Where's Bill?

Having heard about this little place from numerous friends lately, I thought it was hightime I went and tried it myself. We needed to line our stomachs pre-whisky tasting with some serious carbs and this seemed like the perfect place to do so.

On the edge of both Mill Lane in the Wyndham arcade in Cardiff’s city centre, lies Bill's. With its little café style exterior, it was in a prime position for people watching on a sunny spring day. We ventured in after perusing the menu, to be met with a small queue waiting to be sat. We were all seated extremely quickly, the interior a lot more spacious than it looks, and plenty of tables free, even on a Saturday lunchtime.

I loved the decoration in Bills. I am a huge sucker for cute and rustic, and this had it in abundance. Big hessian curtains, huge pink lemonade bottles everywhere, buckets for cutlery and blackboards with inspirational quotes hanging from the rafters. I was sold. It made me think that if Ikea was Italian, it would look like this. Practical but pretty.

I got a little worried when seated however…as big as it seems, tables for two all seem to be a little cramped and stuck in between larger tables without much thought. Once sat down, with drinks upon the table, I wasn’t entirely sure they’d be able to fit on all the food that I was fancying!

Drinks ordered and a jug of water on the table, we settled down to look at the menu. I’d already decided on what I wanted before I’d even got there, having been told on good authority that the scotch egg is to die for. Not any scotch egg, but a chorizo scotch egg. Served runny in the middle, this sounded perfect. As it was served as a starter, I ordered this as a main alongside some sweet potato fries and a rocket and pecorino salad.

The other half decided upon the sugar and spice chicken, served with sweet potato chips again and a curried coleslaw. I was pretty glad he chose this as I was after a little bit of that coleslaw too…shhh!

We dawdled over our drinks (I was particularly impressed with the ginger beer with a slice of ginger in with the ice….little things!) whilst waiting for our meals and gawping out the window.

When our meals arrived, I was both impressed and daunted by the size of my egg. Looking pretty gorgeous, and even better when I cut it open, to find the yolk still oozy...

It was outstanding, and the sweet potato fries to go with it were perfectly crisp on the outside and sweet and fluffy inside. In hindsight, the rocket salad was a bad idea. I was worried about the lack of vegetable on my plate, but this ended up in me paying £2.95 for half a bag of rocket, with a shaving of pecorino and way too much dressing. This was the only tiny disappointment of my dish, as it just made the whole meal a little too greasy, when I was actually after something to lighten it up.

I have it on good authority that the chicken was pretty tasty, grilled nicely and a decent portion. Having had a good mouthful (or two, just to check) of the curried coleslaw, I’ve got to say I was a bit disappointed.  It was just a little bit more bland than what I had in mind.

However, these tiny things did not detract from our experience at all. We had a lovely lunchtime meal which set us up for the day, in lovely surroundings. The prices are a little high for what’s essentially marketed as a café, but for a nice lunch every now and then it hit the spot.

I’ll definitely be back anyway, especially as we couldn’t fit dessert in.  I know that a pink lemonade ice cream float is going to go down just perfect in the summer sunshine.