Chicken @ The Swan, Pangbourne 21/06/2015

Before I go on, I am looking to move the page from Blogger to Wordpress over the coming week, so there may be a short period where the website is unavailable.  Wordpress gives me more options in terms of design and also plug-ins, with a bit of luck and work, I should be able to add some interesting features for you in the coming months.

So for the first time in these reviews, the random number generator took me to Pangbourne.  Is there anywhere else near Pangbourne that should (or shouldn’t!) be on my to-do list?

I’d heard mixed reviews about The Swan – some are highly in praise, others in disdain.  From what I gather, it seems to switch periodically between joy and pain, depending upon pub management, so my expectations were confused.

Having a glance at other tables as I came in, I was struck by the amount of people eating almost irrationally perfectly round burgers – with just a couple tempted by the roast dinners.

Ominous?

Some of the comments I’d heard about The Swan were that the service was poor – I remember many years ago going for drinks and it taking forever to get served, however the young lady that greeted me was very pleasant and helpful - she was enthusiastic about the chicken in particular, along with trying to upsell to me – though upselling to a Yorkshireman is close to mission impossible.

Upon her advice, I ordered the chicken.  The only other option was the beef, and a wise man once told me only to order beef if you are confident the venue will know how to cook it.  And I wasn’t confident.

So 15 minutes later, it arrived.  And my initial thoughts were that it was well-presented.

But it was jus, not gravy as advertised by the menu.

I’m going to start with the “gravy” for a change.  As you can see it was very thin and watery – some of it delightfully splashed onto my decade-old misshapen t-shirt to add to my slightly shabby look of the day.  It was however inoffensive, adding nothing in the way of taste of substance – which given the distasteful jus’ served in some other wannabe venues, was a relief.

I did order more and it came in a very inconvenient milk thimble, which wasn't the easiest to pour, or hold given how hot the liquid was.

The vegetables were a mixed medley, in more ways than one.

First up was the swede, which came in baby-bite sized chunks, and was very much on the soft side, with a slightly bitter, yet slightly nutty taste.  Not bitter in a bad way, may I add.

Then there were some fine green beans which were slightly less cooked than my personal preferences – they had that slightly squeaky rubbery texture to them.

And definite points for the roasted peppers – an unusual inclusion on a roast, I hadn’t even considered roasted peppers on my own roast dinners previously, and it kind of worked.  Slightly sweeter than a pepper assumes normally to be.

Next up were the roast potatoes.  And they were actually roasted.  But the big question is – when were they roasted?  As it certainly wasn’t any time close to been presented.  They very much had that cooked 6 hours ago and microwaved feel to them.  On the bright side, there were 4 of them.  Ooooh the generosity.

I was a little disappointed about the amount of chicken served, especially given it was one of my more expensive roasts of late – just a chicken breast.  Albeit a nice-sized chicken breast – not one of the under-developed chickens that a certain chicken-franchise seems peri much to specialise in.

It was tender and there was surprisingly enough of it.  By the end of the meal, my somewhat over-sized belly was full, despite not having eaten since breakfast, 8 hours ago.

I didn’t quite understand the stuffing.  Served in thin-burger form, I was a little confused.  Stuffing should come in home-made lumps, like at The Shoulder Of Mutton.  Not in flat burger form.  It didn’t add anything to the meal, I didn’t even taste any particular herb.  It was just kind of there.  I wonder if they put it on top of their burgers?

Finally, the Yorkshire pudding.  It was fairly large, soft on the bottom (post-jus) and crispy on the edges – cooked just right.  A really good yorkie.

My closing thoughts after eating matched my thoughts upon the roast arriving – more style than substance.

But this has to be taken into context of very good presentation.  There are points gained for an excellent Yorkshire pudding, and creativity on the vegetable side, though points lost for assumedly-microwaved roast potatoes and the drearily-thin but inoffensive jus.

Also it was a touch on the pricey side for what it was - £14.00 plus a 10% service charge.  If I had realised that there was a 10% service charge I would have walked to the bar to get my beer - £4.50 for a pint of Estrella plus 10% is almost London prices.  Given that I had two drinks, I could have saved myself 90p.

Generally I don’t stray away from my immediate rating too much, I allow a little time for my thoughts to settle, and the more I think about this dinner, the more contented I am with it.

I shall give it a score of 7.1 out of 10.

