Roast Dinners in London

It was time to celebrate surviving civilisational erasure with a trip to The Morgan Arms in Bow.

STOP.

Bow. The home of two roast dinners that could have ended civilisations, that of The Angel Of Bow, and The Green Goose, the latter which had provided me with this bundle of joy:

Before I got to Sunday, I had to get through a bit of erosion of civilisation myself, with dinner at the Premier Inn at Gatwick Airport. I think my mother didn’t like the phone call she received from the transport police when I was 13 about my lunchtime activities (I was too shit to be allowed to play football, but nobody told me I was too shit to hang around on railway lines).

And hence I was like, “yeah of course I’d love to eat at the Premier Inn”. And queue in a line for an £8.15 pint of crappy “premium” Italian lager brewed in Dudley, surrounded by Brits Who Will Be On Tour Tomorrow, all going on holiday in the morning, and being very jolly about it.

Guess how many holidays I’m going on this month? Zero.

Guess how many holidays I’m going on next month? Ask Jet Fuel Genius over the pond, he who holds all the cards and why the HELL don’t Iran understand this THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER. Yes it could be the second time that my booked holiday to Japan gets cancelled, last time by China virus, this time Trump virus.

Can’t believe I’m sharing propaganda by a regime that just murdered 10’s of 1000’s of it’s own citizens but “Your government is run by pedophiles, they ordered you to die for Israel” does have a ring to it.

Your Government Is Run By Potatoes

So The Morgan Arms ended up on my to-do list fairly recently thanks to a recommendation from one of our gravy gang, though I only realised when I arrived that it was part of the Metropolitan Pub Co…who are owned by Greene King, who are hardly known for the gastro credentials.

Some Metropolitan Pub Co pubs used to do really good roast dinners, but they’ve suffered enshittification over the last year or so, and really I should know better than to add their pubs to my to-do list, in a similar way to which I became suspicious of Young’s pubs following so many watery gravy efforts.

It’s a nice pub inside, quite sizeable with arguably three separate areas, perhaps more I didn’t see. Beer choice was basic – I plumped for a Neck Oil and regretted every sip of the pint of washing up liquid.

On the menu was lemon and thyme chicken, either a quarter at £20.50 or a half at £23.50 – kudos to them for offering two different sizes. More please, dear pubs. Saddle of lamb at £24.50, pork loin at £21.00, beef rump at £23.50 or a wild mushroom and spinach strudel at £19.50.

There was a tiny bit of me tempted by the vegan, though also there’s a tiny bit of me tempted to trespass on railway lines sometimes – yesterday there was a stone on the sleeper that was disturbing me and I really wanted to move it with the rest of the stones and keep the pattern as it should be. Chill out…I’m not a moron. Well, not to that level.

The waitress recommended the pork to me very wholeheartedly, so that was my choice.

The Ordered You To Die For Gravy

Starting with the carrots, the orange in particular was very soft and looked like it had been cooked yesterday – or even before that, the purple was also soft, yet the yellow one was quite tough and somewhat uncooked.

Decent enough flavour, the advertised maple just about shining through.

The cavelo nero was chewy but had some pepper on – well, either that or it had enough of the peppery gravy on it.

There was also a tiny bit of onion puree which mostly just thickened part of the gravy and made it taste like onion gravy. Wouldn’t have been my choice but also nothing wrong with it.

Oooooh which day do you think the roast potatoes had been cooked?

They were at least edible. They looked like they had been crispy at one point (yesterday, maybe Friday, maybe last week), but they were soggy too. One tasted a bit stale, but I’ve had much, much worse. In Bow, let alone London.

Release The Epstein Files

By the way, I quite liked that The Morgan Arms was flexible on the booking, I could even update the time on the same day and they didn’t force me to update my will and grant them £20.00 if I died on the way there. A rare treat in London…you could probably even pop in without a booking, though it was busy. That said, it isn’t that good a roast dinner.

The Yorkshire pudding was mercifully small, a little floury but relatively freshly made. Decent enough.

Alas the pork loin managed both the meat being dry, and the crackling being soggy. Soggy crackling – probably even beyond the disgraces of the Trump Crime Family. A little bit of it was really dry and aged – it definitely hadn’t been cooked the same day either, though two bites of it on one side did have a little crunch to the crackling and some gooey joy going on. Again…this was probably very good on the day of cooking.

Stuffing! Yes, there was a coin of stuffing, not especially herby but had a crusty vibe – possibly my favourite thing on the plate.

And finally, the gravy – which tasted a bit watery. Likely actually made in the pub, probably had some cornflour or similar to thicken it as it had a good consistency. And quite peppery. So I part-liked it.

The Morgan Arms

More than probably any roast dinner I can remember (don’t expect me to remember all…sigh…370 of them) this had cooked the night/day/morning/week before vibes.

I’m used to roast potatoes being cooked the day before AND DO NOT APPROVE, but here the carrots and pork both seemed to have been cooked the day before too. Who knows, possibly everything was. Hospitality has secrets, don’t you know?

My accomplice had the beef which she enjoyed, “quite nice” I think were her words, and enjoyed it more than I enjoyed the pork. Her score was a 6.90.

And she also had some chocolate bomb thing with golden syrup and popping candy to which she described “was ok and the flavours worked but just a bit thrown together, probably bought in bulk”. I resisted dessert and that was my one correct decision at The Morgan Arms.

I quite liked two bites of the pork, and the ring of stuffing…that was about it really. But also nothing was that bad, nothing was burnt – just one carrot was undercooked.

Sure, the pork was dry, the crackling soggy and the roast potatoes a bit crap, but in the grand scheme of Bow it’s not that bad. In fact, it’s the best roast dinner in Bow. If you know better, let…me…KNOW. At least I find myself amusing.

Anyway, my score is a 6.21 out of 10.

Next week is a re-review of a very meaty place.