Do I have a teleport? Do I have a time machine? How on earth do I have a roast dinner review of McMullen’s Irish Pub in Las Vegas? Which is not part of London, FYI.
Oh for fuck’s sake, since when did anybody take what I write seriously? This blog is bad enough let alone my piffle on Twitter. And now everything is closed. Why wasn’t I ignored like normal? Sigh.
I am loathe to let anything stop me from going for a Sunday roast, not storms, not hangovers, not even the Metropolitan line. Alas, we must do what our Virus Taliban overlord, Sir Boris Johnson (he will be knighted one day) asks of us.
Even if the pub that we were booked at had remained open, I was concerned that I might lose followers for doing something now socially unacceptable.
It seems that I should clarify that I neither have a time machine or teleport, despite many years of speaking shit about them, though that didn’t stop Nigel Farage getting an end to freedom of movement.
I don’t even have a fucking air conditioning unit. Think ahead – you will need one soon with all this working from home!
This was sent to me by my budding American understudy – he does quite often write little love letters on Twitter to The Orange Man but hopefully you can forgive him for that. I mean, I nearly voted Tory in December and you still love me. Right?
Anyway, I was keeping this for a special occasion…probably when I went on holiday except I probably now won’t be going on holiday this year and neither will you, so we can just all be miserable here together. Let’s hope for a wet summer, shall we? Anyone with a large garden right now – fuck you and your outdoor space.
Over to you…Viscount of Roasties? Occasional annotations from myself in square parentheses…I mean brackets.
Not a Roast In London…Clearly
So I’m not Lord Gravy. This isn’t a roast in London. And I’m not even a resident of the UK. What the hell happened to this blog?? I could make several jokes that would all end with the word Brexit or minor violations of the law involving minors but nothing is coming to mind so I’ll just cut to the point: I’m a guest roast reviewer so our Lord and Salver (yes, I spelled that correctly, google it) can take a five minute break to surf his Tinder app (or is it Grinder? I’m not up to date on my dating apps) and maybe get some much needed lovin’. I’m an American, if that’s not already immediately clear. We apologize for butchering your language and sending our fat-load of a President over to insult your food, insult your politics, insult your mayor and insult…well, pretty much everything. You can keep him if he hasn’t already escaped to insult Ireland and France.
[LG – apologise not apologize, bloody yank]
So, why is an American reviewing a non-London roast, you might ask (go ahead….ask……) I have no idea but isn’t the point of this entire spin around the sun to have fun? Ok, I’ve already lost you so maybe I should get with the reviewing:
[LG – nobody is having fun nowadays except the Virus Taliban]
I’m not Incoherent
It was Mother’s day here in the good ol USA and I took my mom out for a Sunday roast. I know, I know, Mother’s day was last month but who knew writing a blog about food was so hard? I picked up my mom and headed to Crown & Anchor pub here in Las Vegas, Nevada. Yes, I live in Las Vegas. No, I don’t live in a casino. Crown & Anchor is a British pub, owned by a British expat and is the place to go for Brits to get a little bit of England in Las Vegas. I recommend a visit if you’re ever here. We arrived just after 1 pm to avoid all the crowds watching the last football matches of the season (go Arsenal…Oh well, I just lost the other half of the audience) and to avoid the crowds of drunken college kids from the nearby University of Nevada Las Vegas. My daughter being one of those college kids….not the drunken kind (I hope). As we walked in the power went out. I’m not kidding, the lights actually went out and the whole place was pitch black. I’m not sure if it’s a statement about your country or mine but there you go.
[LG – writing a roast dinner review isn’t that hard…any old shit tends to do. Though shorter paragraphs are easier to read]
Roast in the Dark?
Ok, no. After about 15 minutes of waiting in the dark to see if the lights would come back on, we decided to pass on this location and go elsewhere. No one wants to eat in the dark, no matter what the trendy fools at Time Out say (no corporate sponsorship for me). Besides, the transformer was knocked out and they couldn’t cook anything without electricity. Makes me wonder how many microwaves they have back in the kitchen. And it seems they can’t serve beer without power so I’m outta here.
A short 10 minute drive away was McMullen’s Irish pub. I know, not the same as English but more than half their menu is British food so I’m not going to complain if you don’t. Luckily for me, they had a Sunday roast and my mom was still enjoying “her day” so we ordered up our roasts. She ordered the beef and I decided on the pork. I know there’s usually a photo of a menu here but this isn’t my blog and this isn’t my usual job, sue the other guy….he’s already catching hell for just doing this blog, the idiot American isn’t going to improve things.
[LG – erm…]
Irish Roasts in Las Vegas?
Beer is up. The Boddington’s was a fine way to start the meal and let me thank you Brits for giving the world some of your best in the form of beer. I’m a fan. The roasts arrived after only a 15 or 20 minute wait.
[LG – Boddington’s? What the actual fuck? Nobody in Britain drinks that, by the way…Americans don’t yet understand sarcasm, do they?]
(roast Picture here)

[LG – I’ve seen worse but what the hell are those discs?]