I really do wonder why so many people were having the burger though.  Touching upon something that the indelibly descriptive Edible Reading tweeted about the other day, perhaps there is need for someone to find the best burger around Reading?  If I had the time and money, I would be onto it.

There really should be more than 2 food blogs for the local area.  Best sandwich, best fish and chips, best kebab, best breakfast, best salad, a vegetarian-only blog.  Maybe one day my mission will be complete and I can tackle another subject.  But until then, I shall just sit here and hope for someone else to grab a keyboard.

Next Sunday I’m going to somewhere that has been highly recommended to me by several people.  It is two months since I’ve had an excellent roast dinner.  It feels overdue.

Chicken @ Back Of Beyond, Reading 24/05/2015

So this is the first roast review of mine that Get Reading will be posting.  Probably not in it's entirety as I do tend to waffle on tangentially at times, not to mention the occasional pea-influenced obscenity.

I decided I should kick off in style, and what better way to do it than review a Wetherspoons?

I am sure this is exactly what Get Reading readers are looking to read about.

Forgive me but I am not going to review all 3 Wetherspoon's pubs in the town centre.  I chose the one with less clientele that appear to live there.  Did I manage to come across not to snobby there?!

The choices were chicken, beef, turkey and a vegetarian option.  For just £6.99.  And I got a pint of Stowford Press cider for just £0.99.  Quite why other places sell it for £4.50 I don't know.  Also worth mentioning that you could have a large for £1.50 extra.  I declined, which is not the sort of thing I normally do.

Slightly off-tangent, but I went to the Purple Turtle yesterday, and ordered a slightly unusual beer and the barmaid said, "it is £4.50, you know?" in a do you really want to spend £4.50 on a beer kind of way.  £4.50 sounds a good price to me nowadays.  I have to say I do like what the Turtle are doing in terms of trying to bring something different music-wise to the town.  But that is a story for someone else to tell.

Anyway, back on topic and the barman serving me was exceptionally unwelcoming and made me almost feel a tad uncomfortable in ordering.  Every response was grunted with a real unwillingness to want to serve or even be polite.  Quite awful.  I did ask what vegetables it came with, and he nonchalantly suggested carrots and broccoli whilst looking in the other direction.  I always have to correct broccoli in the spell-checker.

Perhaps he just took a dislike to my bright purple chinos.

So I sat down, opened Facebook (not to check in, may I hasten to add), had a sip of my £0.99 cider and the dinner arrived.  It took just 3 minutes.  3 minutes.  They clearly wanted rid of such an undesirable as oneself.

I know what you are thinking, at least my regular readers, not the 7 and a half new followers that Get Reading have kindly sent my way.

Peas.

Apologies to regular readers for repeating myself but I have a phobia of peas.  I just cannot have them on my plate.  It's all down to the lack of discipline.

I dealt with it my pouring my gravy on the Yorkshire pudding and then scooping the peas into the gravy pot.  I did consider pouring all the peas onto the table or the floor but decided it was probably a tad immature.

So after spending longer removing the peas, then it took them to "cook" my roast dinner, I tucked into the carrots.  Well, I had three of them, for they were cool, rubbery and just tasted of water.

The broccoli (YES!  I spelt it without the spell-checker!), was vaguely better.  Soft, floppy but slightly less-watery.

If you look carefully at the mash, you can see the almost perfectly rectangular edges which suggest how it was packaged.  It was edible, but my disdain for it was almost on the level of the barman's disdain for service.  I had one bite which was enough.

Onto the roast potatoes.  Which would be a trade descriptions act offence.  They more resembled potato croquettes,  There were 4, one of which was pretty much uncooked, the others were cooked but perhaps more likely put in a deep fat fryer 10 days ago, frozen then microwaved 10 seconds after Mr Miserable pressed the send button on the till.  They were awful.  I really do not see how they could have been worse.

The Yorkshire pudding was ok.  Think Aunt Bessies 4 minute in the oven job, and you are nearly there.  But not quite that "good".

And penultimately onto the roast half chicken, seasoned with black pepper.  It was perhaps the driest chicken I have ever been served in my life.  Think back to Christmas 15 years ago, when your Grandma over-cooked the turkey, and you were still eating it a few days later.  That level of dryness.

It was quite abominable.

