The best Asian restaurant in Wales is - perhaps surprisingly - tacked on to a hotel and tucked away in the "wilds of Saundersfoot". In fact, anyone driving along the A478 between Saundersfoot and Tenby would barely register the small black sign with simple yellow letters on it spelling out Lokky's.
And yet inside the unassuming Woodridge Inn Hotel is Lokky's pan-Asian restaurant which won the top gong for Wales at the prestigious annual Golden Chopsticks Awards just a week ago. I've driven past hundreds of times and yet never clocked it. So I thought I'd book a table for four and see what all the fuss was about.
More like this: Read our review of Gem42, winner of Restaurant of the Year in Wales at the AA Hospitality Awards 2022, here.
First up, I'll admit I'm no expert when it comes to Asian food. I'd have to take Lokky's word for it when their website said: "The place where irresistible flavours and aromatic ingredients of Thai, Filipino, Japanese and Korean cuisine are perfectly partnered with heavenly cocktails, chilled beers and friendly service."
But I was surprised to see chips, cheese and Biscoff brownie on the menu - they didn't sound particularly Asian to me at all. But I'm charging ahead - first off I thought I'd have a quick look at what the Tripadvisor reviews said before I set off. I was impressed: "This type of food, I would expect to find in cities like Cardiff and Bristol, not in the wilds of Saundersfoot."
It was with high expectations then that I took my seat at the long and narrow dining room at Lokky's after being shown to our table by a very attentive and gently-spoken waiter. I'll add a disclaimer here at this point too: I was here to sample the food not the drinks.
So straight to the menu - it all sounded pretty familiar bar the odd Asian ingredient, flavouring or spice I'd not come across before. I was momentarily distracted when the waiter walked past our table with a plate of what very much looked like steak and chips, albeit a rather delicious-looking, delicately rare piece of steak. That must be the Pinoy seasoned sirloin steak with onion rings, tomato, miso mushrooms and chips, I deduced.
Anyway, back to the starters. We opted for Lokky's honey glazed marmalade crispy chicken, the Vietnamese spring rolls and the special oxtail Gyoza.
The presentation of each dish definitely created a wow factor from the off and set the bar high for the rest of the meal. But as each course came out, the presentation just got better and better. In terms of visual appeal, I don't think I've ever had a meal with such beautifully-presented food (bar that one time I ate at the Michelin-starred SY23 in Aberystwyth ).
The crispy chicken was indeed crispy - the deep orange outer gave way to lovely soft strips of chicken inside. It was a hefty portion and that and a side of chips would've done me. The marmalade glaze was particularly sweet so the leafy salad helped cut through that. It was deliciously moreish, especially with the slightly nutty flavour from a sprinkling of sesame seeds.
The star of the show was probably the oxtail gyoza - three large parcels of slow-cooked beef in a glossy meaty liquor, deeply flavoured with beef and chilli heat. It wasn't initially spicy but the heat from the chilli-spiced broth built with each mouthful to induce that tingly feeling in the lips by the end of the bowl.
The most disappointing plate of the whole meal was undoubtedly the spring rolls - the vegetable to noodle ratio in the filling was a bit too much towards the noodle end and it ended up being two rather dense, slippery tubes that came fridge cold rather than warm. Saying that, the peanut and soy dipping sauces were quite delightful so perhaps there should have been more liberal dipping on our part.
For the mains, our Katsu beef short ribs with udon noodles, Korean BBQ pulled pork 'bao bao' buns, chicken ginataan and pan-fried fillet of salmon with Japanese miso glaze were all delivered with aplomb after a brief wait from the starters being cleared. Service was friendly, unobtrusive and efficient throughout our meal and plates were delivered to the table by gloved hands which always strikes me as unusual.
The generously-filled bao bao buns were ultimately delicious even if the appearance of cheese and onion rings did feel decidedly un-Asian. In terms of visual impact and getting the mouth-watering, they won hands down however. It's pretty impossible to get pulled pork and cheese in a bun wrong and these buns were exceptionally pillowy soft. Hats off to anyone who can polish off the whole thing including the mini frying basket of chips along with the fat and crispy onion rings.
The winning dish was a toss-up between the chicken or the katsu beef. The chicken ginataan was tremendous - sometimes on the bland side, this one was full of aromatic coconut and chilli heat. The addition of fresh chilli meant you could swill them in the coconut milk curry too instantly spice things up. The chicken was juicy and soft while the vegetables maintained a fresh crunch to give the dish contrast.
Both the katsu beef - slow cooked so it literally fell off the bone - and the salmon were cooked to perfection. The beef arrived standing tall atop a tangle of noodles with crunchy mangetout and a couple of slices of crisp apple. It was as tasty as it was pretty.
Salmon and miso is hardly an untested combination but the plump fillet of fish was rich and came away in big soft flakes. Like all of our main courses, the meat itself was the star of the show. The sticky rice is worth mentioning too - cooked to perfection so it still had a bit of bite.
Portion sizes were on the generous side and with most options set between £15 and £20 they seemed very reasonable indeed. The Asian influence set these dishes apart and I'd go so far as to say there's nowhere in Pembrokeshire which is serving up food like this. The reviews suggest Lokky's Sunday lunch is served up in a similar vein and diners have raved about that too.
Although we'd eaten well, the dessert menu proved too tempting and so we ordered that Biscoff brownie, a matcha pandan panna cotta and a chocolate and sago mousse.
A quick Google of pandan informed us it was a uniquely favoured leaf used to flavour many Thai dishes. It lent a beautifully fragrant flavour to the pannacotta which thankfully had only the merest hint of matcha. The pannacotta dish was a riot of colour and a feast for the eyes as much as the stomach. The shard of sesame brittle was a nice touch.
The chocolate mousse was set slightly too much on the robust side - the texture suggested perhaps a tad too much gelatine and it had a slight rubbery edge to it. It had a decent chocolate flavour though and came with a scoop of butterscotch ice cream and a piece of lilac-coloured rice cake which certainly added to the look of the dish as well as a contrasting texture.
The Biscoff brownie was unashamedly un-Asian - a warm dense square of Biscoffy cake drizzled liberally with a butterscotch sauce and a scoop of vanilla ice cream to offset the cloying sweetness. Definitely one for the popular vote.
By the time we'd scraped every plate clean we were the only ones left in the restaurant, bar a couple in the lounge section which we realised was dog friendly when we spotted a pair of canine eyes gazing at us from under the table. Even at this late stage of the evening, the staff were smiling and friendly giving a very relaxed vibe to Lokky's. The whole evening had been entirely unpretentious and it was definitely a case of the food doing all the talking.
Although it's only been open since May 2021, owners Lok and Jen have a clear vision of what they want to achieve with Lokky's. Lok comes with a strong background - he ran the well-known and highly regarded Dragon Palace restaurant in Saundersfoot while Jen was born in the Philippines. Their passion for Asian cuisine oozes out of their food.
Lokky’s is a place "where you can either forget about the day you had or celebrate the successes of life", their website says. Undoubtedly they've succeeded at creating Wales' best Asian restaurant, even if it does come with a side of cheese.
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