The Store, Croydon

After a week in the Algarve in Portugal, eating Portuguese classics such as chicken salad, steak, eggs benedict and chicken wrapped in bacon, it was time to come back home for a roast dinner. This time at The Store in Croydon.

But we nearly didn’t get onto the plane.

Chart showing the 30% of people think Brexit was right, 57% wrong.

Yep, the gift that keeps on giving struck again at Faro airport.

Through security in no time, then onto a never-ending queue for passport control. Yep, EU passports going straight through.

It took around an hour to get through passport control to leave Portugal, which looking through Twitter seems fairly respectable. 10 minutes more, and I wouldn’t have been having a roast dinner in Croydon.

And to think that I just bought a house in Portugal.

A little toy house
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Storing Up Trouble

Arriving back at Gatwick, especially after a semi-traumatic passport control experience, meant I was in no mood to head into London to find a roast dinner.

I’d recently had an e-mail to state that the semi-luxurious (for Croydon) Fern opposite East Croydon station had started doing roast dinners. In the morning they had plenty of spare tables online, so I just thought I’d stroll in and chance it.

I strolled in, and they were fully booked. Allegedly. Many empty tables, no reserved signs – maybe they just didn’t want a solo diner. Maybe she was jealous of my sun tan. Of course, it wasn’t meant to be an easy day.

Hmmm. My back-up plan was The Store – one of those 87th generation of Shoreditch lookalike bars, a style that seemed to have made it to Doncaster before it made it to Croydon – you know, the stripped back walls kinda vibe. Lots of effort going into looking like not much effort was made.

The Store is, according to their website, “not quite a pub, not quite a restaurant but an eclectic mix of the two” which kind of reminds me of people who say their music taste is “eclectic”, by which they tend to mean a bit of Westlife and a bit of Dua Lipa.

Inside The Store in Croydon
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I didn’t expect a free table, as it has always looked busy when I walked by – it’s the kind of place you can take your parents to for inoffensive food and pleasant enough service. Like a Young’s pub.

Therefore, it never made it to my to-do list, unlike Fern, as I never expected it to be particularly good. Yet they had a free table – plenty of free tables in fact. Thankfully, as my back-up back-up plan was an Irish pub…and you know what happened the last time I went to an Irish pub.

Yeah. Portugal.

You saw, I store

I had a magical holiday in Portugal, thanks for asking.

But the food was of variable interest – anything that wasn’t fish didn’t meet expectations, fish bettered expectations most of the time – except when they were putting balsamic glaze on a gorgeous piece of tuna.

Tuna with a balsamic glaze on it...why?
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Whhhhhhhhhhhy?

It did feel like they were catering for Britain in the 1990’s on the Algarve, at least in terms of cuisine and entertainment. Or perhaps the rest of the country is still in the 1990’s?

Yet it was still a beautiful area, so beautiful that I could lay back and dream of…Croydon.

Reading Croydonopolis at the beach in Portugal.
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I was dreaming so much that I wondered if having gone 5 months without giving an 8+ rating out, and having not had anything particularly special to eat in Portugal, that I might come back to Croydon and have the best roast dinner ever.

I did drink quite a bit on holiday.

What’s The Story

Roast dinner menu at The Store, Croydon
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Roast dinner for less than £20.00? That’s so Croydon – and only £2.00 more than I paid on the Algarve.

I was feeling particularly bloated after eating out twice a day for a week, so I went for the chicken at £17.00. Notably my holiday accomplice went home for a salad instead of joining me…clearly wasn’t so worried about missing out on the first 8+ rated roast dinner for 5 months.

Other choices included rump of beef at £19.00, and a mushroom and spinach wellington at £17.00.

Chicken roast dinner at The Store, Croydon
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Yeah, that’s not an 8+ rated roast dinner, is it? Sorry for the spoiler.

Starting with the carrot which was a little less cooked than I’d prefer, and had that similar taste/crunch as uncooked carrot in a salad has.

Tenderstem broccoli was pretty ordinary, but there was nothing wrong with it.

Likewise the cabbage – ordinary and lacking any particular flavour or seasoning (seasoning isn’t something that touched much of this roast).

Are Your Yorkshire Puddings In Storage

Chicken Sunday roast at The Store, Croydon
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The roast potatoes weren’t actually that bad – likely cooked on the same day – I know – shocker, some evidence of crispy edges in places, some softness inside – though one was somewhat undercooked.

Cautious miracles didn’t extend to the Yorkshire pudding, which may not have been made on the same day. It had quite a horrid texture, like an old thick pancake, though still with a yorkie structure.

Mixed thoughts on the chicken – the leg part was puny, though there was a miracle in terms of some seasoning – I detected salt on the skin! Whoa. The breast was not so puny, but on the dry side. Meh.

Finally, the gravy, which was pretty wank and watery – and tasted of little.

A puppet with a large penis that sticks out when you pull the string
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The Store, Croydon

Ahhh welcome back to Croydon, Lord Gravy.

I didn’t ever especially think The Store would do a particularly good roast dinner, so as such it met expectations.

Everything was fairly lacking in flavour and seasoning, the chicken leg puny and breast dry, the yorkie vapid and the gravy watery nonsense that had less flavour than water. But, I did quite like the roast potatoes – and nothing was burnt.

Maybe it is worth a 5.85 out of 10.

I quite like the venue, they do provide something a bit nicer and more middle class for Croydon, £7.50 cocktails in happy hour is appealing, a Friday brunch at £13.00 is decent value – plus I had a pretty good pale ale here, not sure what it was – the waitress described it as “local pale ale”. I was too tired to question further. But they do need to work on their roast dinner, for my tastes.

No roast in London again next Sunday, as, erm, I’ll be in Budapest, but hopefully having a roast dinner there, as I say goodbye to my crystal meth teeth. Which will mean that I’ll have had more holidays than really good roast dinners this year.

That’ll change, right?

Hope and salvation on the Jesus The Answer van in Croydon
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Summary:

The Store, Croydon

Station: East Croydon

Tube Lines: National Rail

Fare Zone: Zone 5

Price: £17.00

Rating: 5.85

Get Booking

https://thestorecroydon.com/

Instagrim

Loved & Loathed

Loved: Well I quite liked the roast potatoes. And nothing was burnt.

Loathed: Everything was fairly lacking in flavour and seasoning, the chicken leg puny and breast dry, the yorkie vapid and the gravy watery nonsense that had less flavour than water

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