Trafalgar Tavern, Greenwich

Skip The Nonsense

Hola de España! I’m lying, I’m not really in Spain, even if I’m soooo chilled out now that I’m not even walking down escalators, let alone up them. And here is a review of the Trafalgar Tavern in Greenwich. Spanish boobies possibly upcoming.

Have you missed me and my tales of roast potato woe and travel trauma?

Probably not, and I was happy in Spain. I didn’t want to leave. Gatwick Airport didn’t want me to leave either so cancelled my flight back, allowing me an extra night in Valencia. Woohoo! And a 3:30am wake-up call to get a flight to Paris. And then another flight to London. And then a train to Victoria station. And then Victoria tube station was closed so I had a 22 minute walk with my large suitcase through London, past Buckingham Palace, to the next nearest tube station.

Sure, I could have got the bus to Pimlico, like my travel companion did, but that broke down also.

Have you missed me and my tales of roast potato woe and travel trauma?

My flight to Valencia was cancelled too.

It’s a sausage. Do you need any more context?

From España. Not chorizo. Spain has non-chorizo sausages. Who knew?

The Battle Of British Airways – 2023

Well, I made it to Valencia – Ryanair to the rescue, British Airways to the abysmal. Even had airport beers in two different airports, so that’s a win, I guess.

And now life is back to the ordinary, well except for moving to Croydon at some point if my solicitors/the seller’s solicitors/building management company/Croydon council ever get their arses in gear and finish the paperwork. Oh and I have an eviction notice on my current damp, shithole – a holiday gift. I received it on the train into Valencia.

Oh well, at least roast dinner life is back to the ordinary. Very ordinary. I even eschewed a beer for the first time in 7 months.

The Trafalgar Tavern is a grand building on the banks of the Thames, just along from the Cutty Sark boat thing – and has a cacophony of bunting outside, and a plethora of decoration inside – masses of artwork, multiple chandeliers. Hangover-friendly for minimalist ketamine enthusiasts it ain’t.

Not to mention how busy it was – rammed inside, rammed outside. Well, rammed in an all the tables reserved kind of way, not an awful lot of space to walk around GET OUT OF MY FUCK oh yeah chill post-holiday vibes, cosy bathrooms (not a compliment) and plenty of people waiting around hoping for a table.

Fair to say that the Trafalgar Tavern is popular. But it has location vibes. Can it do a good roast dinner? Does it need to do a good roast dinner?

The Battle Of Roast Potato 2016 – 2023 (ongoing)

Options on the menu were beef rump for £23.00, chicken at £21.00, pork belly (oooh Middlewhite) at £21.00 or slow-cooked lamb shoulder also at £21.00.

I was still on holiday mode, so I put it out to my followers as to what I should choose:

Back on duty at last. Of course, about as painful a location as I could find and surprisingly so.

What should I choose?

— Roast Dinners In London (@roastdinnersldn) October 1, 2023

And then I ignored the will of the people and ordered lamb.

What are you going to do about it?

Did you click it? Do you really think that image does any more than attempting to log into your account on the British Airways website when your flight has been cancelled and you are desperately looking to find a replacement flight does?

Oh I miss beach. FYI, there is some Spanish boob later. Of course there is.

I would go live there, but, ahhhh stuff happened.

The Battle Of Brexit – 2016 – 2030 (or whenever the politicians in this country finally decide that “make Brexit work” isn’t a thing)

Our roasts arrived around 5 minutes after ordering them – though we were at least a good 20 minutes before someone took our food orders – not that I was in a rush.

And no, I hadn’t ordered roast dinner tapas.

There was a fairly small amount of carrot – sliced into small chunks, soft and a little buttery.

There was an even smaller amount of cabbage – shredded with no particular discernible taste or feature otherwise.

My parsnip was long and according to one of my followers, rather phallic-looking. Alas, it had clearly had a vasectomy as it was notably dry and a tad raw inside. My accomplices reported much better parsnips, so luck of the draw perhaps.

Do you see what we have here?

Crispy roast potatoes!

Alas, dry as fuck on the inside, but at least there was hope. You could conceivably just have eaten the outer coating and maybe enjoyed it, but it was still tired-feeling. Oh well, Spanish boob still to come…

The Battle Of Trafalgar Tavern – 2023

Any more joy on the Yorkshire pudding, I hear you wonder. Well…you’ve seen it, right?

It is shaped quite interestingly, especially with the phallic parsnip…if only I had spotted earlier and re-arranged the roasties, that would have been soooooo hilarious. Maybe.

Anyway. The Yorkshire pudding was shit. You know that. You can see it, it’s as obvious as the political leader recognising earlier that, “but I believe the country wants change“. Yes, the country does want change. Surprised that Rishi Sunak is arguing for it though. A gnawing, rubbery texture, somewhat dry, somewhat burnt, right-wing – and yes, shit. The yorkie, that is.

I was in two minds with the lamb. Firstly I was impressed with how rectangular the animal’s shoulder was. Yes it does look overly brown, but inside was some slight pinkness, and it fell apart delightfully – as slow-cooked lamb should. But it was a bit too earthy-tasting – there was something a tad bitter about it.

One of my accomplices had the chicken, and rated it highly – apparently very soft, and enjoyed both the stuffing and the solitary pigs (their pluralisation) in blanket. I was considering the chicken. Obviously I would have had the beef as per the will of the people.

And finally, the gravy. Proper gravy, according to the menu. A ha ha ha ha ha. It was as shiny as Sunak’s forehead in the studio lights, not quite as greasy as his hair, tasting somewhat of red wine and who knows what else was inside, and as watery as…water. Given how dry parts of the roast were, we ordered extra gravy:

Ah the thimbles. I’m definitely back in London. To be fair, there was an aioli shortage in Spain too.

The Battle Of Laurence Fox Being A Cunt – 1978 to fuck knows when.

So the Trafalgar Tavern is a gorgeous pub, and a wonderfully decorated one at that. But it doesn’t have a gorgeous roast dinner. Perhaps the tourists will be sufficed.

Embed from Getty Images

Who’d want to shag that? Show me a single self-disrespecting rent boy that would like to climb into bed with that slimeball wannabe homophobe ever, ever, who wasn’t trying to prove to Suella Braverman that he was gay enough for asylum from countries were homosexuals are persecuted.

Gosh there was so much to rant about this last week wasn’t there? Still, fuck British Airways more so than Laurence Fox, as they owe me money.

So. Every meal I had in Spain was better. Yes, I know, I should move to Spain BUT SOMETHING HAPPENED. Something fucking happened and now I’m stuck in London, or perhaps soon Croydon, or perhaps sooner on someone’s sofa if I’m evicted before solicitors sort their shit out. I know I need a Spanish wife, but I right-swiped all 10 on Bumble when I was in Spain and nothing. Nada.

My accomplices were much more satisfied than I was, and only one of them could be classified as a tourist. Scores of 7.50 and 7.80 – they did have much nicer parsnips than I did.

I advised that my score would be around a 6.90, to their surprise, and I defended it – arguing that I didn’t really like that much of it, and persuaded myself to score it lower. Dry roasties, despite the teasingly crispy outside, shit yorkie, watery gravy – meh. Now I’ve written the review, my actual score is even lower – a 6.08 out of 10. Definitely back to ordinary.

I’ll be back next week at a highly-rated north London pub, which somehow I’ve never reviewed. Until then, some Spanish boobs for you. Mwah.

Consider myself roasted and left under a heat lamp since last night.