Roast Dinners in London

It’s the hope that kills you. And this week I went to Gengelly’s at the Early Of Derby in Nunhead.

Hope. I hoped Farage was announcing that he was going to quit.

Alas, he just needs yet more fucking attention. And probably some more donations for his, erm, security.

Even more dangerously, England are fluking their way to winning the, sorry, I mean fluking their way to the semi-finals and I definitely will not mention the Falklands.

And then we had hopes for a glorious summer.

But then it’s too hot to sleep.

Oh and don’t get me started on my roast dinner hopes. You know all about them. Dashed and dashed again, but could Gengelly’s be different?

We will re-join the EU one day. Right?

Bellingravy

Gengelly’s is the brain child of two chefs called George Genn and Laurence Pengelly.

If I recall correctly, there was a bit of a buzz when they first launched at the Earl Of Derby a few years ago, and they’ve been on my to-do list pretty much since then.

Yet it was pretty quiet when I went. Maybe everyone was hanging from the football the night before. Maybe the buzz has worn off. Maybe it was too damn hot for a roast dinner for part-timers.

No such problems for me – roast, beer, gravy and sunshine.

What more could I want?

How about…

A ticket for A Great Night Out starring the star of the Makerfield by-election, Count Cunt Rob Kenyon. Just £42.00. All proceeds go towards fascism. Also what the fuck is a knife and fork buffet?

Yorkshire Pickford

Outside at the Earl Of Derby is a rather gorgeous-looking pub, with a decent sized beer garden at the front, on a very quiet local street – perhaps the most peaceful I’ve felt London in years.

Inside had this red tint to the light, or possibly that was just my hungover eyes (not too hungover for a roast dinner). I sat outside (not too hot for a roast dinner) so didn’t take too much notice of what inside looked like, but it was respectable enough.

Respectable enough was the beer selection – there was a decent session IPA on called Rafiki though mostly the beer selection was pretty uninteresting.

More interesting was the roast dinner menu. Slow roasted chicken at £25.00, lamb belly at £26.00 and wild mushroom & leek wellington at £22.50.

I went for the lamb because…dunno. Gosh it would be amazing if Count Binface won the by-election against Nigel Farage.

Oh, it’s that hope thing again.

Saka Potatoes (this ones actually good, right?)

So all the photographs are worse than normal because I decided it was a great idea to dehydrate myself further and sit outside in the hot sunshine to eat a roast dinner on a hangover after a 40 minute walk.

And I couldn’t really see what I was taking.

And even then I didn’t manage to take a photograph of the carrots. If you squint a bit, you can see them in the middle between the cabbage and lamb.

I think.

Maybe try this photograph of everything shaded but with the carrot sticking out at the bottom:

Oh well, you probably know what a carrot looks like by now. The carrots had a treacle and thyme flavour – and both came through quite impressively. The carrots had definitely been roasted a bit earlier, but hey.

There was more in the way of cabbage, silky yet with a crunch, kind of perfectly cooked and notably buttery too. Top notch.

Bellinglamb

The roast potatoes…

The roast potatoes were like winning the World Cup. They were orgasmic. Easily the best roast potatoes of the year, possibly the best in London but don’t ask me to compare to 380 other roast dinners.

Perfectly crispy on the outside, oh so fluffy on the inside. They were simply amazing. Book your table now.

But then the Yorkshire pudding was amazingly crap. The menu (and Instagrim photos) show a herb-encrusted yorkie, but no herbs were harmed in the making of this Yorkshire pudding. Nothing was harmed. It was just left under a heat lamp a very long time until it became a hardened quaver.

Thankfully the lamb was mostly very good – lamb belly which is an unusual cut to use. I’m not sure I’ve ever had it on a roast dinner before.

However, I’m a fan of lamb belly – it is a fattier and chewier cut so more care is needed when cooking (in my not very humble opinion), but Gengelly’s did this marvellously in terms of texture, fully flavoured with varying herbs, though in places it was too salty.

Finally, the gravy was super thick. Ahhhh my dreams, I’m winning the World Cup again. Whilst it tasted quite meaty, there also seemed to be some granules going on, or something to give it a slight yacky saltiness, but nothing too detracting. Did I mention how gloriously thick it was? Even thicker than anyone who believes Farage is fighting the establishment.

Gengelly’s

Hot sunshine, decent beer, England thrashing Norway 2-1 in extra time, Farage proving to even more of the public that he’s a cockwomble, the best roast potatoes of the year, and thick gravy.

What a week it has been.

So highlights of the roast by a long way were the amazing roast potatoes – just damn perfect. Lamb was good, cabbage was buttery, gravy was thick.

The only downside was the quaver of a Yorkshire pudding – dried out duffer.

My score therefore is an 8.41 out of 10. Banging roast. Better than my photographs (though most weeks that applies).

This time next week I’ll be complaining about Argentina cheating, FIFA corruption, rain, shit beer and roast potatoes cooked a week ago. Probably. I don’t have a roast dinner plan yet, I just know that this glorious run cannot go on. Can it?

We can hope. We can still hope.