It feels like a billion and a half years since the last time I had a Sunday roast somewhere other than my own house. Of course it’s not something I tend to have too many of over the summer but since it has turned positively autumnal over the last few weeks, I’m pleased to declare Sunday roast season officially open!
The Gosforth Hotel is quickly becoming one of my favourite local pubs (although I’m stretching the term local, since it’s about a 45 minute walk for us on a nice day or 3 stops on the metro). But it seems to have struck the perfect balance between friendly neighbourhood bar and trendy local ale house. Either way, It’s without a doubt my favourite pub on Gosforth High street, and Gosforth High Street is one of my favourite places to go for a few bevs, now I’m officially too old for town.
The good people at TGH very, very kindly invited me and Dave along to try their new Sunday roast as a thank you for the shout outs I give them on Insta and a well done for Dave doing the Great North Run in September; full disclosure, our lunch was complimentary but they didn’t ask for any kind of promotion whatsoever off the back of it, I wanted to do this write up myself.
Anyway, it was a rainy October afternoon and I’d struggled through a hungover deep water aerobics session so needless to say I was ravenous when I arrived! At the moment they’re only offering roast beef or vegan options, to test the water and see how well the dinners go down but I’ve every faith that they will expand in the fullness of time to include chicken and, god tier Sunday roast item; stuffing.
So 2 beef dinners it was for us and I’m pleased to report that they hit the spot nicely! Personally, and this is going to sound like a dig but I swear it’s not, the absence of mash was welcome for me. I’m not anti mash as concept, it’s lovely with some sausages and gravy, but I can happily live without it on a roast dinner. We had a generous portion of roast beef which was tender and packed with flavour, roasties, yorkshire puddings, broccoli, cabbage and carrots. Sometimes the simplest things are the best and to me, aside from possibly swapping out the carrots for cauliflower it was a wining combo.
The roasties and the yorkies were highlights for me, both with the right cripsy to fluffy ratio and there was enough gravy (which has made other places lose points) for me to pretty much drown my dinner in; as it should be, but is served separately to allow for personal distribution. We of course needed something to wash it all down with and can confirm their house red wine (the Corrida tempranillo) was really, really nice and at only £10.50 a bottle, an absolute steal.
Now, what’s a Sunday lunch without pudding (it was always Viennetta in our house) and since it was lashing down outside and had nowhere else to be, we ordered a Cherry Brownie Cheezecake (the Z is intentional as it’s vegan) for Dave and a classic warm chocolate fudge cake for me, both of which were really nice, the cheezecake, however, with the absence of cheese, was an odd consistency, not unpleasant, not untasty, just odd. One of the many reasons I could never be vegan, but that’s another post for another day. The fudge cake however, top drawer! Stick a fork in us, we were finally done!
We had a lovely afternoon at The Gosforth Hotel, staff were as lovely and friendly as always and there was a great mix of families having lunch, friends catching up for drinks and groups watching the footie. As far as Sundays go, this was one of my favourites in a while.