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| - I would like to make this clear from the start, we have eaten here a few times and the food is pretty good, as a Brit living in Vegas there are times I get the craving for some good old British food, today was one of those days.
On one of our trips to the UK I introduce the wife to the British Carvery, to give you an idea take a look here : http://www.tobycarvery.co.uk/carvery/
Now, as these are non existent in Vegas, we are left with places that serve a traditional British Sunday Dinner, right, Crown and Anchor it is.
The service is always good here, the wait staff are always friendly and quick....... And let's be honest here, whoever came up with their uniforms, you deserve a medal.
But it is the food we are interested in.
The wife went for the Sunday Dinner with roast beef, I had the Sunday dinner with lamb and beef, both dishes are served with Yorkshire pudding, veg and A roast potato (more on those in a minute), along with this my wife ordered a small house salad.
After a while we had pretty much given up on the salad, no big deal, these things do happen. however, when are meals came out, they each had a house salad on the plate, along with the meat, potatoes, veg, Yorkshire pudding and gravy.....
A pet peeve of mine is when waitstaff know that something isn't right, how a house salad, with gravy even makes it out of the kitchen is beyond me (unless this is the way the owners want it, in which case....WOW).
Anyways, a quick recovery by the lady serving us, my salad which I did not order is gone and my wife has a nice house salad on the side, which would have been better served before the meal came out, but ok, on to the meal itself.
Is it a "traditional British Sunday dinner", well yeah it is, in the same way that as a McDonald's 1/4 pounder is a gourmet burger, all the pieces are correct, it looks right, but there is just something missing.
So let us dissect the meal :
The meats were good, maybe a little thinly sliced, but that happens to be the way I like them, so I was happy, however, putting beef gravy on to lamb just destroys any taste to the meat, if you are going to offer both meats, it's actually better to serve the gravy on the side and let the customer mess it up.
The Yorkshire pudding was good, this is something that normally causes all kinds of issues to those not raised with the darn things, but they were good.
Veg is veg, enough said and ignored.
Now for the real crime on this dish, the roast potato.....This is going to be long, it is a story and a rant.
The Great British Roast Potato, a food that when done right makes a Brit smile and a non Brit wish they had been born a Brit, sounds like exaggeration huh ?
A couple of years ago we were lucky enough to host the family Christmas dinner here, it seemed like half of California showed up, the women folk worked their wonders on the veg, the father in law worked on turkey and prime rib.
Over in a corner of the kitchen the Brit who married into the family was hiding in a cloud of steam, gently giggling to himself, these poor Americans had no idea what was about to hit them. A bag of potatoes had been boiled, cut in half and were now being gently rocked back and forth in a colander.
The women were looking at the wife wondering, WTF did you go and marry this guy for ? And why won't he answer any questions about what he is cooking ?
45 minutes before we are due to eat, the potatoes are placed in the oven, set at 325, basting in a bath of melted lard and drippings. After 15 minutes the oven door is quickly opened, the potatoes are quickly covered with the oil, 15 minutes later the door is again opened and the potatoes are turned over.
So 45 minutes pass, what comes out is a potato that is golden brown on the outside with a crispness to it while inside the potato is light and fluffy.... And totally ignored by everyone ! Heretics !
That is until the father in law becomes brave and decides to try one of these strange things his new son in law has produced.... Or it could of been his daughter kicking him under the table while not so subtly nodding at the bowl of potatoes, but he tries one, then ever so slowly reaches over and grabs the bowl and shovels a bunch of them on to his plate, the family is shocked, the strange new food is a hit with the old man, the Brit sits back with a little smile on his face.
Now the reason for that long story is...... If you are going to serve roast potatoes serve roast potatoes, not two little bits of potato that if I had to guess came out of a bag frozen, were quickly thrown through some oil and then put on a plate and served.
Yes doing it right is time consuming, yes it can be a bit of a pain, but if a chain in the UK can do it day in and day out serving thousands of meals a day,there is no reason why a little restaurant cannot get such an important part of the meal right.
For this reason and this reason alone they get marked down, is that mean, well no it's not.
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