This week’s roast dinner review comes from Origin in Farringdon, which until I turned up at the door I always thought was called Origin City.
And for the first time since Tony Blair was still cool, I have a full set of teeth.
10+ hours in dentist chairs, 8 teeth removed, 8 (ish) fillings, 60 (ish) injections into my mouth, 2 minutes of wearing dentures that I hated, a hammer to the face, 6 screws into the jaw, 6 screws unscrewed, 6 different screws screwed in with a bit more drilling, existing teeth filed down, many many stitches and 6 months walking around with no top teeth.
Oh and a bonus root canal treatment just when I thought it was time to relax and work out how you do that smiling thing that I’ve been avoiding for the last few decades.
But now…I can audition for the Trivago advert.
Oh not to mention that I spent a 5-figure sum which is…oooooh…not far off the amount that I’ve spent on this blog. Quickly checks Patreon subscribers…oh £1 a month, cool.
Well, I guess it’s time to re-activate my Plenty Of Fish account, “fake teeth seeks fake tits…”.
On the Origin of Teeth
Origin was recommended to me a little while back, curiously by the same person who recommended The White Horse in Brixton, which I scored a lowly 5.94 out of 10.
A wiser man may have scrubbed Origin off his to-do list following this, but a wiser man may also have visited the dentist at least once during Tony Blair’s government, and not taken toothache as reason to eat some soothing chocolate, with a pint of wine and a bucket of diazepam. By the way, no – the painkillers that the dentist in Budapest offered didn’t make me even vaguely high or woozy.
Origin proclaims to be a nose and tail restaurant, though quite how often either a nose or a tail ends up on a roast dinner is questionable.
It has a large open kitchen at the back – though as a spacious restaurant the chefs are far enough away to be anonymous. Decor is tones of brown – perhaps matching the poop emoji they seem to use for their website’s favicon (I guess it may look like a flame to some people). Seating was comfortable – red leather panels, proper tables and chairs. It was Mother’s Day, and MOTHER was comfortable so the box was ticked there.
Questions occurred with the menu – I’ll accept a roast dinner without a Yorkshire pudding, but neither the lamb shoulder or pork shoulder came with a roast potato or a Yorkshire pudding – so they ain’t roast dinners, babes.
Therefore the only options were the beef, which was supposed to come with short rib and shallot, priced at £25.00, or the feast – which was beef, pork and lamb – with the proper trimmings, priced at £32.00.
Thankfully I managed to find another participant for the feast – I wasn’t convinced that my dentist’s advice of “soft food for the first couple of weeks” would work with silverside of beef. Then again…I haven’t exactly lived a life advised by dentists, doctors, lawyers, mothers or the KGB.
On the Origin of Species
Some bread arrived first – yay sourdough for my new “soft food only for the first two weeks please” teeth – it was fresh and fairly soft, plus the chilli/sundried tomato/butter combo that went with it was a delight (perhaps take those ingredients with a pinch of salt).
It was actually the first roast dinner of the year since my detox ended…so of course the beer choice on the menu was uninteresting. Five Points whose beers I am just nonplussed about – I had some other pale which was quite golden and amber, more my father’s taste, except he didn’t like it either. Should have ordered some wine instead…but hey, that’s my lack of sensible decision making kicking in again perhaps, and maybe also wanting to save some money after eating out 10 times in the previous 10 days.
I even considered ordering an apple juice outside of detox times, but baulked at a price of £5.50.
The roast was one of those put it together yourself ones, so do forgive them for my plating, though for my standards it looks quite tidy.
For a change, I’m going to start with the gravy.
Actually, I’m going to start with Elon Musk’s empathy.
Actually I’m going to start with JD Vance’s intellectual pronouncements.
Do you see where I’m going here?
Do you see any gravy?
On the Origin of Gravy
OK, new photograph and I’ve poured all the…jus…on the roast.
All of it.
Now, if I was writing for the Financial Times, I’d be telling you that you don’t actually need gravy for this roast dinner…but also if I was writing for the Financial Times I wouldn’t have included a meme of JD Vance holding a dildo.
Heck, even if I was writing for Time Out, then I’d be telling you “IT’S OFFICIAL: YOU OFFICIALLY DON’T NEED OFFICIAL GRAVY OR OFFICIAL JUS”.
Shall we start with the carrots?
The carrots were really good – orange, yellow and purple ones all combined with tarragon and perhaps some star anise too, a little on the crunchy side.
Next up was the cabbage, which was soft and really buttery – I was quite tempted to pour the leftover watery buttery liquid on my plate and use that for gravy (pretty sure some pubs would pour cabbage water and call it gravy).
