ASIAD, Porthcawl: restaurant review

On December 2, 2024 by The Plate Licked Clean

The former Cosy Corner’s rebrand (Asiad is ‘Asian’ in Welsh/Cymraeg), puts their love of the area’s flavours right to the fore.

Inspiration comes from all over Asia- you might find Thai, Singaporean, Korean, Malaysian, Vietnamese, whatever takes their fancy on a frequently-changing menu. More importantly you’ll find no slavery to ‘authenticity’ here, just a love affair with a vast region and its flavours.

It’s a change shaped by recent events. As Cosy Corner, the menu used to paint from a far more traditional European palette, with a much larger brigade of chefs, but Covid took its toll and one by one they either decided to retrain or move to London to cook.

Give up, or adapt and survive? Husband and wife team Sophie and Adam decided to give it one more go, serving the food they like to eat. Sophie, whose experience had only ever been front of house, went into the kitchen; though if you’re going to spend years with Bar 44, you’re going to have certain ideas about standards of hospitality which will stand you in very good stead.

It works. It just works. Rather beautifully, too.

My friend Mike’s praise has brought me here today. It has been unstinting for over a year now and nothing short of evangelical, and if anything it had redoubled sin e the change of direction. He’s too experienced to be taken in by a moodily-lit fit-out, or to fall for online hyperbole (‘HAVE I FOUND THE BEST PIZZA IN WALES?!?!?’ Umm…No. But hey! Thanks for asking). In short, he knows a good restaurant when he finds one. And he’s a regular here.

‘Meat. Fish. Vegetables’. The menu gets straight to the point, with inclusivity in numerous dairy and gluten free choices.

And it’s immediately impressive. This is food with fire in its belly: punchily flavoured, hugely satisfying,

These may be dishes from half a world away, but there’s a sense of local identity stamped all over them. Gower salt marsh lamb, Welsh black beef: much of their fish comes from a one-man band who brings the best of local waters. Chillies, grown on a local allotment. Today’s menu proudly lists ‘Porthcawl caught seabass’- though you might find cod, sole and lobster when in season, straight from the harbour into this kitchen.

Chicken karaage is breast fillet, not the expected thigh, but there are no complaints. It’s what their customer feedback tells them, and who can argue with that?

The classic marinade of soy, sake, mirin, grated ginger and a simple coating of seasoned cornflour, and what turns up is a lovely example of the double frying method, that crust cragged and ruffled. I’ll have a bet: you’ll have had far less impressive examples in Japanese-owned restaurants. That mayonnaise- and yes, the greed in me would have liked more- is flavoured with red and white miso and sesame and liberally spiked with shichimi togarashi (Japanese seven-spice).

The pork. I had imagined bite-sized pieces, perhaps a thick slice of rolled belly crisped in its own fat; but what arrives is extravagant.

It’s a portion which might make you hesitate if it was birthday cake, but in Asiad’s hands such a hulking wedge of flesh seems eminently sensible. The result of some patient preparation- a salt and sugar cure, an overnight low and slow, then covering, pressing and chilling before being portioned for service- it is a lovely thing, the fat rendered expertly to leave just enough running throughout. It is a showstopper.

The skin isn’t wasted. Boiled for a couple of hours, trimmed of excess fat, dehydrated overnight, chilled then eventually deep-fried for a topping straight out of the chicharrón playbook, and proof that you simply can’t have too much of a good thing.

The sauce- described solely as nam jim (literally ‘dipping sauce’) is smoky and hot, the various chilli varieties from a friend’s dad nearby, blow-torched then treated to some onomatopoeic Thai pok pok pestle and mortar action. Would I have liked more? Sure. Is this stuff enviably well done? Of course. Am I greedy? Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

That attention to detail here is writ large in the Singaporean prawns. A staple of Chinese zi char (‘cook-fry’) fast food menus at Singaporean kopitiams, they have become this year’s obsession since finding them on Rob Hill’s Orchard Road menus at The Seadog in Hastings.

Here they use Nestum, a powdered cereal drink brand familiar across Asia, and mix it with chicken salt and sugar before frying in brown butter, chilli and curry leaves. It’s light and crisp, sweetly coating these big brutes which are just begging to be held by the tail and given your full attention. In a word? Wonderful. As are siu mai, a pork and prawn mix so deftly made and so skilfully cooked they put many to shame.

Their most popular dish, I’m told, and an ever-present on the menu: Korean cauliflower. Mike had trailed it as something to order with a couple of cold beers and make you wonder what would you choose ‘If you had to eat one thing for the rest of your life, and this was it.’

It’s hard to imagine this being done any better. That thick glaze, with its base of gochujang, yuzu, mirin and palm sugar, has been reduced to a sticky intensity until it coats and clings the florets’ tempura. It is all instantly compelling, and you find yourself wishing you had brought some kind of container to take home the leftovers and spread it all over your favourite things- cold cuts, a cheese sandwich, your partner- even as you make a note to order another portion.

Porthcawl has a restaurant it can be proud of. Indeed, the capital itself has nothing to quite compare with what happens here. Throw in a ‘saver’ menu at Thursday to Saturday lunchtimes, 3 dishes for £15.95 per person from a list of ten or so and Asiad becomes, if possible, even more of a draw.

I arrived here having almost given up on finding this kind of cooking in the area, let alone done this well. Impressed? Obviously. But more than that: utterly smitten. Asiad had to adapt to survive, like so many others, but on this evidence, it deserves to do far more: it deserves to flourish, and it deserves your full attention.

ASIAD, 33 Esplanade, Porthcawl CF36 3YR

Monday Closed
Tuesday Closed
Wednesday Closed
Thursday 12–11 pm
Friday 12 pm–12 am
Saturday 12 pm–12 am
Sunday 12–6 pm

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