Slow-Roasted Pork Belly @ The Black Boy, Shinfield 18/01/2015

This roast dinner was selected from my to-do list by the random number generator.  I like to use the random number generator wherever possible in life to enhance decision-making.  Sometimes it makes a good call – other times a dubious call, but one has to follow the instructions of the random number generator – there is no over-riding it.

What I wasn’t willing to leave to random choice was my choice of dinner.  Beef sirloin, chicken or slow-roasted belly of pork.

There was only one choice, despite that fact that it was advertised as coming with a red wine jus.  I am a gravy man.  I hate jus.  I do have to pronounce this carefully – I had to delete a Facebook friend once for anti-Semitism.  I really cannot believe people still have such views.

Anyway, before I go too far off topic, my choice was pork.  Slow-roasted belly of pork.  It sounds good doesn’t it?

I have always liked The Black Boy.  Welcoming with a good menu, a reasonable choice of drinks and reasonably-priced (at least for down here), a good garden to sit in - a good ambience.  They serve food from midday until 9pm on a Sunday – we arrived around 4pm and it was busy.  I would suggest if eating at a more traditional time then booking in advance would be wise.

The food took around 25 minutes to arrive – it was nicely presented with a substantial chunk of pork belly on top of a bed of mash, with a moat of red wine jus around it.  The vegetables came on a separate serving plate.

The vegetable offerings were carrots, broccoli and red cabbage.  The carrots and broccoli were fairly indistinct – seemingly steamed, quite soft and plain.  The red cabbage on the other hand was notably-tasty, especially when mixed with the mash and jus.

I was saddened that there were no roast potatoes, though on reflection this was probably a wise move given how so many places seem to get them wrong.  My fellow-diner had roast potatoes with his chicken roast and advised that they were a little burnt.  My mash on the other hand was excellent – just the slightest hint of apple and again, went really well with the jus.

Finally to the piece of no resistance.  The pork belly was substantial in size and a succulent, juicy piece of pork.  It was really, really good.  But not only that, it was topped with crackling that was crunchy but edible, and so, so tasty.  Writing this right now is quite difficult as I just want repeat the experience yet all I have in front of me is fruit salad or salad salad.

 

And the jus?  I have to admit that it was really nice.  There was just enough, it soaked into the mash nicely and accompanied all parts of the dish with additional flavour – though the pork belly was so succulent that it didn’t need any liquidity.

I may need to review my antipathy towards jus.

This really was a very good roast, one worth making the effort to get over the M4 for.  I made the right choice, my friend very much enjoyed his chicken dinner and my other friend was raving about his plate of chips.

A suitably impressive score of 8.2 out of 10.