Menu Update: The Slug & Lettuce Comes To Croydon, Tasting Britain Comes To The Slug And Lettuce…
If you live a large city the UK, or have at any point in the last 10 years or so, you probably know about the Slug & Lettuce.
‘The Slug’…56% bar, 34% club, 10% pub . Not yet ubiquitous, but it gets around. Youthful, but not quite on the level of the 330 AM closing times and groups of people in their early 20s sprawled unconscious in the taxi rank, entirely surrounded by discarded kebab meat and regret.
*zones out*
Ahem, anyway…
The Slug’s food offerings are on the main part Modern British (think curries, pies, fish and chips, etc.) with a few more…’worldly’ influences thrown in. As for the drinks menu – it ain’t so bad at all. They even have my favourite wine.
For a bit of history: the first of many Slugs (and there are many slugs) was opened by Hugh Corbett in Islington, London – all the way back in 1984. Since then they’ve changed hands quite a few times, and come a rather long way, with around 82 to be found all over the UK at last count (a large number of these in London and the South East).
What to say? The experience is consistent, if a little bland. I’ve never had a bad time there.
Anyhow, Occasionally Tasting Britain will be invited down to try out a chain’s new menu. So, we headed down to the (relatively) new one in Croydon to check out some of the food off of their new Menu for Spring/Summer 2015
Here’s what showed up:
Chicken Lollipop Wings £5.25
You can choose either hot chilli Sriracha sauce or Korean BBQ sauce to go with this one. It reminded me of a somewhat more aesthetically pleasing and non greasy KFC – small not particularly gristly, an obvious plus. As for sauce, we opted for Korean BBQ sauce. As a man with a deficit in BBQ knowledge, all I can say is that I have no complaints – it’s just BBQ sauce as far as I can tell.
On the whole: not memorable, but a lot less….aggressive than some of the fried chicken I have been served up in my current incarnation as some kind of human that occasionally eats fried chicken.
Smoky Spanish Style Chicken With Quinoa And Couscous £7.95
This is a lot like the kind of food I eat at home on a regular basis. It felt (and made me feel) virtuous on many culinary levels. That’s why it’s in the ‘Saintly Selection’ non? So yes, it almost lives up to its name. It is rather Spanish, but not particularly smoky. Where ‘dem paprika smoked chorizo pieces at? Answer: nowhere – those fuckers have way too many calories. Instead of calories, you can have some cumin. SAINTHOOD AWAITS. DO YOU EVEN LIFT
The quinoa is a bit on the bland and starchy side. The beans taste legit – insofar that they remind of food I have eaten in Spain. These black beans provide a sort of squashy contrast with the quinoa. It is divided halfway down the middle between couscous and the chicken/sauce combination. This actually reminds me of a ready meal ^_^
Lebanese Style Chicken £8.75
There is a generous portion of satisfying meaty, occasionally charred chicken sensations to be had here – it’s served with a sweet tomato dressing which by distribution is 90% at the bottom of your plate – a subterranean dressing? Big plus: delicious pomegranate seeds (hidden underneath layers of vegetables). Hoooo shit there is so much vegetable happening here. It’s like trying to eat a forest. CAN YOU FEEL THE ANTIOXIDANTS? BELIEVE!
There’s something flaky in the middle which is quite rich and moorish – I think that’s the roasted butternut squash. And those fat green beans that I once despised as a child but have now formed a truce with. The meat sits on the top so it’s best to smash this mofugga with your fork until you get ‘even distribution’. Or be a depraved maniac and eat it in layers.
Warm Belgian Waffle With Ice Cream With Caramel Sauce £4.95 (Alternative topping: fresh fruit and maple syrup, also £4.95)
*Tries to avoid temptation to make a joke about ‘waffling’* Verdict: this is good, but not great: though it is pretty hard to fuck up a waffle. Just put sweet things on top of it and don’t burn it. All that sugar’ll do the rest. Delicious waffle. The outsides are crispy and diabetic (Maillard reaction in my body pls thx), whereas the inside is moist and yielding (not even gonna make a joke about that.
There are generous quantities of caramel and ice cream too. The inevitable destiny of this dessert is Ice cream squashed into mostly obliterated waffle with caramel melted all over the place. And so the dessert loses its shit in a strong finish: 7.50/10
Not New Stuff
NOT NEW, CONSUME IT ANYWAY
British Beef & Red Wine Shortcrust Pie £9.75
Didn’t eat this but here’s a picture since it was there!
Chardonnay, Durbanville Hills, South Africa (£5.60 for 175ml – pictured) (£20.50 a bottle)
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This is a pretty weighty white wine with cream and creamy things happening right up in your palette, plus some subtle sweet citrus notes (maybe orange). Not the most memorable, but a quite probable crowd pleaser. A wine ‘big’ enough to stand up to quite a lot of other foods/flavours – important when caramel and ice cream are part of the occasion/equation 😀