a Southern Indian accent.

A bowl of blue corn nachos was incredibly moreish: a mildly spiced pile of refried beans was topped with the dairy-free substitution of crème fraiche and the lovely background warmth of toasted coriander seeds. They're the kind of thing you realise you've eaten half a bowl of, without even trying. How good were they? Put it like this- if Odeon or Cineworld (other cinemas chains are available) sold them, you'd volunteer to sit through that all-night Adam Sandler career retrospective just to snaffle a trough full of these things. 

The Wholefood Bowl (£6.95) was a proper little playground of textures. Rarely have I eaten a bowlful with quite so much going on: from dried mulberries (oddly addictive) to Persian lemon rice (a substitution for the billed beetroot variety) and blood orange to kale and pumpkin seeds. This is food with a spring in its step, food that makes you feel damn good. It's food- and at some point I was always going to mention this- that doesn't make you miss meat. The sole regret was that we hadn't ordered it in its larger size (£9.95).

Fried sourdough was teamed with mozzarella and pink grapefruit in one of those 'why on earth haven't I seen this before' moments. At this point we mentioned that our drinks hadn't arrived- a Pipes red lager for me, a vibrant green juice for my wife- and they were immediately removed from the bill. Commendable service- and we weren't even complaining. 

'I could eat like this every day', said my wife half way through. She's probably right, and I can't see me eschewing- rather than just plain chewing- meat; but perhaps we shouldn't be thinking in such polarised terms. Ultimately, it's all just food, and there's a tremendous vitality- a zip and zest and zing- about the menu at Milgi that is wonderfully attractive.

Recommended. 

Milgi

213 City Road

Cardiff

CF24 3JD

www.milgicardiff.com