The gravy wasn't too bad.  It was at least, gravy.  Though by time it was on my plate, it was very much of a watery-consistency.  In hindsight it may have been better to dip the food in the gravy whilst it was in the pot.  Then again, in hindsight, the Iraq War might have been better if we had sent more troops.

Or maybe, just maybe, in ultra magical hindsight, it was better just not to go in the first place.

Gosh, that was a good analogy.

Sometimes I say, please share just for my own vanity.  But this time, I ask that you share this review for the sake of your fellow human.

I am trying to think whether it is worse than The Pheasant Inn.  I think when it comes to the quality and taste of the food, it was marginally better than the totally abominable Pheasant Inn.  However the overall experience was generally heinous - at least The Pheasant Inn was hilariously bad, and had cute barmaids, this was just dreadful from minute one.

There is scope to be worse, but this was the worst roast dinner I have ever reviewed.  It gets a 0.8 out of 10.

There are so many better places to try - even if you have to go to a Wetherspoons for budgetary purposes, please just save a little extra money and go somewhere else, then go to Wetherspoons for a drink.

Next week will be somewhere town-centre based as I will be short on time again.

I  did quite like the design of the plate.  Oh and I did throw a few peas on the floor.

Beef, Chicken & Pork @ The St George And Dragon, Wargrave, 29/03/2015

Gravy is ever so important to me.  Some people have a bad day at work and go home and open a bottle of wine, some go home and have a spliff - I go home and have gravy.

And the most important ingredient of a roast dinner is the gravy.  Not just any gravy either - it should have a reasonably thick consistency, and be made from meat stock at the least.  There is no need to get fancy with it.

At the risk of being compared to Hitler, it should absolutely not be jus.  There is no room for jus.  Jus should be eliminated from the roast dinner.  Albeit The Black Boy did do an excellent jus - the one and only enjoyable jus of my life.

I did say that I was going to go somewhere cheap this week but I couldn't face the possibility of another poor/average roast - I was due a cracking roast dinner.  Plus I had already had to borrow money to see out the month, so I might as well borrow even more.

The random number generator picked The St George And Dragon in Wargrave, which if I recall correctly had been recommended to me by a couple of colleagues at work.

I did try to book on their website, however it was only myself dining and apparently solo-dining is not an option.

Wargrave itself is a nice village, not a place I had ever been to.  Some gorgeous houses, particularly near the station - I am pretty sure I saw one with a tennis court.  Not something you tend to see on the estates up north where I am from.  And I am not talking country estates.

I even felt a tad underdressed when I entered the pub.  It is one of those pleasant upmarket gastro-pub type places, near to the River Thames, with a nice decking area for the summer and a cushion on my chair.

It all looked very tempting - and I compromised on the trio of roasts.  I am yet to decide whether this is a wise idea - whilst this way I get to taste a wider variety, I do wonder if the quality is diluted.  I have yet to rate a trio of roasts that highly.

It took less than 10 minutes for the food to arrive, it seemed closer to 5 minutes.  I was very surprised.  I had hardly started reading the article on Islamic State (I wonder if this is enough to attract the attention of our security services to bad roast dinners?).

The vegetables came in this little cup.  Transferring them onto my plate was a little tricky, and various bits of leaf ended up on the table.

The carrots were good.  Thick, plump and tender carrots.  The kale and cabbage were rather non-descript.  I really am rather non-plused about them.

It isn't often a parsnip is offered, and this was a really tasty parsnip - honey roasted too.  It was quite light coloured and I would have preferred it to have been more, well, roasted.  But kudos on the single parsnip.

I was excited about the prospect of goose-fat roasted potatoes.  But I shouldn't have been so excited.  Whilst I could taste the goose-fat, there wasn't much roasting that had been done, the potatoes were even slightly rubbery on the outside.  They were not bad potatoes but calling them roast potatoes would is against the trade descriptions act.

When the above menu states Yorkshire PuddingS, I was expecting a plurality of Yorkshire Puddings.  I did get one and it was dry and almost a touch on the stale side.  I am glad that I only got one.

There were also two little flat rounds of stuffing.  This was clearly factory-manufactured and could easily have been on one a Tesco chicken meal-for-one.

Two bits of crackling accompanied the dinner - they looked like Twiglets.  And perhaps tasted closer to them.  Again they seemed very factory-manufactured.

