The Market Porter, London Bridge

Please note that this review is from November 14, 2022 and may be out of date...restaurants sometimes get better, get worse, employ a new chef or end up with new management.

Whilst you were all debating whether to leave the confines of Twitter, I was leaving my home to go for a roast dinner at The Market Porter in London Bridge – a pub that I’ve often walked past, it being on the edge of Borough Market, yet never been inside.

You know, some people have actually not only said they were leaving Twitter but have left Twitter. How do I know? Well, I’m sad enough to track un-followers, and most of them are deleted accounts.

But also someone sent me a super sweet message to say how much they’d enjoyed my roast dinner content. There’s always one that’ll appreciate you.

Don’t worry. I’m staying on Twitter. I say this like you are on Twitter…or that you care. You may not be a fan of Elon Musk but you could possibly console yourself with how much money he’s lost so far over this dumbass billionaire purchase, and the negative effect that it has had on Tesla’s share price.

Besides, Twitter at its heart, is the home of comedy:

Tweet: This is not something to joke about.
Tweet: It's not a joke, it came from a verified account

Besides the besides, I’ve tried other platforms.

Instagram? “love this”, “follow me back”, “yum yum”, “nom nom nom” – is there a 12 character limit on there or something?

Facebook? Not sure my followers are old enough.

Reddit? Yeah…I tried Reddit. Look what happened:

Reddit comment - "You need to tighten up your copy. Get rid of the politics, concentrate on the roast. Needs better adjectives: nice and good won't cut it. I don't feel I actually learnt anything about the place or the meal."

Give me a portal to perfect roast potatoes

Fucking 11 upvotes too. Not mentioned politics yet though today…

Fine. I’ll talk about the fucking place. And the fucking meal.

I had no friends this Sunday. I was supposed to be going to an Irish pub which seems exceptionally scary from some of the Google photographs – alas my proposed accomplices caught something called covid that they didn’t want to spread. Sounds worrying, but hopefully they’ll be OK. And I was far too scared to go there on my own.

So, instead, I booked a table for one at The Market Porter near Borough Market. You’ll probably know the pub – if you walk past on a workday evening it is heaving outside even in a blizzard (not that we have blizzards any more, but just pretend) – as I mentioned in the pre-tangent introduction, I’ve often walked past but never been tempted inside.

The ground floor of The Market Porter was kind of an old school pub affair, quite dark and dingy – you know, how pubs used to be before the stock-market was invented. Oh and before Instagrim.

We’re talking creaky stairs, hidden toilets, sticky tables – graffiti only written in biro, advising that Rishi Sunak is a…oh yeah…”GET RID OF THE POLITICS”. Stick to what you know (or don’t).

I was kind of expecting Foster’s and Carling to be on the taps when I went up, but instead we had the modern average of Beavertown – however I did find a Four Pure hazy, which is respectable for a fairly common modern IPA, priced I think at £6.40 – it could be worse.

I was advised to head upstairs to the dining room. I headed upstairs to the dining room.

The Market Porter, London Bridge, dining room
© Copyright – Roast Dinners In London 2022

Give me a portal to a beach with sexy señoritas

Upon arriving upstairs, I asked at the bar where I was sat – and they duly pointed me to a nice hidden table. So hidden that it took 10 minutes for the waitress to find me, despite slowly walking past multiple times.

She then asked if I had booked a table, I advised that I had and would like a menu.

She then asked me to go sit on another table, which confused me, “it’s just that all our tables are booked.”. Yeah…and I was shown to a new table.

I moved and the next table was less sticky. Alas, it was very wobbly.

“It’s just you right?”.

Don’t rub it in. Maybe next year is the year that I find my sexy Spanish girlfriend living in London who also loves Sunday roasts. Or at least have a slightly greater rota of friends in London to deal with me. Though one of the few benefits of dining alone, is that I get chance to take notes, not having to worry about conversation.

The Market Porter, London Bridge, roast dinner menu
© Copyright – Roast Dinners In London 2022

Let’s tackle the elephant in the room, or on the menu, anyway. Chips. Why would anyone want a side of chips with their roast dinner?

OK, maybe it is more aimed at those not having a roast dinner – so those ordering burger and chips might want a side of chips? Or those ordering fish and chips might want a side of chips?

Chippy Non Stop (a DJ)

Give me a portal to sexy gravy

I ordered the chicken roast at a price of £18.00, at which point I realised that the waitress could possibly read my notes if she could read 6px text upside down.

Two minutes later, she fixed my wobbly table. Hmmm.

