It's been a while since I wrote a restaurant review as we were too busy in the few months before the wedding to visit any new restaurants. We therefore made it our mission to visit a few new restaurants once we got back from honeymoon. After having a quick chat about what kind of food we fancied in our first new restaurant, our first choice was... The Smoke Haus.
I love a good burger and I was very excited about having a big American meal as I'd banned myself from eating such calorific extravagance before the wedding. I love the freedom of not needing to fit into a wedding dress any more! However, I should probably bear in mind that I still have actual clothes to fit in to before I go too overboard...
We turned up at The Smoke Haus at around 3:30pm and were seated straight away. It's a no-frills restaurant with very stark decor, but it still manages to look impressive and inviting. And it's MASSIVE. It actually looks like a posh warehouse inside, but it really works!
Although I was adamant from the beginning that I wanted a big fat burger, I still drooled over the other sections of the menu for ten minutes. Meat, cheese and carbs galore! I eventually decided on a Baby Bertha as it was the smallest burger on the menu and I didn't want to overstretch myself too much. Yes, I can show some restraint sometimes when it comes to food, believe it or not.
However, I did have a sneaky suspicion that it might be messy... the kitchen roll on the table was my first clue. How many times have you been in a restaurant and worn a hole in your serviette because your food is inexplicably messy and they've only given you one measly napkin? The kitchen roll is a fantastic idea!
Our food didn't arrive for half an hour or so, but in fairness the restaurant was pretty busy. In the meantime, we listened to some excellent tunes such as Ash, Foo Fighters and Bon Jovi. The Smoke Haus has an iPhone app where you can choose the music on the jukebox yourself and broadcast it to the entire restaurant! I absolutely love this interactive touch and think it's something more restaurants should adopt. Unfortunately, neither of us has an iPhone so we happily listened to other people's music choices which were very satisfactory.
When my burger arrived, I immediately knew why the kitchen roll was an absolute necessity...
More civilized people might have cut up their burger with a knife and fork from the very beginning, but I'm not really one of those people. My eagerness to eat my burger 'properly' resulted in needing to use approximately 11 pieces of kitchen roll. Although I wasn't a big fan of the bacon in my burger, everything else was amazing. I was unsure about the cheesy sauce when I ordered this burger but it was quite mild yet tasty which suits me perfectly. The burger itself wasn't the best I've ever had, but it's certainly in my top twenty (I've eaten a lot of burgers in my time). Even the coleslaw on the side was delicious, and the chips were lovely and moreish as I would expect from any American-themed restaurant.
We weren't content with just one visit to The Smoke Haus within a month, so we visited again a few weeks ago. This time, I decided to go for the chilli dog. Ta-dah!
Another massive meal... the chilli was very spicy so I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as I enjoyed my burger, but it was still excellent and a LOT of food.
Would I recommend The Smoke Haus to others? Most definitely, especially if you love big fat burgers as much as I do. It's very reasonable considering the sheer amount of food you get and I really love the relaxed atmosphere. The staff members are all chatty and efficient, and it's a very family friendly restaurant. They also have a bar with lots of choice and an extensive dessert selection, although I've never drunk alcohol or eaten dessert there. I'm always too full... can you blame me after seeing these photos?
The restaurants stationed in this particular Cardiff city centre location always seem to fail and covertly go into administration... we're keeping our fingers crossed that this won't happen to The Smoke Haus!
Have you been to The Smoke Haus yet? How many pieces of kitchen roll did you get through?
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