I’m pretty sure that I have found the cure for the wet Monday blues. Is it a pill, a lamp, a holiday? I hear you cry. No! It’s the huge, delicious ‘Monday’ roast at Kindling in The Lanes. “Monday Roast,” you say? Surely a typo… if not an aberration. I can assure you it’s neither. The Kind-lings have thought of all those poor souls who missed their chance on Sunday and given them their roast back. Shifters, chefs, and frontline workers rejoice!
It was one of those Monday evenings when it got dark before sunset, the rain so unrelenting that you feel soggy inside. We’d had one of those weekends, when, even though not ‘working,’ not much recovery had been done, so heading out, even with the promise of a tasty meal, was frankly a bit of a struggle.
Sharing roast on a Monday?
Driven by a slightly grudging curiosity (and greed), we set out into the lamplit gloom with not much to say to one another. Amazingly, everything changed the second we walked through the door at Kindling. Welcomed warmly by the team, we stepped from the dreary street into a thoughtfully lit restaurant, hung with greenery and busy with cheerful diners. What a contrast!
My other half has been a junior doctor now for well over a decade (I know!), and this brings with it many weekends of work and, in my case, solo-parenting. We’re never quite in agreement about which one is harder. So Monday evening is often a moment to reconnect, but, well, it’s Monday, right? It’s just not the same… except it kind of was at Kindling.
With a good idea of what was to come, we started with a couple of glasses of light red wine, marinated olives, and fresh focaccia – toasted on the grill and served with the signature coriander, lemon, and garlic hummus. This was just the thing to whet our appetites and keep us happy while we waited for the main event.
Cote de Boeuf With Goose Fat Roasties
What a triumph. Served on an enormous black slate slab, Kindling’s Sharing Roast for Two features 450g of top-quality dry-aged Cote de Boeuf cooked over live fire in the restaurant’s state-of-the-art open kitchen. Showing real confidence, we were not asked how we wanted it cooked. The Suffolk-bred Cote de Boeuf was perfection – grill-striped caramelisation on the outside, soft pink to rare in the tender centre.
The crunchy goose-fat rosemary roast potatoes were absolutely as good as they sound: crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, with the heady scent of rosemary in the air, and served in abundance. Accompanying the fundamentals were piles of fondant-soft heritage maple-roasted carrots and char-grilled hispi cabbage, which were both stand-alone delicious.
The platter was topped with two towering Yorkshire puddings and served with a copper pot of hot, homemade, rich, red wine and onion gravy – enough to drench or dunk, depending on your ‘method.’
An Indulgent Dessert Each
As someone who doesn’t eat beef often, I feel it’s important not to waste the opportunity on something less than great. No concerns here. Faced with such extravagance, would you be surprised to hear that we finished every last scrap? Well, we did. And we ordered dessert to boot – not one to share, but one each.
We chose my absolute favourite winter rib-sticker (which I love in any guise) – chocolate molten cake, beautifully complemented by a smooth hazelnut ice cream, and a baked Basque-style cheesecake with a tart cherry coulis. We finished these too, playfully competing over the last bite.
Deliciously Unpretentious And Really Very Good
We were so well looked after by manager Minky and his team that we felt thoroughly at home, taking suggestions for what to eat and which delicious wines to choose (Sangiovese and Malbec – just what the doctor ordered!). Despite the quality of the dining experience, it really isn’t the least bit pretentious, which is so important if you’re feeling a little sensitive for whatever reason. We’re so delighted to have found our Monday cure, but in case you were wondering – this fabulous roast is available to share on Sundays too – praise be!
Hospo Fam – click here for your industry discount!
