Time and Beef, Canton, Cardiff

Yawn. Not another burger bar, goes the conventional wisdom, although no-one seems to mither on when there are twelve humdrum Indian restaurants and fourteen identikit Chinese takeaways in the same postcode, let alone the proliferation of pizzas. A new burger place seems to rouse the ire, somehow. A burger joint with a new angle is like a bad meal from Hang Fire: possible in theory, but unlikely to happen. Time and Beef is sat squarely in what is fast becoming a mini food quarter at the hospital end of Canton, alongside Purple Poppadom, Chez Francis, Kimchi, Chai St and others.

However, it would be a shame to not give Time & Beef credit for what it does well. Even before you take your first bite, it’s hard not be impressed by the place. It ticks all your boxes: local meat from a local butcher? Tick. Bread by Alex Gooch, baker to the great and the good? Naturally. Fish by Fish At 85? Present and correct. Locally-brewed beer on tap from Tiny Rebel? Check. It’s a manifesto which hits every hot ‘foodie’ (oh, the vigorous loathing I have for that word..!) button you’ve got.

You tick a BAO-style order form in five sections for your desired bread, burger, cheese, topping and sauce. They claim this results in more than 400,000 possible combinations-though whether you’d actually want pulled pork and fried egg on fish (or on a veggie burger, for that matter) is another matter entirely- so boredom is unlikely to set in soon. It’s got a pleasingly upcycled, local indie vibe which puts you at ease: there are stools from a Bridgend school, pews from a Canton church and light shades from an Army barracks.

More importantly, their ‘Five Commandments’ takes pride of place near the door. They’re core principles which fire a shot across the bow of several competitors, and a couple bear repeating here, specifically a promise to never use frozen meat and to always cook to order.

It’s a while since I’ve seen fried squid or hummus on the menu of a mere ‘burger bar’, but here they are. The former was spot on, too: light, crisp, palpably fresh. It’s one of those unfailing barometers of whether a kitchen knows its basics- Elgano recently passed the test with frying colours, and so did T&B.

A selection of other starters- crumbed and deep-fried oozy, gooey, sexy mac and cheese bites, for example- were hugely moreish; the southern fried chicken strips were a lot lighter than you might expect, while sacrificing nothing of the flavour. It all tastes fresher than you might be used to in this kind of place, somehow- even the beer, an impressive pint of Cwtch.

My fries were generously coated with salty, garlicky butter (why is no-one else doing this?) and were an instant hit. How could they not be?

The main event? For my Fat Man (no, really: you name your own burger here, and ‘El Gordo’ seemed fitting) I kept it classic: a potato bun, a slab of Stilton and a thick rasher of bacon. Despite the strong hit of blue cheese, the texture and quality of the hand-shaped patty shone through. The bread’s great too, as you’d expect. All in all, this is a pretty damn fine effort. It’s worth the extra few minutes’ wait.

Clearly, this is not ‘just another’ burger bar, and has the potential to develop: breakfast has been added since I visited, and they tweeted a picture of a lamb kofte ‘light bite’ last week, homemade raita and all.

There’s an awful lot to like about Time and Beef, from ethos to food to drink. It’s not perfect- I have some qualms over them charging £2 for meat topping, but that’s pretty much it. It’s food to put a smile on your face, though. And that’s pretty much what counts. The Canton renaissance continues apace.

Huge thanks to Jordan Harris for taking some of these pictures- he’s at @jordsharris.

Time and Beef

169 Cowbridge Road East

Cardiff

029 21 158539

http://www.timeandbeef.co.uk/

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