The Origin Of Every Single Time Out Post Being Official
Finally in terms of vegetables, we had cauliflower cheese – it alone justifying the choice of the Sunday Feast for being properly cheesy, the type of cauliflower cheese that you have to keep picking the cheesy remnants from the bowl with your fingers, long after both the stomach and the brain have given the signal to stop eating. Thick sauce, perfectly cooked cauliflower with a little charring on top.
Three roast potatoes – and they were better than Blacklock’s. Yes, I did just say “better than Blacklock’s”.
Two things annoyed me, one that they were perfectly crispy and it definitely doesn’t count as soft food, two – why is there no fucking jus. Oh my. There was at least meat juices in the plate of shared meat, and some cauliflower cheese creaminess that I could use.
You could probably just say that these were perfect. I won’t get any better all year – crispy on the outside, soft in the inside, freshly made, and cooked with beef dripping. With apologies to any vegetarians getting excited.
The Yorkshire pudding was mercifully small, though kind of dry and crunchy – it had been sat around under a heat lamp or similar for a while, and was past its best. Oh well. But do you know what could have improved it? Yes, I know I could have asked for more jus for a second time, but it was serious thimble vibes and by time I’d made enough requests for sufficient jus, the waiter would have sacked his job off.
Ahh gosh do I really have 4 types of meat to describe?
So I think the pork shoulder was the least praise-worthy – it seemed like good quality meat yet was a little dry, though I stress the “little”. I took one look at my father trying to crunch the crackling and decided that I wasn’t going to risk £11k’s worth of new teeth for such limited joy.
The beef itself, I think silverside, was really tender and juicy – someone writing for the FT might well argue that it didn’t need any gravy.
But I’d argue the star was the lamb. Like the pork it was a tad over-cooked for my preference, but no great shakes – the flavour was excellent, it was really tender and it didn’t need gravy. I may have lied about one part there.
And finally, the…sausage. I’m tempted to say it was merguez – I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it tasted of, certainly plenty of herbs going on – one minute I thought it was lamb, the next beef – so I concluded maybe merguez. Whatever – it was top notch sausage.
By the way, this is what the beef looked like – the photography might help you understand why I’m so effusive compared to my strangely dull photograph.
Origin Of The Origin
So each of my accomplices scored it a 9.00 out of 10. You know I ain’t giving the first 9.00 out for 2 years, without gravy.
Yet almost everything was very good or better. The only complaint is the heat-lamped yorkie – but I’ve had far worse.
Possibly the best ever roast potatoes, all the meat was broadly really good (without being exceptional), cauliflower cheese was properly cheesy with good, thick sauce, the cabbage was really buttery, the carrots bathed in tarragon. This was a roast dinner of the ages. That’s the saying, right?
So was it my fault that we didn’t have enough gravy? We had two thimbles originally, between 4 of us. We asked for more – one more thimble came. I’m not exaggerating. Plus the menu says £5.00 for gravy – is this per thimble? I’d eaten out 10 times in 10 days, and it really was time to put the spending brakes on. Maybe I could have stressed our requirements more. But maybe we would have had multiple £5.00 charges on our bill as an unpleasant surprise.
I asked Threads what the score should be for a roast dinner without gravy, and it was a pretty unanimous 0. Then again, Threads is pretty unanimous that all we need to do is implement a wealth tax and our problems will be solved. Though it does also have a more agreeable side-line celebrating the rapid unscheduled disassembly of Tesla cars, Tesla showrooms or Tesla stock.
So I’m going to score Origin an 8.25 out of 10. Just a bit more gravy and this might have been a rare 9+. Probably the best ever roast potatoes I’ve had – seriously consider booking it, but do take a flask with you.
Next Sunday I’m going somewhere that only just about qualifies as serving roast dinners, and I’ve ummed and ahhed about going for years.
Gosh I could probably run for British president now I have teeth.
Summary:
Origin, Farringdon
Station: Farringdon
Tube Lines: Circle, Elizabeth, Hammersmith & City, Metropolitan Line, Thameslink
Fare Zone:
Price: £32.00
Rating: 8.25
Loved & Loathed
Loved: Possibly the best roast potatoes in the history of RDLDN. Meat was all very good quality, cauliflower cheese properly cheesy, cabbage really buttery. And a top notch sausage surprise too. Who doesn't like a sneaky sausage?
Loathed: No fucking gravy! I had to scrape cauliflower cheese sauce to use as gravy. Serious thimble vibes. Also the yorkie was heatlamped, but at least mercifully small.
Where now, sailor?
Random roast review: Bistro Union, Clapham