The Market Porter, London Bridge, chicken roast dinner
© Copyright – Roast Dinners In London 2022

Gosh, evidence of crispy roast potatoes, but let’s talk about carrots first, as is tradition. A couple of vertical slices of roasted carrot, however they weren’t quite fully cooked inside. Not bad per se…actually am I allowed to use “bad”? OK, not as deficient as a Conservative…oh GET RID OF THE POLITICS. OK, not as inferior as they could have been, but definitely needed a little longer in the oven.

The parsnips were thoroughly undercooked to the point of being distressingly raw. Quite large, but such a disappointment, such a waste of parsnip.

There was loads of cabbage, rather crunchy cabbage. You know what it could have done with? A bit more cooking. That said, it was edible, it was at least cooked to the point of being acceptable, and there was a buttery flavour to it too.

Embed from Getty Images

So the roast potatoes…guess what? They were undercooked inside, and somewhat dry, but the outside had some evidence of crisp – there was actual proper effort to make roast potatoes here, just that they hadn’t quite cooked them long enough. One roastie even had proper nice nice nice nice nice good good good nice nice good nice crispy outside.

NICE. NICE. NICE. GOOD.

GOOD.

Nice. Nice. Nice. Good.

Good.

Give me a portal to a thesaurus

Guess what else?

The Market Porter, London Bridge, chicken Sunday roast
© Copyright – Roast Dinners In London 2022

The Yorkshire pudding wasn’t undercooked! Woohoo!

Alas, it was overcooked – the top part was burnt and tasted burnt. The bottom of the yorkie I did eat, though without much enjoyment.

Given the theme so far, ordering chicken seemed unwise in retrospect.

And this proved true as I inspected the drumstick, which had that scary pink and undercooked look towards the bone.

The thigh was just about cooked through, the breast definitely was – I didn’t miss the drumstick as the chicken was plump and plentiful, the breast and thigh both pretty fresh. Maybe the skin needed a little crisping, and I only vaguely noted the lemon flavour – I didn’t notice the alleged thyme.

Finally, the gravy was passably good, if lacking volume. Not much depth to the flavour, but I kind of like a simple gravy – at least more than an overpowering jus. Not a gravy to get excited about, it may well have just been granules, but it was acceptable and had a fair consistency.

Give me a portal to a very good roast dinner

When was the last time I rated a roast dinner above an 8? July. Nearly 4 months ago. The day before the heatwave.

When was the last time I rated a roast dinner above a 7.5? Early August. Over 3 months ago.

This is quite some form of relative disappointment that I’m on.

You’ve probably worked out the theme here. It would have been a respectably appealing roast if everything was cooked a little more. As it was, the roast at The Market Porter was just a bit frustrating, as they just needed to do their job a little more to crack it – even the roast potatoes were on the way to being successful. I suspect some Sundays, this is a good roast dinner.

But I’m not reviewing potential, I’m not reviewing “if they had cooked it long enough”. I’m reviewing reality. Compliments are relative, though the gravy and the cooked parts of the chicken were decent – the undercooked parsnips a real waste of food, burnt yorkie, undercooked roasties (bar the occasional crispy edges) – kind of like the online lottery games where you are one gem away from winning on every row.

It was disappointment enough for me to be brave and mention that the parsnips were undercooked to the waitress – who bar the introductory 10 minutes (I guess the bar staff broke the system by sending me to the wrong table) was actually really pleasant and efficient.

My score is a 6.07 out of 10.

I should be back next week, but I’m relying on our railway network getting me home from Manchester in time for a late afternoon roast dinner…somewhere near a train station no doubt.

I’ll leave you with some culture, for those who love their chips.

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Summary:

The Market Porter, London Bridge

Station: London Bridge

Tube Lines: Jubilee, National Rail, Northern

Fare Zone: Zone 1

Price: £18.00

Rating: 6.07

Get Booking

https://themarketporter.co.uk/

Instagrim

Loved & Loathed

Loved: Gravy was acceptable and had a fair consistency

Loathed: Carrots were undercooked, roast potatoes were undercooked, cabbage was a bit undercooked and the parsnips were very undercooked. Oh and the yorkie was burnt.

One response to “The Market Porter, London Bridge

  1. Regarding the chips: I used to love Obertelli in Leadenhall Market. You could choose whatever combination of food and sides you wanted from the big board. My choice was often lasagna and chips. Delicious. But perhaps not added to a roast.

    Reddit-guy doesn’t know what he is talking about. There are reviews of roasts in other places but the roast/politics/Spanish señorita combo is only to be found here.

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