Cardiff . Cheap Eats . Uncategorized

Dhamaal Kitchen, Sai La Vie, Grangetown, Cardiff: review

On February 28, 2025 by The Plate Licked Clean

It smells fantastic in here today.

Instantly, a dismal Grangetown Sunday recedes. The skies might be the colour of Welsh slate and the pavements awash with puddles, but in Sai La Vie the air is heady with spices.

Every screen is showing the cricket- India dominating Pakistan in Dubai- to fans fortified since 9am by an early opening menu of masala omelettes and chai.

I’m not here for the cricketing rivalry though. I’m here on a tip from the Where’s That Grub Instagram account. ‘I bet even you haven’t heard of this one’ they say, having happened upon Dhamaal the day before. That is always going to make my ears prick up. ‘Sports bar. Grangetown. Indian kitchen.’

I don’t look at the menu. Many regulars don’t, preferring Chan to ‘cook me something different’. This is my first time here, and he already has some ideas: he asks a few questions about general preferences, then heads back to the kitchen.

Chan describes the Dahmaal menu as ‘African and Indian fusion’. A move from IT Director for major software companies in London to running a kitchen in Cardiff may not be a road well travelled, but here he is: he doesn’t have years of training and kitchen experience behind him, but lockdowns meant time to reconsider a change of priorities.

His grandfather moved from India to Zambia in 1901 to build the first railways. Chan was born there and moved to a boarding school in London in 1973, which is where his interest started.

If you talk to enough chefs you’ll hear the same ‘origin story’, over and over: an interest in cooking nurtured by time with mothers and grandmothers. The essence of ‘home’. Not so here: thousands of miles from his home, Chan’s school chores included kitchen cleaning duties: and finding the food bland to the point of distraction, he took the opportunity to add spice to the food when no one was looking.

Two sauces arrive: a generous bowl of minted strained yoghurt raita, and tomato with a ketchup-like consistency. The latter is ideal with maru bhajia– bronzed potato slices, given a spiced gram and cornflour dredge, sliced thinly enough to cook quickly and crisply.

That sauce is a memory from his Zambian childhood, Chan tells me later, when every Sunday mum would make a batch and serve it to the family with fresh cassava chips. This is her secret recipe with his twist and it’s compelling stuff. He brings a plate of those, too, nutty with burnt garlic and sprinkled with chilli. Gorgeous.

Those bhajia? They come to Sai La Vie via Mombasa, Kenya, and Chan’s vivid memory of an old lady frying batches on the beach and serving them with a spicy chutney. Give them a good seeing-to with that tomato, because this is excellent beer food, busy with green chillies, seeds and all, and bringing a vinegary sharpness to go with that heat. Settle back with your pint. Know you’re exactly where you should be, right now: and if you let out a contented sigh at this point, who could blame you?

It’s easy to find many an underwhelming example, with the meat is overminced to bland texture where tenderness is paramount but character can be lost. Dahmaal’s lamb is minced just once (many others will go for two or three passes through the butcher’s plate) so the texture stays coarse and full of personality. Notably light, fluffy roti come with bite-sized pieces of chicken thigh in a subtly spiced sauce, finished with ground cinnamon. Tear. Scoop. Enjoy.

Smoke plumes from my mixed grill. It’s a generous portion- a theme throughout- with chicken as both bulky wings with striking char and pieces of tikka the size of a fat toddler’s fist, and sweet little lamb chops cut from the neck. The lamb kofte is a beast, girthy and punchily spiced , with just a hint of crust.

A couple of days later, in work, I find myself thinking of Dhamaal, and the heft of that mixed grill in paricular. And because I can resist everything except temptation, there’s only one answer to that.

This time- and again, I don’t look at the menu- Chan brings out dal bhaji, crisp little nuggets, made from a paste of lentils and chickpeas flavoured with chilli, garlic and cumin, and with the raita and that tomato on hand again. Joining them this time is a spiky chutney, the vivid green of coriander and mint, and onion bhaji. Forget some heavy, greasy bolus: these are delicately built, the onion finely shredded to give them a lighter, crisper bite.

Another mixed grill. Over more, much more- more kofte, more wings, more tikka, more chops- I finally get round to checking the formal menu. There’s a separate and lengthy meat-free list: it’s a step towards taking full account of being in a diverse area where many religious and cultural codes and preferenes intersect, and making sure there’s something for everyone.

You can’t help but applaud that, can you? Cooking not just in Grangetown but for Grangetown.

I’m just packing away the leftovers- occasionally, I know my limits. Then: ‘I’ve just done a pea and potato curry for a member of staff, so I’ll bring some of that out.’ (It doesn’t appear on my bill). Speckled with mustard seeds, and served with delicate little fried puri- ‘It’s the sort of thing we eat at home on Sundays’ – it’s a welcome bowl of sheer comfort of warming wholesomeness, after a long day.

With some honourable exceptions, many of Cardiff’s pubs can be drab, unimaginative places to eat. Sai La Vie turns that idea on its head. You could look at the menu, or course. But my advice? Just ask Chan to cook, order a pint and wait for good things to happen, although as a one man band, Chan warns it can be a case of ‘When it’s gone, it’s gone’,

You could easily miss what Chan does here. For month I have walked past Sai La Vie on my way to Lahore or Khyber or The Grange or Hatsu Udon or Haraf, blind to its presence. Don’t make the same mistake I did. You might even call it (wait for it…) a hidden gem.

Thankfully the area has been much quicker on the uptake and has taken to Dhamaal, with a core of regulars including many from the temple nearby, a group from the BBC, and to a couple who drive from Abergavenny every week to eat here. Now it’s your turn.

‘Dhamaal‘. In Hindi, it means ‘stirring things up for fun.’ Job done, I’d say.

Dhamaal Kitchen, Sai La Vie
109 Clare Rd, Cardiff CF11 6QR

Tuesday to Sunday, from 12