To expect a decent roast potato?!

[LMCOA]

Just been out to my local pub for lunch with a couple of friends.

I ordered the roast beef. The meal was delicious - except for the frozen potatoes. Grim!

Am I being snobby? I mean, the meal was £14. I know that's reasonable for a roast dinner, but surely for £14 they should serve fresh roast potatoes?!

Just had roast beef at a pub today and it was lovely- fresh potatoes and vegetables and home-made yorkshires. Went to a different pub a few weeks ago where the tiny yorkshires were frozen as was the veg. Not sure if they were also frozen potatoes but I won't be going back.

I love a carvery but the roast potatoes are never as good as what you get at home in my opinion. I think you need to roast the actual duck out of them so they are propped crispy. Carvery ones are always the right colour but no crispiness.

For comparison, I've had Toby Carvery potatoes that have been miles better than what I was presented with today.

We go out most weeks for Sunday lunch - 2 weeks ago, we paid £16 for a roast beef dinner. ONE slice of beef, home-cooked roast potatoes, which were soggy. A few bits of veg.

Last week - half a roast chicken, stuffing, 3 veg, crispy roast potatoes and an absolutely massive Yorkshire pudding. £12.

Pub roast dinners are a proper scam, wildly expensive and utterly crap.

I went out with my large family for Christmas dinner last year it was £70 per person. They served tinned veg, frozen stuffing balls and frozen roast potatoes. It actually greived me paying that much for something so cheaply made and shit.

My MIL used to dish up frozen roast potatoes with Christmas Dinner, there's a time and a place for aunt Bessie's and it's no Xmas or carvery!!

Totally agree. Frozen roasties just dont make the grade. Fresh ones are so easy to make, i dont understand why you would pay to eat frozen ones.

Roasties have to be made at home, use flour after par boiling them, makes them the crispiest ever, delicious😋

From extensive experience (I like eating out) a decent roast potato in a pub/restaurant is very hard to find. If they have a decent roast spud then there will be something else wrong with the meal. There is one place near us that does a perfect roast dinner. Everything is delicious and interesting. The potatoes are amazing. I love it.

Bloody hell.

I would have refused to pay!!

Upgrade: semolina instead of flour, à la Nigella.

It’s never occurred to be any are frozen , how do you tell? I’ve never bought frozen ones mind you so maybe just wouldn’t recognise them but I love all roast potatoes. Especially my friend’s as she adds butter as well as oil . I use olive oil or sometimes goose fat after parboiling and shaking them (I don’t bother with flour)

One of the main reasons I hate having a roast dinner out, crap potatoes and rubbish gravy! I've been watching a programme about Brit expats in Spain and note that a lot of the people who run pub/bars and serve sunday lunches deep fry their roasties...filthy bastards...

You can always tell a frozen one, they are kind of rounded at the edges and somehow taste breaded.

You can freeze REAL roast potatoes and heat up for added crisp so it’s massively lazy on the part of the pub. YANBU

Sacrilege.

Yeah. And almost... I wanna say 'bitty?'

Is that you Sally?

Yes the same thing for us today. Fab roast but the potatoes were hard on the outside and not fluffy on the inside. Clearly reheated.

Having worked in a lot of pubs and restaurants (several quite high level) in my student years, the deep frying of roast potatoes was fairly common practice . The potatoes were roasted in advance and then deep fried at the time of serving to crisp them back up. I doubt things have changed much.

I’ve NEVER had roast potatoes on a pub that are even close to what we make at home. Always crap and obviously fried.

best place we know for roasts does oily potatoes in their skin. When someone asked why they were told they’d never found a way to mass produce proper roast potatoes that were worthy of the ne so they didnt.

@LMCOA yes! Bitty! Almost like frozen potato croquettes on the inside too. Very odd.

I love croquettes, but not on a roast 😂

I'm still seething that I paid £14 and got frozen tats. It's just not gravy.

Potatoes should be fresh. X