Let’s start with the veggies. The carrots were kinda bland and not well flavored. The green beans followed their carrot cousins down the same bland hole of blandness (I have the best words). Now, the Brussel Sprouts, do they have Brussel sprouts in Brussels or anywhere else for that matter? Great, I just googled Brussels and now I have a picture of a statue of a little boy peeing on my desktop and the boss wants to see me in the conference room, I didn’t learn if they have Brussel sprouts but I now have a “file”. The Brussel sprouts, by the way, were tasty. It seems the flavor missing from the carrots and green beans was located on the Brussel sprouts. Nice and buttery. Tender and yet, still with a bit of crunch to them. Perfect.
The Yorkies, I got two but don’t be jealous because they lacked anything in the way of size. If they had been combined as a single yorkie, maybe it would have been fine, but these bite sized yorkies seemed like a tantalizing tease, much like that school dance date back in the day where I received a hand shake at the end of the night. I was 16 years old. I mean, how is that supposed to make me feel? I said I loved her and I tried to pretend that it didn’t hurt inside but it did. It’s not all about food here on the blog, is it? This may be the cheapest therapy session I’ve ever attended.
[LG – you got a handshake from a woman? Better than I ever managed]
Wankers on Parade
The potatoes were….unusual? Upon first examination, I assumed that these were a total loss. Some kind of sacrifice to the fryer gods. There were three and they were only about a half an inch thick, that’s @13mm for you metric folk and they looked like some kind of puck but they were crispy. So I took a tentative bite. And joy!! They were light and fluffy on the inside. I’m not sure what kind of witchcraft this is but I approve and now worship at the church of strange but crispy potatoes pucks. Wear your Sunday finest and don’t sass the choir ladies. Well, now I’m a convert but I still have some meat to review….much like the college dorm days but you get through the long nights just to say you were brothers in the fraternity…Oh, did our therapy session end? Sorry, I’ll let myself out.
[LG – and you thought I spoke a load of shit]
Where were we?
The pork roast was a pork loin and I’ve made those before so I know that its possible to screw these up and make them dry as, well, the Las Vegas desert. I was quite surprised to see that this pork was roasted up perfectly. Nice and moist and very flavorful. The fat was crisp and the seasoning was to perfection. The gravy, of which there was a very nice size dish, was almost unneeded. The gravy had great flavor and was the correct consistency. When I poured the last of the gravy on the last half of the final piece of pork, it just remained there, like the UK should (took me ten paragraphs to work in a decent Brexit mention, the first one didn’t count).
[LG – gravy was “almost unneeded”? Gonna be a while before you Yanks get this roast dinner thing. Pork did look nice though]
My mom barely ate her roast but she took most of it home in a to-go box so I ended up buying her annoying dog a roast dinner for Mother’s day….what a time to be alive. All Dad ever wanted for Father’s day was for me to buy him some beer. At least I knew he was going to enjoy it and not the dog. Or maybe not. That dog never does walk straight.
[LG – and you thought that was a bad time to be alive…]
Score, Score, Who’s Got the Score?
This being my first Roast review, I’m inclined to give it a high number, but I’ve read this blog and I know better. The bad parts can’t ruin the roast but the best parts shouldn’t make me overlook the badness, hello carrots, I’m looking at you. So for my first and probably only roast review not in London, I’m giving this roast a 6.72 out of 10. That seems higher than I intended just looking at it but I’m happy with that number and I’m leaving it that way (did I just say Leave?). Long story not so short, if you’re ever in Las Vegas and the lights are out at Crown & Anchor, go to McMullen’s. It’s Irish on the inside but Vegas on the outside. Oh….vote Tory….small nob….Spanish girls….Nipples!
******
Those stars indicate that I’m back. Me, Lord Gravy. I don’t know what else to say. Did my yanking protege do me proud or shall we go back to Herd Immunity?
I have no idea when the next review will be. I see all these social media posts from pubs across London that are doing roast delivery services, and then I check what is available for delivery where I live in Harrow:

A search for “roast dinner” was coming up with somewhere that would struggle to outclass Poplar Cafe – alas even that potential mountainous opportunity of misery is now missing. A search for “gravy” comes up with “Sheba Chicken in Gravy”. Sheba is cat food. We haven’t quite reached that stage…two more weeks perhaps…
I could, of course, make my own roast dinner. But after being an arsehole towards many other chefs/restaurants I would blatantly get a hammering. Deservedly, of course.
And it isn’t like I can make a roast dinner out of packs of sliced ham, beetroot and bananas – which was roughly the fresh food choice in Sainsbury’s this morning in my one proscribed escape from the Virus Taliban.
Sigh. Don’t fear. One day this will all be over, there will be giant statues of Boris Johnson all over the country and you will be able to sit underneath them, reading a new roast dinner review from London. And you know I ain’t going anywhere shit on my return. Well…I’ll be trying not to.
I wonder if maybe my Twitter demands can be met again?
Unless the next time we meet: Stay at home. Cook roast dinners. Save your sanity. And don’t drink shite like Boddington’s.
Summary:
McMullen’s Irish Pub, Las Vegas
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Viscount? I’d prefer to go by Under Lord. Makes me sound menacing while still reminding me of my stature under his Lordship. As for the Boddington’s, I’ll take any other British beer I can get….only problem is…that’s about all we can get.