It isn't really going very well is it?  But as you can see there is lots of meat to come.  My eyes did light up when the plate originally arrived, and I did question whether I was going to eat it all.

But why would you put a pig-in-blanket on top of some bread sauce?  Why on earth would you do that?  In fact why would you put bread sauce on a plate?  Or horseradish hollandaise?  Or apple and vanilla puree?  Or a flipping chunk of apple?!  I was becoming mildly riled by this point.

Sauces should surely be in a separate pot.  There certainly should not be 3 sauces on the plate, on top of gravy (more to come on this subject soon).

The pork loin was decent.  It was quite unspectacular.  Cooked a little more than my preference with no remarkable features.

There was a nice-looking piece of chicken breast but the chicken itself was really dry.  I actually struggled to eat it.

I left the beef until last to try, but it was really quite well done.  Not at all to my liking.  Like the rest of the meal it was a disappointment, although the hint of mustard was appreciated.

Now I did consider writing about the gravy before everything else.  Though my introduction may have given the game away.

Or perhaps more accurately, the jus.  It looked more like some kind of glitter-face paint that I might wear to a disco-themed paint-balling trip.

Shiny, with lots of oil and red spocks.  The taste was red wine but it was so over-powering and quite horrid that it totally ruined the whole dinner.

A good gravy would have masked the dryness of the chicken, to an extent.  A good gravy would have enlightened the pork.  A good gravy could have masked the softness of the goose-fat potatoes.

Instead, it over-powered the taste of everything on the plate - and it being a horrid taste, totally ruined what was only an average dinner in the first place.

Some people would likely have really enjoyed it - taste is after all subjective.

But appearance isn't all it seems in life.  The dinner looked good on arrival but was anything but.  In a cute metaphor, the pub looked quite upmarket, yet had a leak from the ceiling.

This was the first time that I have questioned doing this blog.  In total I spent £25.00 that I didn't have, and 3 hours of my life including the travel time for absolutely no satisfaction or enjoyment whatsoever.  What was initially an adventure to a new village soon realised itself into a chore.

I haven't even enjoyed writing this.

My score is 3.4 out of 10.  Less enjoyable than the Toby Carvery,

Thankfully next Sunday I am in Yorkshire.

Corn-Fed Chicken @ Malmaison 15/02/2015

It being Valentine’s weekend, I had planned on going to the most miserable venue imaginable.  But as happened last week, my original plan was subverted and I had a romantic offer that I could not refuse for five guys.

No, not the burger chain in the Oracle, but five of us guys decided upon a romantic Sunday roast in the Malmaison.

Upon initial inspection, it isn’t the cheapest at £19.95.  However this includes unlimited starter, the roast itself and dessert.

This is a roast dinners review page so I will not go into detail on the starter and the dessert, however they have to be taken into consideration as it is a full 3-course meal on offer – there was no option to pay less and just have the roast dinner.

The starter was a buffet spread, with bread, olives, cured meats, posh sausage rolls, smoked salmon – even a whole blimmin’ salmon.  The chef was also on hand to prepare a salad, if one so desired.  Unlimited starter is dangerous.  I wouldn’t say it was especially special.  It wasn’t anything I couldn’t have prepared myself by opening a packet of sliced cured meats from Sainsburys.

What was special was the dessert.  There were several options, none of which massively appealed until I heard about the dessert de jour – until then I was about to select the cheese and biscuits as default, which did include a gravestone biscuit.

The dessert de jour was…drum roll…chocolate cheesecake.  Did I build up the suspense enough?  It was pretty immense in taste, with 3 distinct sections, though a rather tough biscuit to cut with a spoon.  It was the icing on the…cake.  It was also an impressively generous-sized slice too.

What wasn’t so impressive in size was the roast dinner.

I had the choice of beef with Yorkshire pudding or corn-fed chicken with stuffing and a sausage wrapped in bacon, but no Yorkshire pudding.  WTF?  I requested the chicken dish but with a Yorkshire pudding to be included as my Valentine’s gift.  She was clearly charmed by my beauty as I was successful in my request.

When the main course arrived (we waited a reasonable length of time between courses if you are reading dear Edible – at least 15 minutes between taking away our starter plates and bringing the main course), the main plate consisted of a piece of chicken, one smallish Yorkshire pudding, two small round slices of stuffing and one small chipolata wrapped in bacon.  With just two vegetable medleys between five guys.

