Roast Dinners in London

Wilcume eft to Brædde Mete on Lundene. On þisse wuce ic segge min dom of The Wigmore on Regent Street.

What! Understonde ye nat the Englissh that men spak an hundred yeer after the Conqueste? What manere of lewed fooles been ye? Wel, be it so; we wol usen the Englissh of this present tyme.

What, is the Englishe of Chaucers dayes too harde for you also? Ye arrant dolts, I holde you in moste scornefull contempte. I dare laye a wager ye haue not yet founde out the pleasure of cutting your meate with knife and forke.

Well, I am content; we wil speake the Englishe of these our dayes.

OK, I had no other ideas of how to start Ye Olde English Blog Of Roasted Dinners this week. Impressed huh? OK, Claude wrote it, but IT WAS MY IDEA. Someone else has already done this, haven’t they? Eating With Tod probably did this on one of his videos, didn’t he? Pah, there are no ideas left.

Anyway, I’ve got a busy week ahead, and not much time to put into writing this. And might have had an accidental Sunday Funday.

I drede that this shal nat plese the Serche Engyn Optimisacioun.

Wiggle it just a little bit

The Wigmore is a posh puub on Regent Street – set in an old banking hall with a really tall ceiling, luxurious green paint applied throughout, top quality furnishings, etc.

I’m not sure its the kind of place you pop into for a beer or two, but maybe it is.

Surprisingly for a posh pub, they had a decent pale ale by DEYA.

Also surprisingly for a posh pub, they had the Liverpool vs Arsenal game on a screen.

Perhaps less surprisingly, they had people playing videos out loud from their social media feeds.

And not at all surprisingly, a roast dinner was £38.00. O blessed Citie, that maketh my purse so light and my hart so merrie.

So on the menu was half a baby chicken for £32.00, siroin of beef for £38.00, and a vegetable and chestnut wellington for, eeek, £36.00.

As It Gravies

I ended up going for the chicken because I hadn’t had it on a roast for a while. And bollocks was I paying £36.00 for a vegetarian roast.

You know, I sometimes wonder what my English teacher would think now – she was the only one who believed in me (by the end), and I’ve clearly made something of myself – a roast dinner reviewer.

No other teacher believed in me. Even most of the skip hire companies that I used to call from the school office when I was stupidly put in a detention room, by myself, that had a telephone, didn’t believe in me.

Maybe let’s see it with the gravy:

And upside down. Oh well. Geography teacher wouldn’t have been amused.

So the carrots really tasted of carrot (sorry, Miss Clayton) yet notably carroty (she was actually pretty hot for a teacher in Hull) with a bit of a crunch, yet a buttery vibe too – good and not needing honey or maple.

I wanna see you wiggle the gravy just a little bit

The cabbage was fittingly luxurious, silky and buttery – really top notch cabbage.

And the tenderstem broccoli impressed too, rather crunchy but a smokey taste to it too, and it tasted superb.

Gosh all these compliments.

OK, roast potato time. I had four of them – which is clearly why the roast dinner was over £30.00 instead of under.

All were quite crispy on the outside, quite soft on the inside – not fluffy brilliance, but really good in terms of texture, and tasting pretty damn gorgeous from the duck fat they were roasted in.

It was a late afternoon roast dinner (we stayed until close, which sounds impressive when you have work on the Monday, except they closed at 7pm), and the Yorkshire pudding had clearly been cooked a while earlier.

Yet with enough gravy, it did soften up quite nicely, and I actually ate the whole thing. If you were here earlier in the day, you would be impressed.

I bet the gravy that you’re seeing, is keeping you satisfied

The chicken was excellent too. A really plump, juicy chicken – the breast part was unusually juicy. Perhaps you could argue The Wigmore could have supplied crispier skin. I would.

Also quite nicely flavoured with lemon and thyme.

My two beef-eating accomplices were highly in praise of the beef – succulent, tender and well seasoned.

Normally my regular accomplice offers me a bit, but didn’t this time – which should tell you enough.

Finally, the gravy. Gravy. Of. The. Year. Yeah, wiggle it.

A thick creamy texture, this was just more and more and more, oh baby. Been a while since I’ve been turned on by gravy. Quite peppery – not actually a million miles away from a peppercorn sauce, but definitely a peppery gravy.

The Wigmore

My reverse-snobbery didn’t expect such a good roast dinner at such a posh pub.

Perhaps I should have done, the menu being “overseen” by Michel Roux, whatever “overseen” means in terms of quality – they also do a 3 cheese toasties which is an Instagrammer’s dream. I am wondering if I can make it there from the office on lunch.

So I mentioned the beer, but also the wine was really good – a bottle of Malbec, maybe it was £51.00, doesn’t seem too bad a price nowadays (sigh), was full-bodied and punchy, yet smooth.

Service at The Wigmore was also some of the best this year – our main waitress was such a charm, and had a glint in her eyes that suggested she actually was maybe a little bit enjoying her job, which is cool. Plus excellent suggestions on wine.

Oh and the roast dinner was ace. All the vegetables were thoughtful, the chicken so juicy, the gravy thick and gorgeous. Everything was at least good.

My accomplices scored their beef roast dinners an 8.95 and 9.00 out of 10, respectively.

My score isn’t far off – an 8.70 out of 10. Perfect the roast potatoes and this is in the 9’s.

I’ll be back next week – and it’s another posh pub. Wish my wallet luck. I’ll leave you with a photo of the dessert that my accomplice ate:

Yeah, no memes of Trump or Musk being cunts. We can laugh at them next week. Hopefully.

Actually, this is what we need to close on: