I came home from holiday in Copenhagen and went to The Crown in Islington. But even more importantly…
Embed from Getty ImagesFootball came home! And the crown went to England. And yeah, sure, I’ve been into women’s football for less time than Prince William has allegedly been into dildo’s (or perhaps dildo’s have been into…), but I’ve actually been to two games…and I realised that women’s football wasn’t shit any more back in 2019, so I’m years ahead of the bandwagon. A few years, anyway.
This week’s roast dinner venue was a little more difficult to choose than normal – we’d booked to watch the game at a pub in Walthamstow. I’d already booked a roast dinner in London Bridge, but that was 45 minutes to get to Walthamstow, so I looked into somewhere on the Victoria line.
Alas, many places were fully booked already, some places were not doing roast dinners. Not. Doing. Roast. Dinners. And these were places that normally do roast dinners.
Eventually, I stumbled upon The Crown in Islington. No televisions, so not fully booked, still doing roast dinners, some half-decent reviews on Google, and only 35 minutes from where we were going to watch the football. I would thank the person on Twitter for the recommendation…but…erm…yeah. You knows.
Beth Mead
Oh what a time to be alive. Not only have we stopped Europeans coming over here, stealing our jobs and then stealing a job to lead the women’s team so that football could finally come home, but also we are about to have our 3rd woman Prime Minister. Behold the joy.
I did joke last time around that I’ll be back before Liz Truss is Prime Minister, and to be fair, I am back before she is Prime Minister. But I was joking in that I didn’t think she’d become Prime Minister. Oh well, it’ll be jokes for the blog – it isn’t exactly as if any potential leader of any political party is going to do anything to fix the biggest two problems in the UK – the housing crisis or the roast potato crisis.
Brexit, the housing crisis, the cost of living crisis, highest tax in 70 years, runaway inflation, prawn crackers imitating Yorkshire puddings and now apparently we cannot build any houses in west London because there isn’t the electricity supply and won’t be for 10 years. The UK is fucked to be in terminal, slow decline, isn’t it?

And was this Yorkshire pudding made before the Brexit vote? Yes, The Crown, I’m looking at you.
Gosh I didn’t even mention the NHS. Though I’m not the only one to forget it exists. I should probably stop being obese before I need to go on a decade-long waiting list for something.
But…but…football has come home! Well done to Boris Johnson for making sure that football could come home. They couldn’t have done it without you.

Georgia Stanway

The Crown had one of those old-school middle bars, with seating all around the edge. The bar had panels where drinks were stored between punter and staff, so that staff could have the excuse that they didn’t see how young/drunk/Tory the punters were and hence why they served them.
It also had quite a nice area out the front to watch the time go by in leafy Islington, whilst drinking a £7.60 pint of Soundwave – and girl was I happy to be getting a whole pint for just £7.60 after spending the previous weekend in Copenhagen. I’ve never used the “word” before, but you could say that Copenhagen is spenny.
Three options for roast dinners – sirloin of beef, loin of pork or turkey – priced between £17.50 and £19.75 – desperately trying to avoid the £20.00 mark. I went for the turkey, partly because Christmas is less than 5 months away, but also because it came with pigs in blankets.

Alas, it came with pig in blanket. And we had to chase them for the cauliflower cheese which they’d forgotten to put on our plates. Service was good though – they even provided the greens in a side-dish in case there were any peas. Service I cannot complain about. The food…well…
So the greens were a mixture of leek and cabbage – the latter had too much crunch for my personal tastes, and otherwise were quite bland. Edible, but boring.
The two slices of carrot were nicely roasted.
Lucy Clarke
The cauliflower cheese had some weird mush scraped on it, which I assume was the over-cooked cream/cheese. I didn’t mind it, but it was like the cheesy creamy stuff was poured on after the cauliflower was roasted. Odd, but acceptable.

A whole 6 roast potatoes were supplied – albeit very small. You might think that small roast potatoes would be more likely to be good, but not at The Crown. These were a mixture of chewy and undercooked – though one accomplice liked most of his.
I’ve already alluded to the Yorkshire pudding having the texture of a prawn cracker – I wonder how many weeks it was under a heat lamp? The bottom part of it was alright when soaked with enough gravy, and there was enough gravy…once extra arrived.
Embed from Getty ImagesYikes, I was just doing my summary and realised that I had forgotten to talk about the turkey. Yes, it was that memorable. It was fine, it didn’t offend – two fairly thick slices and only a tad dry.
The pigs in blankets were just a pig in blanket, and was rather anaemic. Pleasant enough.
I didn’t like the apricot and chestnut stuffing, apricot is the most over-rated fruit in the world – and fruit shouldn’t mix with savoury. Oh and I don’t like chestnuts. So this was never going to win me over. You might like it though. There was nothing wrong with it, per se.
And finally, the gravy. It did have a hint of granules about it, but that’s better than half the red wine jus gash that gets served up in far too many places. Somewhat salty but it resembled a gravy, and helped soften the disaster of a Yorkshire pudding, so I was content.
Well I know the names of three England players now, and the pub I went to was called The Crown.
Well, I guess the moral of the story is stick to the to-do list.
The Crown is a nice enough pub, they have a good little garden out front, the staff were good too. Plus they had Siren Soundwave on tap, which I appreciate in a way that my snobbish beer tastes won’t if too many places start doing so.
Alas, the roast dinner needs improvement. Only the carrot impressed. The roast potatoes were chewy and/or undercooked, the Yorkie had been stuck under a heat lamp for decades. Otherwise I didn’t hate the roast – I was hungry and there was plenty of food.
It was quite quiet in The Crown – perhaps because people were elsewhere due to the football, or maybe I’m not the only one who thinks they need to up their game.
Scores around the table were a 6.10, another 6.10 and a 6.50 out of 10.
I’m scoring it a pretty lowly 6.04 out of 10.
I’ll be back next week – going to one of the more recent additions to the to-do list with the North London Gravy Gang as we have named ourselves. I see your eyes rolling. But I like the name.

Zig A Zig…oh.
Summary:
The Crown, Islington
Station: Angel
Tube Lines: Northern
Fare Zone: Zone 1
Price: £17.50
Rating: 6.04
Loved & Loathed
Loved: The carrots were roasted nicely and they had a good beer on draught.
Loathed: The yorkie resembled a prawn cracker in texture, roasties were chewy. Same old complaints.
Where now, sailor?
Random roast review: The Claddagh Ring, Hendon

Is it fair to wonder if Kate is up for the pegging or is she farming this task out to a lady-in-waiting? I’m still uncertain how the class division works with butt stuff.
The rumours are that it is farmed out. The rumour as a whole is probably nonsense, but it is amusing to belive.