Rocky’s at The Butchers Arms

The Butchers Arms, Rhiwbina, 029 2069 3526, www.butchersarmsrhiwbina.com

To call this place a gastro pub would be to do it a disservice as this is a proper local’s pub complete with pub quizzes and a Tom Jones lookalikey, only much shorter, on a Friday night. The strangely named Rocky’s restaurant is at the back of the pub with not a wine glass or white tablecloth to be seen. (I must say I had my doubts and was expecting a repeat of the Black Cock). 

But this is where its similarity with the traditional pub ends. Its large specials board offering a wide range of differing foods sets it well apart from its pub grub neighbours. I had tempura prawns to start with a homemade sweet chilli sauce followed by poached haddock on a bed of creamy mash with a softly poached egg perched on top as its crowning glory. If I had had the space I could have easily eaten it all again. All the food had a real cooked to order from my favourite recipe feel about it. After you have finished eating you can join the friendly bunch in the bar to finish off your bottle of wine before gently swaying your way home. This is my local pub so I will certainly be back.

It also worth noting that a Farmers Market is held here every Friday where you can buy Chelsea Buns to die for and fresh Duck eggs for your breakfast. Good Quality local food is clearly important to the Butchers which I think is the secret to Rocky’s success.

Lottie x

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To be honest we headed out heading for the Ty Mawr but a combination of my poor map reading and a wet and windy night meant we failed to find it, so by way of compensation we thought we’d head to the Butchers as we’d heard good things about the restaurant here.

What we found was a rather empty restaurant at the back of the pub with a great choice of food and a very enticing specials board. Don’t be put off by the out of date menu on the website underselling itself with offers of 2 meals for a tenner and the ‘Christmas Fare’ deal (in March). What you find inside far exceeds this. I started with some juicy whitebait which came with a great homemade tasting tartar sauce. For the main I found it hard to choose between the Thai style mussels and the goose. In the end I plumped for the mussels as I really fancied chips and didn’t feel that goose and chips were de rigueur. The chips were hand cut and perfectly cooked and the mussels were cooked and flavoured with Thai spices just the way I like them.

Washing it all down with a couple of pints of Doom Bar I left making a note to return. This place deserves to be full on a regular basis, book your table now while you can still get in.

Barnabus