The Railway, Teddington

Skip The Nonsense

This weekend’s adventure was to another un-reviewed area of London – Teddington, and a visit to The Railway.

And after months of unrelenting cloud, it was actually sunny. OMG let’s have a hug.

Yep, no cancellation of diversity and inclusion around here – check out the multi-ethnic lesbian hug action.

And after, ooooh, minutes of vapid bating by a man who fucks sofas, and the Orange Pol Pot, it was equally wonderful to feel the hug from Kier Starmer.

Big hug from the UK (and all of Europe I’m sure).

— Jessica Salmon (@jessicajsalmon.bsky.social) 2025-03-01T20:22:19.298Z

Did you feel the hug too? It’s a good job I wasn’t drinking the day before or I might have been in tears on the train on the way home, and not just because every single one of the 5 trains I caught had some kind of delay or unwelcome human intervention.

And after, ooooh, months of watery gravy and roast potatoes made the day before, could I actually…like…just once…

Flying Scotsman

Given my run of poor roast dinners, I’m at the point where I just want thick gravy or decent roast potatoes. Just one or the other will do.

The Railway was a recommendation by my manager, so I guess this is an early clue as to what my end of year rating will be. Surely if he rates me as a software engineer, then he wouldn’t recommend anywhere with watery gravy…right?

Gosh a bit of sunshine and I’ve gone all soppy – and yes I’m pretty much ignoring that the most powerful country in the world is now actively cultivating it’s status as an enemy of the whole of Europe, cosying up to Putin, releasing an AI-video of men with beards in bikinis in Gaza worshipping King Trump, started selling citizenships to Russian oligarchs, arranged the return of alleged rapists from Romania, completely undermined cybersecurity in the USA and hence the whole world by stopping all investigations of Russian hacking…

Oh and fucking selling those baseball caps from the White House.

Isn’t it time for him to go on a golfing holiday? A very long one? Oh, he’s been spending lots of time playing golf too. Rightio.

Not that there’s anything wrong with men wearing make-up. Maybe something less orange though…

Intercity 125

So here I was, Teddington. One of those weird places with like two trains an hour so I walked from Twickenham, in the glorious early spring sunshine.

I was in such a good mood that I even helped a disabled man, who was struggling to hold doors open, get into a Wetherspoons. I was quite proud of myself for doing a good deed and not just walking by, but then I later questioned whether helping someone get into a Wetherspoons really was a good deed.

The Railway was noticeably busy – everywhere was this weekend, including all the trains I caught, as if the sunshine had actually woken London up, in the same way that Trump enacting Putin’s American election manifesto might have woken up Europe…maybe…

Quite a bright pub inside, light colours and exposed brickwork was the theme. It might have even been quite bright inside on any of the previous 137 Sundays that have been cloudy.

The top of the menu at The Railway scared me at first – £70 for a fucking chicken roast dinner – what kind of place is Teddington?

But these were the sharing roasts…not sure I’ve ever seen such an extensive list of sharing roasts.

The Mallard

Thankfully there were individual roasts at the bottom – sirloin of beef at £25.00, rump of lamb at £24.00, slow roasted pork belly at £23.00, chicken breast and stuffing at £22.00, and two vegan/veggie roasts at £19.00 or £20.00. Disappointed that they didn’t have anything at £21.00 to keep the numeric order, but there are worse issues in roast dinner world right now.

I quite fancied lamb, so that was my choice – no indecision for me, which is quite unusual.

It did feel a tiny bit rushed at The Railway, our waiter was friendly and helpful with our various requests, though it did seem as though he was taking our food order before I’d even thought about food. And our roasts didn’t take too long to arrive, say 10-15 minutes.

Kudos for actually making a roast dinner look quite, erm, phallic. And yes, that isn’t browed water on the plate. Could it be the first excellent roast dinner of 2025?

Let’s start with the carrots, which were quite baby-sized and really flavoursome in terms of the honey glaze. Soft to eat too. Best carrot of 2025?

Then there was a cabbage and…urgh…stray pea medley. I cannot say I was that bothered about the cabbage, and the peas were somewhat infuriating to have to pick out.

Ahhh I feel good now though. Though I also felt good eating the deep fried parsnip – an unusual idea but it worked, perhaps with polenta on the outside to help give it a bit of crisp, plus the parsnip itself was flavoursome.

Thomas The Tank Engine

The cauliflower cheese tasted quite cheesy but was rather mushy…well…very mushy.

Then, our first miracle.

Firstly, before I get accused of not being thankful enough, I’d like to thank Donald Trump, JD Vance and all the American people for supplying crispy roast potatoes for my roast dinner this week. Myself and all my readers are eternally grateful for your support.

I really am thankful. Thank you. THANK YOU.

Yes these actually were excellent roast potatoes. Crispy on the outside but not too much, fluffy on the inside and guess what day they were cooked? Today! A miracle. What? I did thank you over and over…

— Mira of Kyiv 🇺🇦 (@reshetz.bsky.social) 2025-03-02T05:43:43.876Z

Continuing with relative miracles, even the Yorkshire pudding was pretty good. A tad overcooked, just a tad but overall pretty fluffy, especially away from the slightly dried top, and in the grand scheme of things in the roast dinner world (or the world in general) were pretty damn good.

Then onto the lamb rump, which was probably a bit too much of a challenge for a blogger without any top teeth (just two more roasts until I can chew meat properly). Overall it was pretty gorgeous, the more meaty bits were glorious, though in places there was too much fat to be easily enjoyed in my temporary predicament. Well seasoned, especially with salt, I really liked the charring around the edge too.

Finally, the gravy. Actual proper gravy – better than anything I had in 2024, let alone 2025 so far. A proper, glorious, thick, northern gravy, hearty and herby with a fair amount of seasoning going on too. This is the kind of gravy that improves everything (well, almost, JD Vance would still look like an sanity imposter with a jug of gravy) – but the roast was already excellent anyway.

The Railway

Has the sun gone to my head? Has Kier Starmer’s hug affected the wiring of my brain?

Surely there is something to moan about? At best, I can complain about the hidden peas and the cauliflower cheese being mushy. That’s it.

My accomplice, who hadn’t joined me on roast duty since before the pandemic (him moving to London probably means we’ll have another one before the next pandemic) was highly in praise of his nut roast – apparently a mixture of seeds, potato and stuff.

His rating was a very commendable 9.00.

My other accomplice, first time joining, had warned me that she was a harsh critic – something to which I whole-heartedly approve of, at least until she looked at my website and asked where my newsletter sign-up is (erm, coming soon one year) and where the link to my Instagram page is (erm…yeah but my largest contentful paint is just 1.1s and my total blocking time during load is just 20ms).

The weird things are gluten-free Yorkshire puddings – fair play to The Railway for doing them, I think most places just don’t bother? And she scored hers between a 7 and an 8, but a bit closer to a 7. So a 7.40.

I’m really fucking happy. Can you believe it? So happy that I was about to smile in public for the first time since 1987 until I remembered I have no top teeth.

Crispy roast potatoes, thick meaty gravy, really good lamb (if a tad fatty in some spots), the best carrots of the year…WHO IS THIS WRITING? My score is an earth-shattering 8.58 out of 10.

The best roast dinner of 2025 so far…ok faint praise, but the 11th best roast dinner in London that is still available to order (ie not closed down), out of 323 reviews.

Alas…you have to go to Teddington though.

So I guess my boss doesn’t want to get rid of me after all. I’ll be back next week…no plans at the time of writing.