There’s a heatwave and I need a roast dinner. It was time to go to The Queens in Crouch End. The Queens…Peter Crouch…

Yeah maybe not.
On the other hand, who fancies a roast dinner in 30’C heat in the middle of September? I do.
And who fancies sitting in a beer garden, eating a roast dinner in 30’C heat in the middle of September? Aha. I do.
And who fancied walking up a hill from Crouch Hill station in 30’C heat in…
Yeah maybe not.
Unless…instead of merging them, maybe they got married?

Yeah maybe not.
God Save Our Gracious Roast Dinner
So you know how I’ve pretty much been sent to earth by fairies to ensure that not only the standard of roast potatoes in London vastly improves, gravy kicks the jus off the plates, and the British roast dinner becomes the world’s favourite cuisine?
Well, it seems that I might be the problem.
Yes, apparently the woke agenda, of which I am a proud part and even came out as such last Christmas to my family, is killing the roast dinner. Sorry, the Great British roast dinner. Also quite touched that a publication of such turd has an equally turd photograph of a roast dinner.
Granted that this is the 266th roast dinner review in which I’ve had a total of 265 meat roast dinners – the only other one being a vegan roast that I had because Halloween, but still WOKE AGENDA KILLiNG ROASTDIN NER.
Shall I open the article? OK, I’ll do it for you.

Wow, the chutzpah. Notifications? A ha ha ha ha, as if.
Long Live Our Noble Roast Dinner
Guess how related the headline is to the article? Tenuous would be generous, “…survey by the organisation [RSPCA] found that 58 per cent of people in the UK have reduced their meat consumption”. The survey asked fuck all to do with roast dinners.
People are reducing their meat consumption? How terrible. I’ve gone from eating a bacon sandwich with two sausages for breakfast every day in my 20’s, to eating fruit for breakfast almost every day in my 40’s. It’s called trying to live longer by being (somewhat) healthier. Plus, meat is expensive and some assholes campaigned for Britain to get poorer 7 years ago, sorry I mean to leave the EU, and look where we are now. POORER.
So I arrived at The Queens, rather sweaty, without a table booked – as you cannot book a table for one. Thankfully and possibly worryingly, the pub was very quiet – yet with more than sufficient staff. Remember those post-covid days where it was virtually impossible to find anyone to take your order?
It was a friendly welcome, and they suggested the garden being a nice place to sit in the sunshine, which it was.

Given that it was probably the last time that I’ll get to sit in the sunshine, in the UK, this year and drink a beer, I thought best not to miss the opportunity. Although I remember last autumn having multiple “one last drinking session outside before winter”.
Beer choice was for the most part uninspiring – a cacophony of 1990’s styles, though a pint of Yes was refreshing, at least for the first 10 minutes before my cold beer was no longer cold.

Send Lord Gravy Victorious
I probably should have ordered the shoulder of lamb, as it is becoming increasingly rare on a menu, but I baulked at paying £26.00 for a roast in a fairly ordinary pub, especially with it being a 5 weekend month and my going on holiday soon.
Likewise the sirloin of beef at £25.00, so I went for the porchetta at £21.50 – which is what I most wanted anyway, though it does break my rule of not having the same meat two weeks in a row. It’s bad enough that you have to read about the same dinner every week, let alone the same meat.
But at least porchetta is pretending to be different to pork belly.
Someone asked me the other day, what my Death Row meal would be. “Surely a roast dinner?”, he enquired. I couldn’t answer him. Surely I could suggest something surprising? “Nah, tacos, mate, with a side of tofu salad”.

What wasn’t surprising was to be eating carrots – for if a roast dinner doesn’t have carrots, is it even a roast dinner? There was plenty of them, softly roasted with a fleck or two of thyme, and a fennel seed. Decent.
Then we had a medley of green vegetables – green beans, cabbage and mange tout. I’m not going to describe them individually as I’m pretty sure they were boiled together and therefore blended into one. Soft, lacking crunch, but pleasant with the gravy.
Stuffed With Gravy On His Nipples
A steak as my Death Row meal would be tempting. Especially with peppercorn sauce – the best of which can compete with gravy for my most want to lick off her nipples sauce (obviously not on Death Row). But that’s also pretty obvious a choice.
I did have some damn fine tapas the other day – perhaps the best ever tapas outside of Spain, at Jose Pizarro.




The potato salad with carrots and confit tuna belly was pretty astonishing, as were the prawn fritters. But for my Death Row meal? Surely it has to be a roast dinner? Anyway, if you like tapas – you must go here.
You won’t be too surprised that the roast potatoes at The Queens were DFF, which in my world sadly doesn’t mean Down For Fucking, it means Deep Fat Fryer.

They might not have been. But they were suspiciously large and uniform – although soft on the inside, they also had a tiredness about them. Were they transported in a large sack in a Brakes van, with or without any prisoner underneath them, then stored in a freezer for the week, before put in a deep fat fryer, then we are probably reaching some level of truth.
The Yorkshire pudding was very much on the crispy side and also somewhat tired – somehow I’ve managed to miss it off all my photographs so you will need to trust me. It was only slightly burnt though, and I ate some of it.
Thankfully the porchetta was relatively down for fucking – it was semi-sexual. Only semi, as it was dry in places, and missing the gooey crunch of the crackling, yet it was still fairly wonderfully gluttonous, along with being generously chunky in size. By some way the highlight – as it should be.
Despite the stuffing being fruity, I didn’t mind it. It was soft and a little crumbly – yet juicy with the apple coming through much more than the sage.
And finally, the gravy. It was notably watery – I didn’t need to order any extra though I came close. A kind of meat stock affair, though I stress the watery side.
Long To Keep Reviewing For Us, Lord Gravy Save The Roasts. Urgh. Nobody reads these headings, right?
It wouldn’t be a pizza or fish and chips, either. Maybe it would be a roast dinner. Would your Death Row meal be a roast dinner? It should be a roast dinner. Shouldn’t it?
The Queens provided a pretty decent roast dinner, if you forget the probably deep fried roast potatoes, and I shall try to.
Semi-sexual pork belly, good carrots, watery but meaty gravy – there’s enough to command the roast dinner at The Queens, if not enough to be especially excited about it.
It’s worth a score of…hmmm…7.29 out of 10.
So. Death Row. It’s a roast dinner. A Blacklock roast dinner. But I want some changes. I want a Blacklock roast dinner, but with the Cote De Boeuf (9 flaming attempts to get the spelling right today) from The Harwood Arms. With Blacklock’s cheesecake. Ahhh dreams. And then GB News can execute me…no more woke roast dinner reviewers killing the Great British roast dinner by eating fruit on a Monday morning.
I should be back next week, before I fly out to España, logistics depending.

Not getting a knighthood anyway, am I?
Summary:
The Queens, Crouch End
Station: Crouch Hill
Tube Lines: Overground
Fare Zone: Zone 3
Price: £21.50
Rating: 7.29
Loved & Loathed
Loved: Porchetta was semi-sexual, if perhaps a tad dry in places.
Loathed: Roast potatoes seemed deep fried, and quite possible pre-prepared and from a freezer.
Where now, sailor?
Random roast review: Cora Pearl, Covent Garden

The beer is smiling……..I’m overjoyed by this. Now I must go a have smiling beer.
And it is called Yes! A pint of Yes, please.