It was a big week for democracy. Not only did the Conservative Party have an excellent result in the local council elections that will be celebrated widely as showing that the people have trust in Boris Johnson, but also I went to the winner of The People’s Roast Vote – yes, you voted for me to go to The Mayflower Pub in Rotherhithe, and here I was.
Firstly though, I would like to congratulate Boris Johnson on LOSING only 467 council seats, despite political experts like myself apparently predicting a loss of up to 800,000 seats. What a fridge-tastic result, let’s show our support for Boris Johnson, stop banging on about tittle-tattle and let him get on with the job.
Obviously, Kier Starmer, whose party GAINED 129 council seats did very badly and now must be arrested and jailed for 10 years in a cell full of back-dated Daily Mails, because he had dinner one night when campaigning on a by-election (not in a fridge) during covid. BAD PERSON.
And the Liberal Democrats? Don’t mention them. We don’t have time for more than two political parties. Except in Northern Ireland. Or perhaps soon to be known, Ireland. Oops.
You’ll be pleased to know that I voted for the guy with the fabulous name, Sockalingum Yogalingum, and the wife of the Liberal Democrat councillor – because I thought it would be jokes.

Oops.
Why my area? Why is my area like one of the only two councils in the whole of the UK to be Tory gain? Is it something I said? Like “I’m never voting Tory again until they apologise for Brexit”. Now they are following me around. Maybe I should move to Islington.
And then the city I come from, the very, very Brexity city of Hull…did you see who won there?

Theresa Mayflower
Speaking of winners – this happened:
A huge 8 people nominated somewhere valid, and I just remembered that I promised to give £2.00 for every nomination to the DEC’s Ukraine appeal…hang on…done. I’m a man of my word.
And then a hugely bigly 58 people voted for where I should go. And managed to be polite about it. Well, I’m sure there’s a few chefs reading that want to tell me where to go…but that wasn’t an option.
The Mayflower Pub is a gorgeous pub with a history – even my most regular American reader knows the history about it. Alas, I went to school in Hull, so the only history I was ever taught was how fantastic the British Empire was, and also some crap about Tudors and Normans. Possible some Roundhead stuff also.
Anyway, I’ve had a quick read and basically those that sailed from this pub, that wasn’t called The Mayflower Pub back then, but the boat was, basically conquered America and created the government there, and we all lived happily ever after. Well, until people started serving burnt Yorkshire puddings.
So The Mayflower Pub is probably how every American imagines all British pubs to be…until they accidently step foot into a Wetherspoons. The features are gorgeous with the old wooden beams, wooden floorboards, old rugs, pictures or paintings in every possible spot – one nude spotted, I guess you could say “winning here”.
Even better than a view of a painted nude woman (and she was hot), was our view from the table, of the River Thames:

Brian Mayflower
I don’t have a photograph of the menu, as it was all on the chalkboard, and there were too many tourists in the way to photograph it without being a dick.
So from memory, we had beef sirloin, chicken, lamb and pork belly. I definitely remember that they had the pork belly as that is what I chose, for £18.50. Which for a tourist-heavy pub in times of high inflation seems respectable enough. And yes – tourists are back. I missed them. Honestly. At least the ones who stand on the right of the escalator.
And there was some vegetarian wellington thing. Which did get us talking about why do almost no pubs do meat wellingtons for roast dinners? Why is it almost always the same four meats? Why no duck or gammon? Or sausages? Or a sausage roll? Or kangaroo?

So starting with the carrots which had been roasted, were rather al dente and very ordinary.
You know, maybe I should have started with the enforced condiment. Please make condiments optional. One of my accomplices had his mint sauce in a little pot – yet my apple sauce was forced onto my plate. Minor gripe, but hey, a gripe.
We had some broccoli which was fine, I guess. Again on the crunchy side and again there is nothing else to say about it.
And finally for the fairly small collection of vegetables, there was some cabbage. Yep, again on the crunchy side and with no flavour. No salt, no pepper, no herbs, no butter – just cabbage.
Embed from Getty ImagesWe didn’t deserve someone as honourable as you, did we, Theresa?
Bettina Mayflower
The Yorkshire pudding was large and dry – just completely pointless batter with no softness or freshness. I do wonder what tourists think of it? And how they judge the British based on our over-sized, dry, pointless Yorkshire puddings.

The roast potatoes look really good, don’t they? But what appears to be crispy outsides are anything but – in reality they felt more soggy than anything else. One of my accomplices, who won roast dinner of the year in 2020, in my annual awards (I still intend on writing some for 2021), suggested that they had been made the night before – but he didn’t want to give away trade secrets.
Well.
I can confirm that I long ago worked out many pubs made roast potatoes the night before. The Mayflower Pub’s tasted acceptable, I’m sure the tourists won’t mind, but they were a disappointment to expectations, especially considering what they looked like. They were great once. So was Britain though.
Oh democracy. Why do you let me down so often?
Thankfully the pork belly was good, and just about rescued the roast from mediocrity. On the downside there was some inedible gristle inside, which I inelegantly had to rescue from my mouth before swallowing, but overall it was imperfectly enjoyable. The crackling was sometimes crispy, sometimes soft but good either way, the meat decent. I’ve had better – pork belly can be proper sexy and this wasn’t sexy. But it was by far the best part of the meal.
And no, the gravy wasn’t anything other than ordinary either. Minimal flavour, minimal consistency – quite possibly from a packet. Like Young’s standard gravy but a tiny bit more consistency.
The Mayflower Pub
So I guess I should say a big thank you to all 58 people who voted in the People’s Roast Vote. At least you did better than the previous time when you sent me to The Hand In Hand in Wimbledon – which scored a 4.98 out of 10.
This was like the People’s Roast Vote equivalent of the Tories winning the next election but with only a tiny majority.
The biggest issue was the blandness. It was the roast dinner that seasoning forgot. Maybe all the tourists will be very happy. They’ve ticked off “British Sunday roast” in a historic (and gorgeous) pub.
The only real highlight was the pork belly – though the roast potatoes would have been excellent had they been served on the same day that they were made. Everything else was offensively inoffensive.
It isn’t a bad roast dinner – it was just bland and mediocre. Scores from my accomplices were a 7.00 and a 6.20 (the latter having had the lamb, which was dry and overcooked).
My score is a 6.86 out of 10. Gorgeous pub, friendly staff, but average roast dinner. If you’ve never been to The Mayflower Pub then definitely go. But maybe have a roast elsewhere, unless you like it bland.
Next week, I’m going for a roast dinner. I know nothing about the place and nobody has voted for me to go there. Hopefully it’s cheap given how much I’ve lost on the stock market recently.

Invest for your future, they said. I wish I had spent it on fine dining, hookers and drugs.
Summary:
The Mayflower Pub, Rotherhithe
Station: Canada Water
Tube Lines: Jubilee
Fare Zone: Zone 2
Price: £18.50
Rating: 6.86
Loved & Loathed
Loved: The pub has a proper, gorgeous feel to it - the pork belly was good also.
Loathed: It was all a bit bland - like the roast dinner that seasoning forgot. You could say, offensively inoffensive.
Well, the pub can at least say it ticks off all the American boxes:
We look good
but we’re bland.
Sorry we sent you to Dullsville. At least the view was British….oh wait, there’s a curled up American flag in the picture. We’ve done it again…and ruined everything nice.
Even the roast dinner I had in San Diego was better 😉