Can I get through a whole review of The Whippet Inn in Kensal Rise, without making a joke about whipping your willy out?
First, let’s hear from our sponsors this week (do unmute if you can):
Born, born to eat roast dinners.
Born to eat roast dinners.
I used to think I contributed sufficiently to keep the original spirit of the internet alive, though granted I never contributed to Rate My Poo.
But now, I feel totally overshadowed by a man in sunglasses feeding a pig.
Whip it out
So it was to Kensal Rise this week, and The Whippet Inn in particular – added to the to-do list due to something I read on Threads (follow me, hint hint because fuck Elon Musk) a few months ago, and it looked like it stacked up from reading the reviews.
First thing to note – crap beer choice. Brixton, Neck Oil – I was kind of surprised that the bartender was offering me the opportunity to taste them like I was in a craft beer place and had never seen Neck Oil before.
Yeah, I had that kind of look.
On the flip side, they had a little sun-trap of a garden out back, plus reasonable levels of air conditioning inside for once we’d coped with our 30 minutes of sunshine.
Other than these notes it was a pretty ordinary, quite large pub – also with a terrace out the front which I imagine is great for people watching, perhaps very much so on carnival weekend.
On the roast menu was sirloin of beef at £26.00, pork belly at £21.00, chicken at £21.00, some vegan thing at £18.00 and also a trio of meats at £27.50. Also some sharing lamb thing but gosh I cannot be bothered with them at the best of times, let alone on a hot, hungover day.
It was several years since I’ve had a vegan roast dinner, and several weeks since I’d had pork belly – so I went with the pork belly.
Whip it around
The roast took a good 15-20 minutes to arrive after ordering.
Although it was pointed out to me that I started with the cabbage yesterday, I shall start by writing about the carrot which was long, a tad overly-roasted as the tip was a bit burnt, but otherwise pretty pleasant.
The cabbage was good, savoy cabbage, perhaps a little on the soggy side.
Also the mashed swede was pretty decent, a little buttery though I don’t really have much else to add…maybe some seasoning would have helped though.
We also had an exceptionally long parsnip (can we blame the weather?) which had exceptional flavour – but was quite burnt and rather chewy.
Jump Around
Anyway, this is fucking boring isn’t it?
Let’s speak to our AI overlords to try to eradicate the evil of peas.
You actually do want to know how shit the roast potatoes were, don’t you?
They looked good – they even had some pepper and thyme on.
But in reality, they were shite. Like, they were shite last Sunday when they were first roasted, and were even shiter this Sunday once they had been re-roasted.
Sometimes I think going early for a roast dinner is an advantage, but those eating roasts after us looked to have roast potatoes cooked the same day. Ours had clearly been cooked multiple times, were exceptionally crispy and managed to taste stale too.
Turd.
Jump up and wave your willy around
Things didn’t get much better with the Yorkshire pudding which had been under a heat lamp and was quite dried out – though it was edible, if a bit on the greasy side.
So, for the pork…hang on…
BORN…
BORN TO EAT ROAST DINNERS.
BORN TO EAT ROAST DINNERS.
Yes I watched every video on Friday evening after a work social, which was after I managed to persuade fellow engineers to make a roast dinner game in Godot, where it would be game over if your plate touch the peas. Oh and what was the pork belly like?
Well…crispy. It was over-cooked, the crackling was very crispy, the bottom couple of milimetres were kind of grey kind they’d been sat around vaping ketamine whilst watching Tik Tok videos for even longer than I – yet I still quite enjoyed it.
And finally, the gravy was actually really good. Quite a decent level of consistency, quite a meat-stock type and kind of rescued a roast dinner somewhat.
By the way, I’ve bought the domain “stopthesmallboats.co.uk”. Can you guess what I’m going to do with it? Clue – it won’t be anything to do with boats on the English Channel.
The Whippet Inn
Ahhhh, you may breathe a sigh of relief, you’ve made it to the end of this nonsense.
Well, I could mention the other meats. This is the photo of the beef that we saw them take for Instagrim:
And, this is what one accomplice received:
Apparently some of the beef was nice, but some of it was chewy. Two accomplices also had the trio, and the quote was “basic fucking chicken”.
Yep, The Whippet Inn got some things badly wrong – notably the horrendous roast potatoes that had been cooked weeks ago, and the dried-out yorkie. Yet the veg was mostly decent enough, and the gravy was by some way the best thing on the plate, which kind of resuced it. Kind of.
Worth also mentioning the Malbec which was surprisingly good for a pub with such average and uninspiring beer, plus the service was pleasant enough.
Scores around the table were a 6.20 for my beef-eating accomplice, a 6.00 and a 6.62 for the two trios, and my score is a fairly low 6.09 out of 10. Were it not for some pretty ace gravy – it would have been in the lower 5’s.
I’ll be back next week – there’s 3 possible plans, it all depends on other people.
There’s only one way to finish this week.
Summary:
The Whippet Inn, Kensal Rise
Station: Kensal Rise
Tube Lines: Overground
Fare Zone: Zone 2
Price: £21.00
Rating: 6.09
Loved & Loathed
Loved: Well the gravy was excellent and somewhat resuced the roast
Loathed: Roast potatoes were stale and from another week, yorkie was heat-lamped, parsnip was chewy
Where now, sailor?
Random roast review: Hawksmoor, Spitalfields
