April's Cafe 2 in Swansea

Was okay, lovely service but the food was bland. Used to visit all the time whilst a student at university but have found ghe foid is losing flavour.

This unassuming little place is the twin of the original April's Cafe on Mansel Street. There is a full menu on line with dishes typically representative of a neighbourhood diner in Hong Kong. http://www.take-a-way.co.uk/menu/2182/aprila-cafe-swansea/ If you want to try something a little different, ask the friendly middle aged woman cooking in the kitchen. Often they offer you what is freshly made, but off the menu. The more adventurous may consider trying cheaper cuts like beef brisket and pork trotter, you are sure to be awarded with an authentic experience hard to find elsewhere in Swansea. I would avoid the usual suspects on the menu of many other joints that pass for Chinese food. The 5 spice and Schezuan peppercorn roast pork belly with crispy crackling was a pleasant find, so were the pot stickers. This will never be on the Michelin's guide, but they do very well to serve up home cooked budget meals for the hungry students. Cash only I think but they deliver after 4pm.

I stumbled upon this little cafe in Brynymor Road the other day and went in for a quick bite on their special offer menu, which was a mere £4.80 for starters and a main course. The main reason I went in was because it was mainly Chinese people eating there, the menu was in Mandarin script and English, and there were lots of interesting and authentic sounding dishes on offer. Inside, it is simply furnished with formica tables and has a takeaway service too. Service was efficient as you'd expect. You order at the counter and the starters arrived quickly. My husband had prawn toasts, which were I think the nicest I have ever tried, with a large juicy prawn on each one (well, I let him eat most of them). I had 3 war tip, which I had never tried before, but they were delicious, being dumplings with a crispy golden coating - they reminded me of hot spicy pork pies. Very yummy. The choice of main courses on the set menu was small, with chow mein and curry and sweet and sour chicken - that sort of thing. OH had chicken curry and rice, while I had chicken fried rice, mainly so I could share the fried rice with OH, who prefers that to boiled (or we'd have had to pay more for fried and we decided to stick within the offer). After the tasty first courses, I was rather disappointed with the mains. My fried rice contained some chicken, and very small amounts of rice and peas and no other veggies so was rather boring, and the rice was to my taste overcooked and clumpy. OH was happy with the taste of his chicken curry (standard fare) but the boiled rice was again overcooked and in lumps and way too much for the amount of sauce so it soaked it all up and made the meal dry. We both left tons of rice. OH said he would never come in again, but I think that with a more careful choice of main, I would enjoy it - or just buy a big range of starters and avoid the rice! I appreciate that some people may prefer their rice cooked softer, but as it wasn't Thai sticky rice, I felt it really was overdone. But those war tip were just delishhhhh.