Swan At The Globe, Bankside

It’s cloudy, it’s cold, it’s drizzling, there’s miserable bastards running out country and it’s a roast dinner review of the Swan At The Globe, Bankside. I know what will cheer us up. A boat party!

Wayne Lineker and naturally tanned young ladies from Newcastle.
Via Instagram

Oh, wrong Lineker.

And not a boat.

Image via Maksim Goncharenok on Pexels – free to use

Nooooooo, it’s a boat. A small boat. A fairly small boat anyway. I know what you are thinking. Stop the small boats.

Fine, there’ll be no more small boats from me.

Or fairly small boats with women that are probably attractive if you are half my age. Or if they were Spanish.

Image via FransA on Pexels – free to use

I know what you are thinking again. But that’s clearly a medium-sized boat. I assume that if asylum seekers commandeered a medium-sized boat or two, that would be fine. Sunak can claim that he stopped the small boats, “ladies and gentlemen, there are only medium-sized boats now”.

Slight tangent but it was Mother Gravy’s birthday this Sunday. Mother Gravy doesn’t like any size of boat – at least being on them anyway. Possibly not a good moment to mention that she reads the Daily Mail. At least she’s stopped reading the Daily Express.

Anyway, we needed somewhere central and respectable, and after a few spins of the random number generator, I booked the Swan At The Globe, which seemed a nice restaurant, though with a risk that it is too tourist-friendly. Oh well, Mother & Father Gravy are tourists in London.

Match Of The Day

The Swan At The Globe is a smart looking restaurant – more of a gastropub vibe on the 1st floor, but on the 2nd floor it was a proper restaurant vibe – it was somewhere I could take the folks to kind of vibe.

Inside the restaurant at the Swan At The Globe, Bankside

I particularly enjoyed how much light came through the windows, and the view of the river – and the BOATS. I even saw a restaurant boat go by, where I am pretty sure I can get a Sunday roast from.

Ooooh I forgot the internet existed – yes you can get a Sunday roast from the boat, for only £79. And they play live jazz at you. I might be going off boats.

35 minutes it took from the time that I sat down until the time that our drinks order arrived. Thirty-five minutes. Granted we were served water in the meantime, and also some rather delectable bread that was bought from Borough Market in the morning, replete with butter and marmite butter.

Service was on the slow side throughout – it wasn’t quite to the point of me walking downstairs to the bar – though it probably would have been had I not still been on detox. Albeit a detox which has finally ventured into trying 0.5% beers. One 0.5% beer anyway. It was OK.

Wanna see my sausage?

Currywurst at German Gymnasium

6 chips and some ordinary pork sausage. Thanks German Gymnasium in King’s Cross. I was expecting Currywurst to taste of curry but apparently it is just ketchup with spices in. My bad. Yes I have been to Germany. Yes I did have sausage – but always Bratwurst – never Currywurst. And I’ll be sticking to Bratwurst next time I put on my tight leather pants and queue for 5 hours at Berghain to be turned away for trying to pretend to be German. With sincere apologies to my German readers. Yes I have German readers, also devoted to Sunday roasts.

Whoa – Bratwurst on a Sunday roast. Someone do it please! If I could be arsed then I’d hire a chef and run my own German Sausage Chef vs Lord Gravy pop-up one weekend.

Natch Of The Day

Where was I? Oh yeah, overpriced and overhyped tourist restaurants.

Sunday Roast menu at the Swan At The Globe, Bankside

£24.00 for a Sunday roast – ouch. Granted I paid £30.00 just two weeks ago in Mayfair, and that would have been £36.00 had I chosen the beef. Well, it was £24.00 for the beef sirloin, or £21.00 for half a chicken. We all had the beef.

And we ordered some cauliflower cheese to share – which sounded great on the menu, not that I photographed that part of it. Oh yeah – the internet – hang on…Montgomery Cheddar cauliflower cheese. Sounds like someone that might own a small boat or two. Hey, my name is Montgomery, fancy a whirl in my small boat?

Beef Sirloin Roast Dinner at the Swan At The Globe, Bankside

I know what you are thinking:

STOP THE SMALL GRAVY BOATS.

And yeah, that’s it. I know what else you are thinking:

But it might still be OK. It might be worth the £24.00 that I paid to only receive one fucking carrot as our vegetable allowance. Hell, that carrot might be so amazing that it is worth £24.00 alone.

Maybe we should have taken seriously the singular word “carrot” in the menu. Maybe they expected us to order sides. But there was no mention of such a need to when we ordered. That we ordered cauliflower cheese was solely down to Montgomery and my dream of sharing a gary with a beautiful young aristocratic lady on his small boat. Gary Ablett, that is.

Plus, if you are going to charge us £24.00 and then expect us to order sides to fulfil the rest of the plate, then you can fuck right off.

How many vegetables are advertised outside the restaurant? One, two, possibly three but I’m not sure what that swirly thing is. How many did we receive? One fucking carrot.

The sign outside the Swan At The Globe, Bankside, suggesting The Great British Roast with all the trimmings.

