Roast Dinners in London

It was time for a trip to Kensington to see if Maggie Jones’s could be deserving of the second most important Maggie in London ever.

Ahhhh, wrong decade. Back in the 1980’s, young people in London might have voted for her. Maggie T that is.

Nowadays, the Labour Party is thought of as about as right-wing as you can get, or at least can hear about in an east London pub conversation, “oh didn’t you hear what that dreadful far-right, evil Shabana Mahmood is doing?”, “nope, Rupert who? Tommy what? Didn’t Nigel die in a plane crash?”.

But no worries, we have a new saviour in Our Andy. He’s going to make roast dinners great again, didn’t you know?

Though woe betide anyone putting a Yorkshire pudding with their Christmas dinner. BANNED and your benefits sanctioned for an hour if you do.

There is no such thing as leftover gravy. There are only men and women who have not yet reheated it properly.

I still cannot believe that free theme park tickets didn’t save Kier Starmer’s government.

Us British people love a freebie. Every time I see a yellow sticker on a packet of sausage rolls is like the best moment of the week. Whoa, saved 60p. Then I go about put £500.00 on a leveraged commodity fund without caring a jot.

Granted Andy Burnham is going to cancel homelessness, solve the social care issue without calling it a dementia tax, and have the biggest council house programme since Thatcher, sorry I mean MacMillan and fix the roast potato crisis. Without taxing us more or borrowing more.

Magic. It’s the power of Manchesterism. At least the vibes might be alright. Until he doesn’t actually fix roast potatoes.

And his favourite biscuit is chips and gravy. Yeah, I’ll vote for that. We’ve got more tax coming, haven’t we?

Go in the mirror for a snog mate.

To those who say the gravy boat is empty, I say: refill it yourselves.

So.

Maggie Jones’s had a serious fire and were closed for a couple of years. How dare they?

They had been on my to-do list for some time until the fire, then it got to the point where it looked like they’d never re-open, so I took it off.

Until recently when someone pointed out to me that I had to review it. Well, I did have to, especially now.

It’s a gorgeous old school restaurant, split into two floors, focused on British classics. Yes, we have classic food in this country. Like prawn cocktail, or steak and kidney pie. I actually want to come back for their rabbit and mustard pie. Yes, I want to come back. It must be Our Andy.

Plus they had the same plates that my parents had. And the same plates that my accomplice’s parents had. And no, I wasn’t dining with my sister this week.

And some hoes. Not those kind, the digging coal kind.

You turn if you want to. The joint’s not for turning until the thermometer says so.

I was suitably charmed by the restaurant which felt like it hadn’t changed since 1964 when it opened (though big electrical fire closed for two years issue means it probably has) and the waiter was top notch value too – suggesting they had a gravy tap though ignored me when I requested evidence. Probably just enthused by our new Prime Minister and giving it his all.

Oooh yeah the prices but we were in Kensington. So on the menu was sirloin of beef at £35.00, rump of lamb at £34.00, pork belly at £30.00, corn-fed chicken at £29.00, a nut roast at £27.00 and…what…salmon?

I was torn between chicken and lamb, though I went for lamb in the end – the waiter sold it to us so well that I considered ordering two.

I practically received two:

Beer choice was again so dull that I went for a Jeremy Clarkson cider…sigh. I might have ordered a glass of wine, but the roast dinners arrived quicker than a drunken Popeye’s order ever has, and all they do is put 5 chicken tenders in a box and pour gravy into a little carton thing, and I still had most of my pint so wine was eschewed.

Oh well, it’s a British thing – give them food quick and lots of it.

Quality though?

Well, the carrots were pretty ordinary, roasted earlier (notably so), soft with the odd fleck of pepper but nothing much.

Cabbage was soft and buttery. I do actually quite like Popeye’s cajun gravy, though bear in mind that I’ve never had it sober.

We have become a grandmother — to three roast potatoes, which I shall not be sharing with the Cabinet

The roast potatoes were on the right track but needed either longer being par-boiled, or to be smaller – for they were a bit tough in the middle. Not overtly so, but enough to take them away from perfection. The outsides were really nicely crispy though, and overall far better than average.

The Yorkshire pudding almost certainly was from a packet (Waitrose, one assumes, it being in Kensington) as they were perfectly formed and a bit cardboard-ish, but also had a nice crunch to the sides. I could be wrong but they felt recognisable. Hi mum!

We actually had sensational lamb, and loads of it – 5 really hearty slices. Perfectly cooked, quite rare, juicy fat, really tender – and the salty, herby crisp to the outside gave it a dreamy texture.

Holy crap, this was excellent.

Finally, the gravy was good – especially in terms of a nice, smooth and quite thick consistency, though it was oddly fruity. A chef’s choice of flavouring isn’t something to be marked down by, but I’ll always prefer a meaty gravy.

Maggie Jones’s

By the way, Maggie Jones’s isn’t named after that Margaret, but the other that Margaret. Apparently she used to book here in said pseudonym.

It was broadly a good roast dinner with some caveats – namely the vegetables a bit average and the Yorkshire pudding almost certainly being from a freezer.

But damn that lamb was sensational, and the roast potatoes were almost really good – just needing a bit more par-boiling or being a bit smaller.

My accomplice, who also had the lamb, scored his an 8.32, and my score is an 8.08 out of 10.

If you are in the market for British food, then do consider Maggie Jones’s. I hope to go back at some point on a weeknight, though I often say that and do I? Hmmm.

Next week is a re-review, but under very new management – gone from a dive of a pub with a shit roast dinner, to a much nicer pub with…well, we’ll find out. But I suspect it’ll be very good.