Bunch Of Grapes, London Bridge

Please note that this review is from April 24, 2017 and may be out of date...restaurants sometimes get better, get worse, employ a new chef or end up with new management.

You know when you start a new job and you try your hardest to show that you are sensible and you blurt out in a meeting something like “I have a big cock and I love coloured birds”? Well, I may have told one or two of my new work colleagues about this blog.

So I’m afraid from now on there will be no drug references, no bad fake-racist jokes about jus, no swearing, no lesbians, no slagging off Brexit voters, no transsexual references, no sexy women and no breasts. I shall just be talking about carrots in a very serious and predictable manner.

There were 11 carrots.

The first carrot was quite soft, approximately 12mm wide and 46mm long.

The second carrot was soft, approximately 9mm wide and 33mm long.

The third carrot was soft, approximately 8mm wide and32mm long.

The fourth carrot was soft, approximately 7mm wide and 20mm long.

The fifth carrot was soft, approximately 8mm wide and 25mm long.

The sixth carrot was soft, approximately 6mm wide and 28mm long.

The seventh carrot was soft, approximately 10mm wide and 40mm long.

The eigth carrot was quite soft, approximately 11mm wide and 38mm long.

The ninth carrot was soft, approximately 6mm wide and 16mm long.

The tenth carrot was a touch too crunchy, approximately 14mm wide and 46mm long.

The eleventh carrot was farirly soft, approximately 12mm wide and 41mm long.

Sunday was St George’s Day so I woke up, did lots of studying for my new job, went to church, cleaned my already immaculate kitchen, finished a DIY project for my neighbour, worked in a charity shop, gave lots of money to charity causes, helped old ladies cross the road, smoked a crack pipe and then did a bit more studying for my new job.

Oh shit.

As it was St George’s Day, we tried our best, in a kind of Jeremy Corbyn trying ‘best’, to find some Morris dancers. We failed. However we found some kind of weird dancing in Borough Market, which was having some kind of joint English-Catalonian celebration of some bloke who slayed dozens of dragons in the 1970’s that we revere so highly. Well, it’s better than a fucking daffodil.

One assumes that the Catalonian tourist information centre was there as part of Michael Howard’s war with Spain over the fact that Spain have not even vaguely threatened military action over Gibraltar so we must do whatever the Daily Mail say. I might marry a Spanish woman just to piss off the government.

I was exceptionally disappointed about the lack of free chorizo in the market and just wandered round marveling at the exceptionally high prices of everything – £4.00 for a scone. £3.50 for a slice of cake. £2.00 for a gingerbread man. £5.50 for a small lump of cheese – albeit apparently the second oldest cheese recipe in England. But still bloody £5.50. I am so northern sometimes. At least I had a free piss by crawling under the barriers. So classy. Like that time where I got on stage on all fours and pulled my dress up so everyone could see my cute ass.

Image via https://mixmag.net/feature/the-black-madonna-is-the-dj-of-the-year/12

Only joking – as cute as my ass is, that isn’t me. I’m actually the exceptionally tall blonde woman to the left. I am a woman. Honest. Any lesbians out there want to come and shave my chest?

I am sooooooooooo getting sacked on Tuesday. Although maybe I could put it down as discrimination against…hmmm…any lawyers out there? I hope you are sharing this with all of your friends so I can increase my total advertising revenue. I could double it. Though last month I earnt negative commission.

Anyway, my desperation to find something relevant to do took us to Borough Market for a very half-arsed celebration of St George’s Day (apparently the official London celebration was held the day before), and then onto the Bunch Of Grapes.

It wasn’t especially busy though there were some rather loud and screechy young ladies near our table. Quite a few tables were booked for later. The pub itself wasn’t the largest, a tiny bit scruffy (though that tends to be a good thing in London) with a small downstairs and a smaller upstairs where we were seated – annoyingly with the TV on showing those running people (I later tried to join the marathon stragglers but nobody would applaud me for some reason).

Disappointingly there were just two options for a roast – beef or chicken. As I had chicken last time, I could only choose beef. Sometimes a lack of options is a good thing – last weekend I was in a pub in the UK’s city of culture, Hull – a truly great city that you should all experience (still quite easy to get glue to sniff too), and there were so many good options on the menu. I decided to be different to all of my family who ordered the fish sandwich, and had pork belly. It was crap. And their fish sandwiches looked, and apparently, tasted amazing. Last year Brexit happened, this year I had crap pork belly. Next year – circumcision? Oh wait a minute…

Anyway, I digress. Badly. This is becoming one of my longest reductions (I meant introductions but reductions kind of works in an I’ve had 5 beers and 6 minutes of sunshine kind of way) and I haven’t even started talking about the carrots yet. But please, please, please can any pubs and chefs reading this, just be a tiny little bit more imaginative. Think of all those hipsters desperate for pigeon, haddock, kudu or kangaroo on their roast. You’d be the talk of London’s roast dinner scene. It is a scene. Especially when I get my nipples out.