And just the tiniest drizzle of gravy.  Can you see it?

My granddad taught me to save the best until last, so let’s start with the mixed medley of vegetables, as is traditional, which really were a mixed bunch.

The carrots were sensational.  The tastiest ordinary carrots I have reviewed so far.  The green beans were good too – slightly flexible but still crunchy, and tasted superb with the gravy.  I never get mine that good.

The parsnips were not so impressive – parsnips really should be roasted.

And speaking of what should be roasted – potatoes.  Why can nowhere do decent roast potatoes?  They were average, at best.  The kind of deep-fried efforts that fall apart – with a solid outside as opposed to roasty-crispy goodness.

Thankfull you cannot really go wrong with pigs in blankets, and this was a high-grade chipolata wrapped properly in some tasty bacon.

The stuffing wasn’t so high-grade – it was how I would imagine a £5 coin to be, in terms of thickness and a consistent circumference.  It seemed factory-made and a little out of place – though it worked well when mixed with the Yorkshire pudding and chicken.

The Yorkshire pudding was a little anaemic, and a little little too.  Too strong a taste of vegetable oil and really not one of the best offerings I have had.

I had always kind of assumed in an I'm from up north what’s wrong with burning coal to heat your house kind of way that corn-fed chicken was something that only rich yummy-mummy vegetarian lesbians had.  Why feed corn to a chicken?

Well it turns out that average-income childless carnivorous non-lesbian blokes really appreciate corn-fed chicken too.  It was so plump and succulent – it tasted like chicken is actually supposed to taste like.  There was ‘only’ a chicken breast but aforementioned plumpness usurped any desire for more.  An excellent piece of chicken.

I did have a bite of the beef too – it looked amazing, though it only tasted very good.

And finally, the dribble of gravy.  All five of us requested extra gravy.  We received one miniature gravy boat’s worth.  So we requested extra gravy again.  And received one miniature gravy boat’s worth.  Either they weren’t getting us, or we weren’t getting it.

It was however a really good gravy, chicken-stock based with a reasonably thick consistency.  Good work.

Overall it was a good roast but it is a difficult one to rate.  Do I take into unlimited starter and the dessert?  Due to them being included in the price, I feel that I have to, to some extent as £19.95 for just that roast dinner would have been extortionate.

Plus service charge.  Which four of us thought was reasonable though far from spectacular service, however the Canadian amongst us was unimpressed.  Apparently you get far better service over the pond.  But do you get good gravy?

This is a roast dinners in Reading blog and therefore the rating is focused on the roast dinner part.  Had I been reviewing the whole 3 courses in that context, it would receive a slightly higher rating.

As it was, I feel that a 7.4 out of 10 is appropriate.  Full marks for meat and carrots, low marks for ‘roast’ potatoes and yorkies.

Next Sunday I am heading east.

Chicken @ Oakford Social Club 11/01/2015

Around 5-6 years ago, myself and our friends used to go to the Oakford Social Club almost every Sunday.  This was the era when they had crayons, paints and canvasses on the tables for budding artists to draw pictures of bearded dwarves conjoined to tables over a nest of wasps.

It was always busy, sometimes we had to wait for a table.  We always had a roast dinner – sometimes they were very good, other times they were fairly awful.  Generally the staff were hopelessly forgetful and looked like they were on some form of tranquilizer.  It was a great place to spend a hungover Sunday.

Then they stopped doing the art.  They stopped doing the roasts.  And assumedly stopped doing the tranquilizer as the service is much better nowadays.  The really cute girl with short hair left.  We stopped going.

Myself and two close friends actually set off to go to The Blagrave Arms yesterday, having heard good things about their roast.  Alas it was closed so we went around the corner to our old home, the Oakford.  Sadly I had left my fake beard at home but did have coloured trousers on so I didn’t stand out too much.

I was a little pushed for time, having just 40 minutes until I had to meet someone - thankfully there was no kitchen queue.  The menu offered a choice of beef, chicken or something vegetarian that I took absolutely no notice of.  No beef left so chicken was the only option for an anti-vegetarian such as myself.

Despite there being no kitchen wait, it still took 30 minutes for the roast to arrive.  I have to say that I was not especially hopeful for a good roast dinner.  I really like the Oakford as a pub but just had a feeling that the roast was going to be awful.  My expectations were not changed upon arrival.

