Ponnuswamy Restaurant — Restaurant in Wales

We ordered a takeaway for four people. Two of us have been to South India (Kerala and Tamil Nadu) backpacking and are very familiar with authentic South Indian cuisine, which is my dad's favourite.

Unfortunately, most of what Ponnuswamy is not authentic South Indian. In fact, some of it was only borderline edible. My mother ordered a korma, and even that had far too much chilli in it. I took it to my kitchen, heated it through with two 400ml tins (!!) of coconut milk and it was still hotter than a korma should be and she struggled to eat it. Even my partner, who is normally quite good with chilli, struggled to eat his Sri Lankan chicken curry and thought the curry was ridiculous. The Andhra Fish Curry had a pleasing sour taste but was still too hot overall.

The parathas, utthapam and idli were all nice, if unremarkable, but were very much overshadowed by the curries. If we had dined in, I would have sent them back to the kitchen (first time in my life I've ever done that!!) but as we were at home they all ended up in the bin.

In terms of service, everything front of house was being done by one older gentleman who was constantly incredibly busy and could really do with a second pair of hands. Most of the food appeared at once, but then we had to wait quite some time for the last three items, which meant that by the time we'd driven 10 minutes home, almost everything needed reheating.

It's such a shame that Ponnuswamy hasn't lived up to expectations; sadly we...

We booked this for my sons birthday after reading reviews on the restaurant and food. We booked a table for 8 . Firstly this is NOT a restaurant as you may imagine. It is several long tables and a a couple of short tables set up in a long thin room, it’s more of a cafe set up. When we arrived they had slotted a smaller table on the end of one of the long tables to accommodate 8 people. Unfortunately they had given this table away to someone else and argued that we were too early and our booking was later- even though the booking time was clearly written in the book which we pointed out to them. It was obviously a mistake and the people had only just been seated at what was obviously meant to be our table. The management spoke to them ( they obviously refused to move) and we were told we would have to Waite 5 mins for them to prepare another table. However there was no other free table as all tables were occupied with people eating. 5 mins became 30 mins wait. Worse still the table he had told us we would be having only sat 6. He kept saying that he could slot another table on the end to make it big enough. When we were seated there was no additional table available which left 2 members of our party standing. After wasting nearly an hour we gave up and left. There was no apology. Shambolic service, organisation and customer care . Would never return and would never...

Summary: It’s Great food at great value.

Review: The staff are friendly. The service doesn’t take too long. The food is authentic tasting, delicious and the portions are decent. The value is good (4 of us ate for £45). The seating area could be improved, but it was still comfortable (toilet OK).

Notes: This place doesn’t have a card machine, so cash or transfer only. Parking is hard to find in the evenings here, allow time to search. The food is a little on the spicy side (still nothing compared to normal South Indian), so I’d mention if you want it milder.

Food: Masala cheese dosai is excellent. Perfectly crispy on the outside, with nicely flavoured potatoes and plenty of cheese inside. It came with some decent chutneys.

Lamb biryani was surprisingly good. It came in a regular bowl and didn’t look great, but all the flavour and texture was there 👍🏻

Mixed Uttapam was good, but the texture was just a little off. Still enjoyable and I would order again.

Butter chicken is not as creamy as usual, but still delicious and well cooked overall.

Mango lassi is well made.

Masala tea is decent.

King tawa fry (fried kingfish), is a small portion for 1 (more like a side or starter), a bit spicy, and we’ll cooked and...