Mismatch Of The Day

Suitably offended, it was time to eat the carrot. And it was a good carrot. Not quite a whole carrot, but a large half of a carrot, soft, succulent, almost a hint of star anise perhaps, and on the sweet side.

Not worth £24.00 in itself though.

Cauliflower cheese at the Swan At The Globe, Bankside

The cauliflower cheese, which we paid £5.50 extra for was middling – tasting a little on the floury side, but otherwise soft, creamy cauliflower, with a hint of cheddar.

The thing in the small pot, if you remember, was bone marrow breadcrumbs – neither of which are vegetables. It was unnecessarily oily, fatty, flavourless and pointless. Give me one stick of tenderstem broccoli instead.

On the bright side, the roast potatoes were very good. Some seasoning might have been nice, but they had crispy sides, fluffy inners, a hint of sage and all 4 were quality roast potatoes. Though before you suggest that going one over the London legal limit of roast potatoes could make up for the lack of vegetables – they were bite-sized. So maybe 1.5 potatoes at a push. Feel that Braverman generosity.

Beef Sirloin Sunday Roast at the Swan At The Globe, Bankside

Also on the bright side is the fact that there is less for you to read this week. Oh and the beef was good. Kind of, anyway.

Not without fault – I particularly liked the crust on the outside, and most of it was tender. However, some parts were inedible (and I will happily consume fatty beef as long as I can chew it), a part of it was chewy – but also it was a reasonable size.

Scratch Of The Day

Yeah, we have a small boat problem in this country. A small gravy boat problem in this country.

If there’s no gravy, on your Sunday roast,
Who ya gonna call?

Gary Lineker!

Embed from Getty Images

If there’s somethin’ strange in the neighbourhood
Who ya gonna call? Gary Lineker!
If it’s an evil home secretary, up to no good
Who ya gonna call? Gary Lineker!

Fine, I’ll go back to talking about the roast dinner. So the Yorkshire pudding was dry and tearable. Totally pointless. I preferred coming up with replacement Ghostbusters lyrics. Can I go back to doing that please?

Gary Lineker, he’s our hero
Saving UK from an evil home secretary
Gary Lineker, he’s our saviour
Stopping the ban on small boats from coming to our shore

A large gravy boat!

Fear not – Gary has just saved us. A big gravy boat for us…and he saved you from any more shit Ghostbuster’s lyrics – at least until the next time, as that isn’t the first time I’ve misused Ghostbusters.

Alas, I didn’t really like the gravy, but such is life. It was rather rich yet somehow lacking flavour – there was a red wine hint to it, but otherwise it was inoffensively rich. Oh well.

The Swan At The Globe

On average in 2022, 125 HUMANS crossed the English Channel every day. How can a country with our economy, our history and our generosity not be able to cope with this?

Granted we have a housing crisis, but that isn’t the fault of someone desperate enough to risk their lives in a small boat on the English Channel – that’s the fault of the 1947 Town & County Planning Act which gave all the power over whether homes for HUMANS are built, to those that own homes and rely on said homes for their wealth.

Build more homes. Be more understanding. Supply more vegetables.

STICK TA THE FOOTY, LUD GRAVEH.

Ri Chun-hee doing Match Of The Day
Meme

You might be surprised that my father scored this a 7.70 out of 10, and my mother a 7.50. I was a little surprised, but they both enjoyed it, bar some minor quibbles and a very minor amount of vegetables.

Even my regular accomplice scored it a 7.00.

I’m not so forgiving. The girl serving us was pleasant (and French – though I didn’t dare suggest sending the small gravy boats back to her), but it took some time to get drinks. Gorgeous bread, but also £24.00 for a BRITISH roast (is this what foreigners call a Sunday roast?) – one with one solitary carrot.

On the positive side, the roast potatoes were actually very good, the beef sirloin was plentiful and the majority on the tender side. The solitary carrot was supremely succulent too.

Negatives that I haven’t already summarised included a somewhat floury cauliflower cheese, a dry yorkie, some of the beef being too fattty to chew and a general lack of flavour/seasoning, especially with the gravy and beef. Oh and £24.00 with ONE FUCKING CARROT, which I may have already mentioned.

My score is a 6.16 out of 10. It was Mother Gravy’s birthday, so if she is happy, then all good. They did bring out a little birthday treat for her, and one accomplice ordered a divine chocolate dessert that I drooled over as I regretted my 2,000 calories of sausage the evening before. So the Swan At The Globe can do quality – just give the Great British Roast With Without All The Trimmings a miss, if you are minded my way.

I’ll be back next week, assuming I haven’t been sent to Rwanda.

I ain’t afraid of no home secretary.

(Visited 271 times, 1 visits today)

Summary:

Swan At The Globe, Bankside

Station: London Bridge

Tube Lines: Jubilee, National Rail, Northern

Fare Zone: Zone 1

Price: £24.00

Rating: 6.16

Get Booking

https://swanlondon.co.uk/

Instagrim

Loved & Loathed

Loved: They managed crispy roast potatoes with fluffy insides. Bread was gorgeous too, bought from Borough Market that morning.

Loathed: Gravy rich but lacking flavour, yorkie dry, some of the beef too fatty to eat - oh and £24.00 for one solitary carrot.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *