Palmer’s Restaurant, Bethnal Green

Skip The Nonsense

So how was that for you? I’m talking the first full week of the year – not my premature ejaculation. 5 whole days of work. Tough, wasn’t it? A roast dinner was earned this week if ever it was, and the random number generator had picked Palmer’s Restaurant in Bethnal Green.

Then on Monday, I realised that the whole Metropolitan line was closed for engineering works during the weekend. It isn’t exactly a guarantor that I will get anywhere at other weekends – and especially at rush hour during the week where it seems particularly prone to signal failures that TFL pretend are broken down NEW trains.

Oh you can so tell when you are a Londoner – the first vestiges of tube rants. I do actually remember when I first moved to London and was excited to get the tube. Even at rush hour. Strange what I can remember and what I cannot.

Tube Rant Incoming

Anyway, I had to get from Harrow to Bethnal Green. With no Metropolitan line, no Jubilee line and no National Rail from Harrow either. I had choices:

• 45 minutes on the Piccadilly line followed by 45 minutes on the Central line.
• Bus (yeah), train to Euston, then two tubes.
• Rail replacement bus, followed by Bakerloo then Central line.
• Piccadilly line, District line, Crossrail (oh for full Crossrail), Bakerloo line and then Central line.

Despite having spent a good couple of hours this week listening to DJ Bus Replacement Service (all the music you hate mixed together…it kind of works), I felt unable to pay homage to her. Even though she introduced me to the best remix of a Spice Girls track EVER.

And despite warning myself about the 5 potential points of failure, I went for the 5 line special – which kind of sounds like a normal Sunday afternoon from my nightclub days.

Also, have you ever walked down Roman Road in Bethnal Green? There is nothing I can say about it without being a complete Metropolitan Elite Twatt. It does have a Greggs.

And to think I was wondering what the hell I was going to write this week. I bet you are so intrigued now to hear about my roast.

Once I reached the end of Roman Road, where the social housing ended and the private renting began, there appeared Palmer’s Restaurant.

Danger Over

An unassuming, fairly ordinary family-run restaurant – though in the context of the surrounding area stood out more than a young person at a Brexit Party conference.

Not a huge amount of tables inside – it was fairly busy for January and I had arrived for my very well deserved roast dinner. Shackleton had nothing on me.

Choices on the menu were beef, pork belly or chicken, priced rather competitively between £14 and £16.

It’s been a while since I’d had beef so that was what I ordered, and it took around 15-20 minutes to arrive. And there was a crime scene.

If you like condiments on your roast dinner then you are simply wrong. Even ketchup. But I’m pretty liberal – if you want to paint your eyebrows on, walk around with a dildo up your backside and stick ketchup all over your roast dinner then you go for it. However, putting unwanted condiments on my roast dinner is a breach of my human rights. That white stuff on the top right? Horse radish. On my food. Not of my choosing.

Rant over – for now. The carrots were nicely done, I assume steamed/boiled with a hint of rosemary.

Horse Rant Over

The cabbage, hidden above, shredded and fairly ordinary. I struggle to find things to say about carrots – cabbage is even harder.

Two chunky parsnips were supplied, flavoursome and soft, though I’d have them a little crunchy on the outside were it me.

Despite having one roast potato which had been roasted twice as long as the others, these roasties were the highlight of the meal. Soft inside, crispy on the outside – pretty damn banging.

On the other side, the overly large yorkie at Palmer’s Restaurant was meh – it tasted quite floury. It wasn’t horrid, but it wasn’t enjoyable.

There was plenty of beef on my roast – a little less for my accomplice. I’ve easily had half the amount in other places. Quite rare in the middle but salty around the edge – overly so in my not fucking humble opinion.

Gravy was about as watery as you could make it – it astounds me how chefs seem able to make gravy more watery than water itself. Taste-wise it was inoffensive…at least from what I could tell as there was no way to stop the horse radish from mixing with it and swirling around – so it kind of turned into a horse-radish watery sauce. As I said, it wasn’t offensive in terms of taste…it definitely could have been worse.

The Final Countdown

So not quite up there with last week’s roast dinner but a reasonable enough effort. Cracking roasties – these won’t be beaten that many times this year. Vegetables fine, beef decent away from the over-salted edge. Yorkie a duffer.

It’s the final countdown to my score…oh wait I know exactly what you need right now.

You do come here for my musical interludes too don’t you? Music perhaps not being an accurate description in this case.

Oh yeah, a score. 6.89 out of 10. My accomplices scored Palmer’s Restaurant a 7.1 and a 7 respectively.

Predictably my journey home was not smooth – with Crossrail being cancelled and my having to take another detour to avoid a 30 minute wait for the next. Ahhhh.

Next Sunday I am going somewhere very similar yet very different. On the Metropolitan line…well…I hope.

I’ll leave you with the unique sounds of DJ Bus Replacement Service.