The vegetables were a seasonal root vegetable mix.  All quite soft and soggy, with a little microwave-warmth.  Swede, carrot, parsnip, onion, possibly some curly kale were in cube-like evidence.  Edible but not enjoyable.  Actually I quite liked the parsnip.

5 minutes later our separately-ordered cauliflower cheese arrived, and my extra gravy.  The cauliflower itself was fine but the cheese was runny and messy – I do prefer more of a sticky kind of feel to the cheese on cauliflower cheese.

The roast potatoes were the worst I have reviewed so far.  The word “roast” would be unjustified – they were cold inside, as if they had been reheated in the microwave.  Which they had been.

The Yorkshire pudding was burnt.

I do have something good to say.  There was a lot of chicken – a whole half of a chicken.  It was a touch on the dry side but more generous than I have experienced elsewhere.  I particularly enjoyed the breast.

And the gravy was a reasonable effort too.  One of those red-wine efforts that kind of taste like tomato.  A meat stock-based gravy would have been far more welcome but it did have a good consistency – this and the chicken rescued the roast – to an extent.

I am saddened to give such a bad review.  There is a lot to like about the Oakford – the staff are friendly, the burgers are excellent, the range of beers is one of my personal favourites in Reading – the crowd is generally good and music far more interesting than most places in the town centre offer.

It’s uniqueness does seem to have been faded by central office control over the years, and the roast dinner is a particularly disappointing example of this.  What might work in an inner-city pub in Stoke does not transfer to a hipster-style pub in Berkshire.  Horses for courses.

The roast dinner being bad isn’t down to the chef – it is down to what the pub is supplied with by central office.  The course is right but the horse is wrong.

A sad, lonely 2.8 out of 10 for what is my favourite Reading watering-hole, my favourite burger joint – and now my least-favourite roast dinner joint.

Sorry.

Chicken @ The Lyndhurst 28/12/2014

The Lyndhurst used to be my local.  It always had a warm, welcoming feel to it, a good range of beers and good food.  Always.

So it was a surprise when it closed earlier this year.

Thankfully it has been re-opened, the kitchen has been refitted and roast dinners are back on.  Served until 6pm so as not to compete with the pub quiz at 8pm and at an efficient price of £9.95 – the cheapest roast I have reviewed to date.

The welcome was voluminously complaisant – warmth and humour exuded from the host and hostess, invigorating my slightly fragile mind and body, which was immediately endearing and I dearly wished to be able to give a review as warm as their welcome.

Beef and chicken were the options, I had reviewed lots of beef recently so it had to be chicken.  But wait a minute, there is a lamb shank available – oh yes please.

Actually, oh no there isn’t.

It is still panto season isn’t it?

When the roast arrived, my immediate impressions were of a home-cooked roast dinner, it looked similar to something my mother would make.

Sadly there was only one vegetable – peas were also due to be served however as they are the anti-Christ of the vegetable world due to their lack of discipline, I was left with just one rooty delight – carrots.  And they were fine.  Nothing more, nothing less.

The potatoes were real home-cooked roast potatoes, sadly no crispiness but these were an improvement on most of the offerings in recent reviews.

Two Yorkshire puddings were served – small in size and soft throughout.  They really should be soft-bottomed only with a somewhat crispy outer shell.  Far from perfection but better than the over-cooked offering from London Street Brasserie.

There were several generously sized slices of roast chicken, along with two wings.  It was definitely from a real chicken, it was tender, nicely cooked – however I felt it was a little ordinary in taste – some lemon infusion or some herbs would have greatly increased the score.

It being a chicken roast, I was disappointed that there was no stuffing offered.

Finally, the gravy.  Good marks for consistency, it was actually gravy-like consistency, however there was that tinge of something like tomato that a lot of places seem to feel necessary to spice up a roast dinner and ends up making the gravy, and hence the roast dinner, a touch tiresome.

I still asked for extra.

 

It’s a tricky one to give a rating to.  My heart wants to give a higher rating than my belly does, due to the very warm friendly welcome, and general excellent service – it seemed as though nothing was too much effort.

There was nothing wrong with the food and the home-cooked feel was particularly endearing, however there is plenty of room for improvement.

6.3 is my rating.  I do recommend a roast dinner here.

And I have a feeling that if I go back in a few months, which is inevitable, there will be a higher score.