This Sunday gone I went to Oak And Pastor, in Archway – chosen by the random number generator and thankfully one of the cheaper roasts on my list, after losing £2k on the stock market the previous week.
But still, at least I didn’t own something called Luna. Apparently, and if I had any more than 12 readers I’m sure I’d be CryptoBroSplained pretty quickly, but Luna coin was used to prop up a STABLEcoin called TerraUST. Still with me?
Stablecoins, from what I can tell, are basically instruments to argue to fiat currency cavemen sheep like me, that crypto coins can keep their value, and Stablecoins are pegged to the USD.
TerraUST created and destroyed its own Luna coins to keep its value pegged to the USD. Why bother? Who knows. Anyway, at the beginning of April, Luna was worth $116.29 per coin. Boom! At the time of writing, it is worth $0.00022437. Doom! But hey…keep believing folks.
Fuck, they even call themselves the Lunatics. I was going to use that to take the piss…but they are already using it.
Which kind of puts my losses into context. However, walking into the Oak & Pastor to find that their roast dinners cost only £16.00 did put a smile onto my face.
Bloke Eats Pasta
Thankfully I’m not in a position where I need to accept cooking advice from Tory MPs. I can cook. I can budget. I can burn food. And I can definitely over-cook steak. Yeah. Again. I did make some really nice lamb samosas last week though. I was impressed. I told one of my Indian colleagues and he was totally nonplussed. Oh well.
What I do need to show you is the lampshade from the Oak And Pastor.
How magnificent is this? I liked the pub in terms of décor, occasionally it felt a bit contrived, a bit fake, but overall I thought they’d done a good job of making an open and spacious feel, with touches of kitsch and lacking the cliché feel of many other places. One of my accomplices was incredibly enamoured by it, but his local pub near Reading is a total dive so maybe he has less to compare to.
The menu was fairly standard in terms of offerings – beef topside, chicken, pork belly and lamb, all priced at £16.00.
Topside is the kind of cut that Tory MPs recommend us plebs eat, pork belly I had last week so I was left with a choice between lamb and chicken. I let the landlady choose for me – chicken.
She seemed pretty friendly and had some character behind her, though I didn’t really speak to her, one of my accomplices did and apparently they are struggling. Partly surprising as most of the tables inside were taken and people were ordering roast dinners, and some tables outdoors were occupied despite the rain – there were decent-sized areas both front and back for outdoor shenanigans.
Of course, people are struggling right now – despite the generous £200 loan towards energy bills. Also, I don’t think Oak And Pastor are making the most of themselves. The beer choice was limited – the most interesting I could find was a Neck Oil. They sold Carlsberg – who drinks that in 2022? Maybe people do. Maybe the cost of living crisis will mean that we all need to start drinking Carlsberg again. I used to drink it for £1.30 a pint at university.
More pertinently I had to use the telephone to book a table. Use the telephone. In 2022. And I don’t mean use an app – I mean speak to a person. Urgh.
Woke Sheep Rasta
Their website looks like it was made by a child. An incompetent child. I’m half tempted to sack off this review and just knock up a quick website for them. Their website has nothing. No phone number, no booking form, no food menu – hell there is not even a navigation menu. The only thing you can click on is the logo, which just gives you some inverted image of the logo.
However, you can search for different pages on their website via Google. And then find a food menu. Which then doesn’t mention Sunday roasts. At least they post on Instagram. Albeit not in the last month.
So here comes a roast dinner reviewer with a reputation for skewering places with burnt yorkies, under-cooked roasties and bad gravy. Yeah…that’ll help them. Oops.
Fucking retards, how dare they suggest that Luna coin could be broken. I’VE GOT BILLIONAIRES FOLLOWING ME.
Well…they probably aren’t billionaires now. Oh and check out those pasty roast potatoes.
Starting with the carrots, which were plentiful and nicely roasted – a slight crunch to them.
Then the broccoli, good old bog standard broccoli, but I like it. Quite soft, though it felt like it had maybe seen a hot grill or something after being steamed/boiled.
The cabbage, which you cannot see…hang on…
Can you just about see some under the carrots? I don’t know why I’m bothering to attempt to show you the cabbage – just let it be known that it was gloriously buttery, and rather seasoned too – plenty of pepper going on. Like, really, buttery and yum. And the cabbage improved all the other veg by spreading butteryness. Butteryness isn’t a word apparently. Well, it is now.
Luna Coin Fucked Ha
Whilst the cabbage was glorious, the cauliflower was as fucked up as an wallet full of Luna coins. I wasn’t sure whether it was cauliflower cheese until I found a fairly tough topping…at the bottom – the cauliflower couldn’t have been more mushy and the cheese topping – well I could just about get a hint of cheese. However – the pepper from the seasoning rescued it somewhat from disaster.
The roast potatoes don’t look great but were actually fine. No crispy edges but they were soft inside – and freshly cooked. Probably on the same day. Crazy. Plus copious amounts of seasoning too.
I’m sooooo bored of Yorkshire puddings and this wasn’t going to change my outlook on them. It was edible, but a bit too crispy.
Next up was the chicken half – not the plumpest chicken ever, a little overcooked and the breast was a little dry. However, the seasoning was fantastic. They really do like their seasoning at the Oak And Pastor.
One of my accomplices had the pork belly – which looked way overdone, but he seemed to really enjoy it – that and his side of Mac & Cheese. Aha. I have some strange friends. Though I’m probably more strange. And somehow his roast potatoes look crispier than mine, don’t they?
And finally, the gravy. Quite a good gravy – I’m not sure if it also tasted of pepper or that was the flavour from everything else here. Seemingly proper homemade gravy, a decent consistency to it – nothing special, but broadly good. I’d be very content if this was the London standard.
Oak And Pastor
Last week’s roast dinner was a pretty roast dinner, but one that flavour and seasoning forgot.
This week’s wasn’t the prettiest, yet it had plenty of flavour and seasoning.
The cauliflower cheese was shambolic but it was edible – there aren’t really any other complaints, bar the basic beer choice. Highlights for me was the amount of seasoning and the buttery cabbage.
Service was good enough, I did fall in love with the Spanish-looking glass collector, the place was clean, customers respectable – it’s a decent pub with a decent roast dinners.
Scores from my accomplices were a 7.50 (too much pepper power) and an 8.80 – though as I mentioned earlier he doesn’t get out much, and he voted Brexit so therefore his score is wrong.
My score is a 7.63 out of 10. I didn’t love it, but I definitely enjoyed it. If you are in this part of town then the Oak And Pastor is well worth spending a Sunday afternoon at.
I’ll be back next week. Got a table booked at a gorgeous pub, and my accomplice is someone I drunkenly started banging on about roast dinners to in San Diego airport a couple of months back. Ahhh the randomness of life.
Don’t forget to buy the (gravy) dip.
Summary:
Oak And Pastor, Archway
Station: Archway
Tube Lines: Northern
Fare Zone: Zone 2
Price: £16.00
Rating: 7.63
Loved & Loathed
Loved: Buttery cabbage was gorgeous, loads of pepper power.
Loathed: Cauliflower cheese mush was shambolic.
Where now, sailor?
Random roast review: Paternoster Chop House, St Pauls
