The Sunday Roast

 

The Sunday Roast is a traditional English main meal served on Sundays (usually in the early afternoon, at lunchtime), consisting of roasted meat, roasted potatoes, vegetables, and gravy. It’s popular throughout the UK, though I’ve read that it’s in decline. My observation is that it’s mostly served at pubs, perhaps to induce folks to come in for a drink on a Sunday.

 

I’ve been going to the Hope Tap pub here in Reading for their Sunday Roast now and then. The pub is part of a national chain called Wetherspoons and it gets a lot of grief for being too corporate and bland. It does lack a certain charm and the food can smack a bit too much of the steam table, but it’s also very consistent, they offer a number of good traditional ales, and the service is excellent. Their Sunday Roast (beef, pork, or chicken) only costs 6.59 GPB and that includes your drink, so it’s a good deal.

For that amount, you get a large plate with half a roasted chicken (two breasts on the bone, so no pressed "mystery meat"), four large roasted potatoes, about 3-cups of veges (green peas, carrots, broccoli), gravy, dressing, and Yorkshire Pudding. The latter is not pudding at all; it’s a type of baked good, a sort of hollowed-out, cupcake-shaped dinner roll.

 

The accompanying photo shows a beef roast with mashed potatoes but it gives you the idea. There are three Yorkshire Puddings on the plate at the right end.

 

By any measure, it’s a boatload of food and generally pretty tasty. The Hope Tap is big, open, and comfortable and it’s very pleasant to eat my Sunday Roast, drink my pint, and spend a hour or more reading the Sunday paper there.