It wasn’t very busy on a Friday night. There were 3 large family groups dining in the back. We were seated at the front at a smaller table. We were the only non-Chinese customers. There were 2 different menus on the table. We went for this menu:
I haven’t seen a Chinese menu be termed ‘Real Material’ before, but I can’t argue with it. Maybe it’s their term for the real deal, or authentic Chinese items?
We got char siu on rice. This was good, but the food colouring was low quality and was leaking onto the rice, which I found a bit off-putting.
I had the plant based sausage roll which was served with chilli jam and husband went for the focaccia with prosciutto, fig jam and brie. Both were very good:
We didn’t realise this is a gluten-free coffee shop. The coffee was superb and my husband had a couple of Welsh cakes (sorry, no pics) which were great.
Multiple locations in and around Cardiff. Lovely tea room with a huge selection of teas. Coffee and soft drinks served as well. A nice variety of cakes and brunchy dishes. The matcha scones looked interesting but I played it safe with a sticky toffee cake and black tea.
I worked in a Cantonese kitchen in London for a short while when I was a teenager. I’m pretty sure “Real Material” is a literal translation of the term “lor-suut” (sorry, Cantonese-speakers, for what is probably a bad transliteration of those words). It’s a very UK-specific Cantonese kitchen slang used to mean “Chef’s Specials.”
A line cook at that restaurant told me that the term “lor-suut”/“real material” itself actually refers to solid waste or kitchen garbage. It was initially a joke based on the idea that a restaurant’s chef specials are just a way to unload what would otherwise end up in the bin. But it was used so often and for so long that most UK Chinese restaurant employees are completely unaware of the origins. They think it just means “chef’s specials” and will even put it on Cantonese-language menus with no irony intended.