So £15.00 and 15-20 minutes later our dinners arrived. Although one was missing a Yorkshire pudding – and one very sad, lonely, upset, floppy Yorkshire pudding, a bit like my penis when I’m drunk, arrived all by itself shortly later.

It wasn’t the largest ever meal and the vegetables were particularly lacking in quantity.

© Copyright – Roast Dinners In London 2017

Let’s start with the carrots.

The first carrot was cut horizontally, around 70mm long, 18mm wide, quite tough though.

The second carrot was also cut horizontally, probably the other half, around 70mm long, 17mm wide and again quite tough.

The third carrot was smaller, around 40mm long, 12mm wide, also cut horizontally and again on the tough side.

Thankfully there were only three carrots.

Moving on. I probably could do a line for each piece of kale (HELLO HIPSTERS!), there was that small an amount. It was rather soggy too, but a nice touch.

Then we had bobby beans. Now I have no idea what the difference is between bobby beans and green beans (anyone?). As far as I am aware, these were green beans. Maybe marginally wider. The few that were on my plate were perfectly cooked and tasty.

However the parsnips were anything but. There were closer to uncooked than cooked – very tough and a touch cool on the inside (some may say al dente). One of my accomplices even left one. The lowlight of the dinner. They did have an interesting taste though – my simple northern palette would suggest tarragon but I could be wrong.

Two large and one small roast potatoes were supplied. Cooked in goose fat, and you could tell, though they could have done with roasting a bit longer. Only a hint of being crispy on the outside, and the inner core was a touch, hmmm, al dente (yeah it’s a new saying, all the cool kids are saying it, booyakasha innit). The outer core was super fluffy though. They were good roasties, but quite a way away from perfection.  10 minutes away.

The Yorkshire pudding was probably the best that I’ve had in London so far. Well constructed (mine was anyway), fluffy – that could have been the double egg, and just really spot on.

© Copyright – Roast Dinners In London 2017

Then the beef, which I don’t normally order unless I know it is going to be good. It was a decent cut of beef, cooked on the medium side, perhaps verging on slightly well done. Sufficient quantity, a little fat and a tiny bit of gristle, but all good in my book – thinly cut too. I prefer my beef rare, and I wouldn’t write home about it (my mother is not allowed to read this). But like most of the roast, it was good.

Good gravy too. Quite thick, a meat stock based affair. Not enough on the plate and arguably not enough in the extra gravy pots that were forthcoming.

Overall , it was pretty damn good. I’m going to give it a healthy 7.50 out of 10.

Next time I might actually get to east London for a change. Or even south London. Technically this was south of the river, but as there were tourists and nobody looked like they wanted my wallet, I’m still classing it as central London.

I’m actually getting pretty fed up of reviewing places that are pretty good. Where are the pretty terrible roast dinners? Where are the pretty awesome roast dinners? Answers on tweet, or something, pretty please.

Love life. Vote Gravy. See you next week homosapiens.

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Summary:

Bunch Of Grapes, London Bridge

Station: London Bridge

Tube Lines: Bakerloo, Jubilee, National Rail, Northern

Fare Zone: Zone 1

Price: £15.00

Rating: 7.50

Get Booking

https://www.bunchofgrapesborough.co.uk/

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Loved & Loathed

Loved: Fluffy yorkie and proper gravy.

Loathed: Parsnips were uncooked.

2 responses to “Bunch Of Grapes, London Bridge

  1. Hi Lord Gravy, well I’m afraid I don’t think you would rate the Bunch of Grapes above 7 these days based on what I was served today. There was only 1 (one) carrot – approx. 110mm x 25mm – but it was well cooked and very tasty. The generous dollop of butternut squash puree was also tasty as was the cabbage. The beef was well cooked and not too fatty and the Yorkie was large and fluffy, however the (customary three) roast potatoes were very disappointing as they were soft on the inside but soggy on the outside. Doesn’t sound too bad I hear you say, but they had spoiled the dish by pouring a thin, watery, brown liquid all over everything. To finish off, they microwaved a sticky toffee pudding without any sauce which turned it into an indestructible, rubber brick..😱

    1. Oh yikes…this was one of the earliest reviews I did, but they did at least have proper gravy back then!

      Thanks for the update…helps keep things up to date for people reading 🙂

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