Roast Dinners in London

It was time for a re-visit. Whilst the dis-United Kingdom is revisiting fascism, I decided it was time to revisit The Old Red Cow in Farringdon.

Currently standing at 10th in my league of roasts, at least from places still open and still serving roast dinners – yet it was 8 years since I went, and they have since spent some time closed down and re-opened, I think under new owners.

Safe to say it’s the one nearest the top of my league table that most gives me the creeps. Speaking of which…

Yes, Tommy ten names invited all his absolutely definitely not racist mates along for his annual Tommy’s Cocaine Fund flagathon fundraiser.

But fear not, all the women are now protected.

And don’t forget are kids.

It’s all about protecting are kids. And the cocaine. And the pissing on the street. And the fighting with police. Curious that one of the defences of proscribing a certain other organisation a terrorist group recently is that they attacked a police officer with a sledgehammer. I’m sure there will be equal treatment here. About as sure as I am that the BBC will stop excitedly pushing the anti-immigration types and have some pro-immigration balance to their reporting.

They are attacking the Police again, at the 'peaceful march'.Imagine if Pro Palestine supporters did this (they never do), they would all be instantly in jail.

— BladeoftheSun (@bladeofthes.bsky.social) 2025-09-13T15:39:01.428Z

And yes, I know not everyone attending the march was a racist, but everyone speaking at the march was some variant of racist/homophobe/transphobe/misogynist or at best an outright grifter after your money for doing fuck all but spreading hate on social media.

The Really Fucking Old Racist Shit Again

Can’t we just talk about roast dinners?

NO WE FUCKING CANNOT.

We have a world run by Putin, Trump and Xi, two of which have genocides and war crimes to their names, all of which are actively trying to undermine western democracy, liberal values, healthcare and defence.

One of whom has invaded a European nation and is starting to probe others, one who is possibly about to invade/blockade a nation where most of our semiconductors come from, we are on the verge of mass AI-controlled drone warfare, we have the richest man in the world advising that centre folk in the UK need to take up violence, not to mention massive NHS waiting lists, a huge national debt, a housing crisis, phone thefts out of control, a supposed ally that keeps randomly attacking other Middle Eastern countries…but no apparently the biggest problem worth protesting about is some people with a different skin colour getting a boat across the English Channel and claiming asylum.

And now this roast dinner. The 10th best roast dinner in London according to arguably London’s Number 1 expert in roast dinners, Lord Gravy.

Fucking shameful.

Yes, we are talking about roast dinners now.

Racists Get The Fuck Out Of My Blog

You know, I never use to bang on about people banging on about immigration, at least not quite this much. When I first reviewed The Old Red Cow, I talked about anal beads and cocaine purity. Alas, the world has changed.

And when I first reviewed The Old Red Cow, I had sumptuous lamb and top notch gravy, plus a hug from the adorable waitress. Alas, the pub has changed – changed owners to be more precise.

It’s actually not a bad pub in itself, with a selection of session/hazy IPAs for me – and, well I was far too hungover to really notice anything else because I was too angry and drank more than I intended the night before. Not sure what angered me…

It’s a pretty small pub, with seating for maybe 10 or so people downstairs on stools, between 20-30 upstairs on actual tables.

The choices on the menu were sirloin of beef at £22.00, lamb shank at £21.50, half chicken at £20.95, loin of pork at £19.95 and some veggie thing for radical leftists at £16.95.

I had my heart set on pork belly – alas I didn’t have my heart set on pork loin. I had a feeling the beef would be basic, I didn’t want chicken and I had lamb last Sunday.

So I decided to do what Elon Musk desires, and commit woke violence by ordering the mushroom and stilton wellington. Yes, a vegetarian roast dinner. I look forward to being serenaded by armed police when I get back from my next holiday for writing something so offensive.

Oh and I asked for a side of pigs in blankets. They’d run out but should get more by…Christmas…3 months away. Maybe update your menu.

