New Seasons Menu Dishes are a Hit! | August 26, 2010
Chef Anand George at the Pass
Chef is delighted to report that the New Seasons menu dishes launched mid-month are proving very popular amongst our diners.
Reporting on feedback here at Mint & Mustard, Chef Anand George said: “We are extremely pleased that our wish to take diners a little further on our journey into re-defined Indian cuisine has attracted keen followers. So far, we have found two of the new dishes to be amongst the most popular of all in our Cardiff restaurant; Our authenitic Goan Porc Vindalu, which celebrates the Portuguese influence on Indian cuisine is proving very acceptable to our clients. On the vegetarian front, Urulai Pattani – which combines oven roasted potatoes with green peas and Chettinad spices – is a constant visitor to the Pass! We thank our diners for their adventurous spirit.”
We hope to reveal shortly, the dishes that Chef George will be presenting at the prestigious Chef’s Night Out charity event, taking place in aid of Ty Hafan children’s hospice, at The Holland House Hotel on 4th September.
Meanwhile, we can now confirm that Chef will be demonstrating his art on 30th October at The Cowbridge Food and Drink Festival, commencing 2pm; a date for the diary.
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Debut for New Season’s Dishes | August 10, 2010
Chef Anand George has unveiled his new season’s dishes which take guests a little deeper on our journey into the authentic cuisine of India. The new dishes are now featured on the Mint & Mustard menu.
As always, based on the Mint & Mustard philosophy of re-defining traditional Indian cuisine, we have created eight entirely new dishes, whilst ensuring that your ‘evergreen’ favourites here at the restaurant are maintained for your continued enjoyment.
New additions here in Cardiff include Kerala Sea Bass Polichathu, which is oven cooked for succulence and authenitic Goan Porc Vindalu, celebrating the Portuguese influence on Indian cuisine.
Vegetarian presentations include Urulai Pattani, combining oven roasted potatoes with green peas and Chettinad spices.
Please visit our menu section to view the dishes in more detail.
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Food Festival Season | August 3, 2010
We are delighted to report that Chef Anand George is in growing demand to demonstrate his art at various food festivals and events in Wales.
It has been confrmed that Chef will appear alongside many culinary luminaries at the renowned Abergavenny Food Festival
, taking place over the weekend of September 18-19.
Earlier in the same month, Chef George will also be appearing with leading Welsh-based contemporaries in ‘Chef’s Night Out 2010’ at the Holland House Hotel on 4th September. This star-studded and novel dining event will raise funds for Ty Hafan’s Children’s Hospice.
For an ‘up-close’ insight into our style of cuisine, we recommend our guests experience a Masterclass here at Mint & Mustard, delivered personally by Chef George. These intimate monthly events – which include a three-course meal – are proving highly popular, so booking is recommended to secure places this year.
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Raman on his life and times as Maitre d’Mint & Mustard | May 10, 2010
Raman Bijalwan, Manager at Mint and Mustard
It’s not a bad start when on day-one of taking up your post as restaurant manager, your head chef wins a prestigious award from the House of Commons!
This was the good fortune which favoured Raman Bijalwan Maitre d’ and right hand man of that very Chef – Anand George – who steered Mint & Mustard to victory in the famous Tiffin Cup competition organized to find the best curry house in the UK.
The two teamed up at the new Cardiff eatery in 2008, having first formed an acquaintance in the South East when Anand was honing his art in some of the leading Indian restaurants in London and Raman was Maitre D’ at a hotel in Oxford.
The two kept in touch while Anand searched the UK for the location for his first solo project, and when Mint & Mustard was born, Raman joined soon after.
Like most of the chefs and waiters Mint & Mustard, Raman is five star trained. He started his career at the Hyatt Regency in Delhi and progressed upwards in rank at the Intercontinental in the capital city of India. Then followed a move to the UK working at an Italian restaurant in Hamilton before his journeying to that learned ‘City of Dreaming Spires’.
We caught up with Raman after service in Mint & Mustard’s newly opened sister restaurant – Chai Street – and asked him about his life and times.
Q: What is your view of Cardiff now that you have been here for a couple of years?
A: I didn’t know what to expect, but I quickly found that people here are so friendly and accepted us as newcomers with warmth. I moved here with my wife Rashmi and together and now with our young son, we really love Cardiff, it’s a great place for families.
Q: It has been quite a whirlwind, with many changes since Mint & Mustard opened, how do you find this?
A: I don’t like being idle, I am the kind of person who needs a challenge, otherwise I get bored. Operationally we faced many challenges with the success of the restaurant which necessitated extending it to double in size, then Anand pursued his vision and has now opened our sister Chai Street, with its Indian city food offering, and this now means we run two establishments with a different food styles and this has been an exciting if busy time for us all.
Q: How do you find working with Anand George?
A: Anand is a very driven person and he has so much vision, but he is kind and patient with it, so it makes for a good working relationship. It is great to be part of his vision and to be contributing to that dream and of course he is a great Chef!
Q: What is your attitude to running a successful restaurant?
