Restaurant Review: Mint and Mustard

*This is really more of a 'look what I ate on Saturday night' post rather than a detailed review, but that title wasn't as catchy and didn't alliterate.*

We went to Penarth's Mint and Mustard restaurant last Saturday evening in advance of me starting my new job on Monday. As I've said before, I will happily use any excuse to go out for a nice meal.

We'd been to Mint and Mustard a couple of times in 2015 but hadn't been back since, so I was excited about giving it another go. It's quite fancy for a curry house which means it's a lovely place to go for a special occasion, so I decided to get dressed up for the event.

We went for poppadums, starters and mains on this occasion. The poppadums are all broken up in a basket when they're served, and they come with three different chutneys. My only complaint is that the little dishes are too small which means the contents run out too quickly! I'm not a fan of lime pickle and always avoid it, but the other two choices were amazing.

I ordered the Onion Palak Pakora for my starter as I had this dish back in 2015 and hadn't forgotten how much I loved it. Mint and Mustard's pakora is basically a fritter of shredded spinach, onion and water chestnuts. They taste just like onion bhajis (in my opinion) which is probably why I love them so much, and the accompanying sauce is delicious too. A little spicy, but just the right level of spice to complement the pakora. 

After sampling the delicious chutneys and my starter, I was extremely excited about the arrival of my main course. I wanted to try something a bit different on this visit so I ordered the Five Spiced Paneer Masala. As I've become a little obsessed with paneer after my recent visit to Vegetarian Food Studio and prefer vegetarian curries to meaty ones, it seemed like the perfect choice. 

This was SO GOOD. Although it was a little more spicy than the masala sauce I've had in other restaurants, I didn't mind as it was beautifully tasty and chock full of flavour. It was also a realistic portion size which meant I managed to eat nearly all of it rather than having to leave half a bowl of curry behind. I ordered a side of pilau rice to go with it, and we also shared a garlic naan. 

Our meal came to £59 in total. This included poppadums and chutneys, two starters, two mains, two sides of rice, a naan bread, a large diet Coke and a medium glass of wine. This is obviously much more than we'd usually pay for a curry! However, Mint and Mustard is quite an upmarket place and we were happy to pay more as it was a special occasion. 

Have you ever been to Mint and Mustard? Let me know what you thought!