Going out for a massive midday roast dinner on a Sunday is a big thing here. Or at least in England and the southern part of Scotland. As I recall, the hotels and restaurants in Orkney didn’t really big it up – roast was often on the menu, but not as its own ‘let’s go to the Harbour View for a Roast Dinner after church’ kind of a thing. But elsewhere in the UK? It’s what you do.
Whenever I’m down in England, every hotel restaurant, inn, and gastro-pub has a box on the bottom of their menu offering a Roast Dinner from 11:30 in the morning until 8 or 9 at night, only on Sundays. Same around here. Online, if someone poses the question, “I’m new to the UK; what food should I try?”, a Sunday roast dinner is at the top of the list. Or they post on social media, “I’m coming from Canada/ USA/ wherever to London/ York/ Edinburgh for a visit and I want to have a roast dinner, where should I go?” And dozens of people weigh in on the best dinner in town. There are restaurant chains devoted to roast dinners, called carveries. Toby Carvery is kind of the Keg of England, but slightly less pricey (not by much, tho; dining out here can be expensive). The meal will always be beef or lamb, plus gravy, roast potatoes, often with mashed potatoes as well, a Yorkshire pudding, and at least one veg. I never think to order it – my Mum made delicious roast dinners on a Sunday evening, as do both of my sisters, so why would I bother here?
But I was looking for foods to introduce Nancy to last week. We did all the obvious: fish & chips, Scotch pie & sausage rolls, Cullen Skink, ordered in an Indian; we even had sticky toffee pudding. And of course I warned her not to order anything Mexican off any menu. (Seriously. I’ve said it before: unless you know that the owner/chef was born and raised in Oaxaca or Yucatan or Chihuahua, ‘Mexican’ food in the UK is to be avoided at all costs.) I wanted something special and classically British for her last day, so we went to The Horseshoe Inn in Peebles for Sunday Roast Dinner. She had the beef; I had the lamb. And Scout had Sir Woofchester’s Bark Burgers off the inn’s doggy menu. All three of us were very pleased with our dinner – absolutely delicious.
(But, to be perfectly honest, I still think my sisters’ & brother-in-law’s roast dinners are better.)