Feeling Like An Old Man

Firstly, I didn’t like the shape of the plate. Probably not the biggest problem in the UK right now. The plate was also suspiciously hot to touch. Hmmm.

Secondly, I didn’t like what was on the plate. Shall we start with the carrots? These were kind of raw looking – perhaps they had been boiled a bit then dried out. Did they taste of anything? Not really.

Broccoli was just broccoli, quite on the crunchy and under-boiled side for my liking.

The cabbage was very fucking ordinary, no butter, no seasoning, no flavour – just assumedly boiled cabbage. Totally bang average. Jeez, what a weekend. At least its raining.

That said, I quite liked the parsnips – they were at least flavoursome, if a bit chewy. But certainly an improvement from what else was on the plate.

And the cauliflower cheese was quite good.

Brexit Roast

I feel like I’ve spent roughly the last 8 years since the first review of The Old Red Cow banging on about only getting 3 roast potatoes in London. Here I had 5. Alas, I only could be arsed to eat 3 of them.

If you told me there were from a packet of Aunt Bessie’s, I’d believe you – though later in the day we did see a large sack of spuds being delivered, so probably they weren’t. They were soft yet a bit undercooked, no evidence of crispy outsides – they didn’t seem like they had seen an oven, but also didn’t taste like they’d been deep fried, so I’m not sure what went on here.

The Yorkshire pudding probably was from a packet, it had that cardboady structure, though even then it had dried out around the top like a quaver style. I didn’t eat much of it. If it was from Aunt Bessie’s, then at least its patriotic.

Looking at the state of the chicken or the beef, I had no regrets in ordering the mushroom and stilton wellington. Then again, looking at my wellington, nobody else had any regrets in not ordering the wellington either.

I had visions of a puff pastry pie, yet it was just a soggy thing, probably out of a freezer. Saying it was out of a freezer is actually probably kinder than saying they cooked it from scratch, as if they did actually cook it from scratch then why was it so soggy? In terms of flavour, I enjoyed it – it had cheese, stilton to be precise. It might actually have been the least-bad option here.

I’ve learnt to order something different when out for dinner with Mama Gravy, as she’ll end up giving some to me, as she duly did with the beef. The beef was way over-cooked, even Mama Gravy found it that way – and I never knew pink beef was a thing until I’d left home. Yet it was the highlight of my meal.

Finally, the gravy was an onion-based gravy, and probably a granule-based gravy – it had that salty aftertaste that granules leave for hours.

The Old Red Cow

Well, I was due a proper shit roast dinner, and after the shit-show of London being taken over by the fascists (sorry, I should say well meaning people that just don’t like people born in a different country being over here) on Saturday, it feels right to have a roast dinner to rant about.

It actually reminded me of the kind of roast dinner that I might endure in patriot-central, Bracknell, when I spent a year living there.

At least I can cross it off my “best” list, and relegate it in the league table. The pub was quite busy, and I suspect I was partly to blame. I felt such shame.

Did I enjoy anything at The Old Red Cow? Well the parsnip had some flavour, the cauliflower cheese was quite good. That’s about it. Oh and they had a good session IPA. It’s still a decent place for a pint.

As for the roast dinner, we had raw-looking carrots, basic veg, no seasoning, soggy wellington, Aunt Bessie’s yorkie, Bisto gravy – what a pile of fash gash.

Scores around the table were a 4.20 from Papa Gravy, who had the chicken and was particularly in distaste of it. A 5.10 and a 5.00 from those eating beef, and I’m scoring it a 4.66 out of 10.

No roast dinner next Sunday as I’m going to a Greek island to claim asylum. If that fails, and I don’t get arrested upon return for being a traitor, then I have a table booked the Sunday after at somewhere more upmarket. Somewhere that could be “the one”, but I suspect is “the over-rated and over-expensive one”.

Ahhhh bring back 2017.