What I think we have achieved is a great relationship between the waiting and kitchen staff; as a fine dining establishment we are creating many complex dishes and so the pressure is high in order to maintain the best levels of service. When things get busy, if you cannot all work well together then it can all quickly collapse, so I like the way that Anand and myself have created a good working team.
The result is that people enjoy their experience with us; we believe in being friendly and professional, and always explaining the dishes we serve to our customers. It is rewarding to have so many loyal clients who have become our friends. In return I gain so much from them, talking with people inspires and lifts you.
Q: So what are your own favourite dishes at Mint & Mustard?
A: I must say Lamb with coconut fry, and I also very much like our duck dishes. I also really like our pan-fried sea bass dish, the Aleppi sauce is so good, and it is very much a signature dish here.
I am from the North of India, so the cuisine from Kerala was all new to me and I really enjoyed our Kerala Festival last year– it introduced a new menu and people really loved it.
When I worked at the hotel I was vegetarian, Mint & Mustard has changed me!
Q: Tell us about the challenge of Chair Street; don’t you get confused running the two restaurants?
A: Not really because they are so different and although the food is different, much more café style at Chai Street, the standards and quality in food and service are both the same.
Chai Street is now our daytime offering, whereas Mint & Mustard is purely evening opening, so it works well. It has really taken off, just like Mint & Mustard which gained a great following for its re-defined Indian cuisine, so Chai Street is winning followers with its new experiences such as breakfast curries.
Q: What are you most looking forward to next?
A: A warm hot summer of course and our next festival which we are currently planning, I think it will create quite a stir, it will be very different!
New Festival in Planning Stage | February 19, 2010
Such was the huge success our our Kerala Food Festival last year, with the month long celebration of dishes being extended by a month such was the tremendous reaction – that we are currently planning a new food festival.
At the moment Chef Anand George is keeping the concept to himself while he creates a new and special menu for what promises to be an even bigger event this year. Please keep checking back to the website as we will be releasing the concept publicly over the next fortnight.
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Our New Sister Eaterie Opens! | December 17, 2009
Chai Street, the Indian street food sister eaterie of Mint & Mustard is now open literally next door, and serving everything from Indian breakfasts to street snacks and lunches.
Open from 8am – 4pm daily, Chai Street is a cafe-style venue resplendent in colourful Bollywood art conjuring up classic 1970s films.
Anand George, Patron Chef and founder of Mint & Mustard said: “Our idea is to open up a whole new world of Indian day-time food to people, so that they can enjoy authentic breakfasts and street food
created using the high standards of the Mint & Mustard at café prices so they can make it part of their daily routine. We are really excited about Chai Street, which we hope will create a new experience in the
enjoyment of Indian food.”
Please click here to be re-directed to the new Chai Street website where you can view our brand new menu. We look forward to greeting you at Chai Street!
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Mint & Mustard Named one of Top 100 Restaurants in the UK | October 16, 2009
We are proud to announce that Mint & Mustard has been named among the top 100 restaurants in the UK – one of just two Indian restaurants on the list.
Chef George at the Abergavenny Food Festival | September 18, 2009
We’re excited to be attending this year’s Abergavenny Food Festival – come along and see Chef Anand George cook his signature Kerala dishes, serve up delicious food samples and tell more of the Mint & Mustard story!
Chef George will be at the St. Michael’s Centre at 1pm on Saturday, for the festival’s ’Great Welsh Restaurant Tasters’, hosted by broadcaster and food-writer Simon Wright and Mike Morgan, proprietor of the award-winning Llansanffraed Court Hotel.
For more information visit the Abergavenny Food Festival website. We look forward to seeing you there!
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Mint & Mustard Makes the Grade with the Good Food Guide! | September 14, 2009
We’re excited to announce that Mint & Mustard has been included in the 2010 issue of the prestigious Good Food Guide, a bible to food enthusiasts across the UK with listings of the country’s top restaurants!
The Good Food Guide – which prides itself on being an entirely independent, impartial guidebook – features the best restaurants from right across Britain and Northern Ireland, including establishments such as The Fat Duck – Heston Blumenthal’s infamous eaterie. We’re thrilled to be in such fantastic company!
This is another exciting chapter in the Mint & Mustard story; we look forward to serving our innovative Indian dishes to new customers as well as our regular dining friends.
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Our Food Festival is Extended by Popular Demand | August 24, 2009
Delicious Kerala Scallops
Chef George and his team are delighted to announce the extension of the Kerala Food Festival at Mint & Mustard, following a very successful month celebrating the cuisine of Southern India.
Delights straight from the home region of our Chef have been enjoyed by new and returning customers alike and as a result, the special festival menu will now be available until the 4th October.
We will be serving up authentic street snacks, traditional Kerala home-style cooking and delicious deserts throughout the rest of August and September, so if you haven’t come along yet, or would like to sample yet more from our special menu, we would be pleased to welcome you to our tranquil restaurant on Whitchurch Road.
Due to popular demand, booking is strongly advised.
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