Toby Carvery take away
Not me that’s for sure.
True fact, my first job was in a Toby Carvery. Working on Sundays whilst at college it was my job to “man the rumbler”, the massive machine that peeled sackfuls of potatoes so we could then chop them into roasties. It was 1986 and I can’t hear Starship’s “We built this city” without being taken back to that kitchen in Peterborough. Since the free lunch we used to get whilst on shift I can count on my left thumb the number of times I have visited a Toby Carvery since then.
Yet I love a roast dinner. Sundays with a roast dinner and the Grand Prix are amongst my favourite of all days. Also I actually find them one of the simplest meals to cook and when I am devoid of any other meal making decisions I know the humble roast will do us all proud. Apart from the time I managed to make flat green Yorkshires. That didn’t make anybody proud. Thankfully the Thermomix makes the best batter ever so we don’t have to worry about frisbees with our beef anymore (or indeed any meat. Did you see the debate online before Christmas about whether Christmas Dinner should have Yorkshires? Yes, yes it should. Every roast dinner should have Yorkshires, not just beef).
This weekend though the fridge was looking a bit bare as we had spent Saturday hanging upside in Bournemouth and on Sunday I had a headache so ferocious it was making my teeth ache. By 4pm I realised that the Hotel Chocolat selection of “nuts enrobed in ganache” probably wouldn’t cut it as dinner and that I should probably think about something a bit more substantial. Which is when I sent this Tweet:
It staggers me that you can have pretty much any food you like delivered, except a Sunday roast. Virtually our entire local high street is made up of restaurants, the majority of them deliver but none of them do a Sunday roast. Side Note: there is a business opportunity here.
No sooner had a I tweeted the above then amongst the replies came this little gem:
Disappointingly we don’t have either Deliveroo or UberEats in our area but I was intrigued by the suggestion that Toby Carvery do a click and collect service.
If you look through their website, at first glance there is NOTHING to suggest that. In big letters there are the menus and how to book a table, but nothing to suggest you can order and collect it. So I googled it and found a few links saying it had launched and headed back to the Toby Carvery website to find out if it had happened and been discontinued.
I might have actually screamed out loud when I saw the drop down menu selection that suggestion Nikki was on to something. Click the three lines at the top of the screen, and right at the bottom is the magic word “Take Away”
Boom.
You can order from a selection of starters (sadly two of them were out of stock) and then from a selection of meats, whether you want gravy, Yorkshire puddings, and ordinary roast potatoes or beef dripping potatoes. Then you can pick from a selection of desserts too. The roast dinners are £10.99 each which I think is pretty good value, and you simply select the time you want to pick it up. You have no selection of veg, except you get loads of it.
And of course, you do have to go and pick it up so how hot it will be when you get home depends on whether you have taken a knife and fork with you to eat it in the car park how far away you live from your chosen restaurant.
Let’s be honest, it is never going to be the height of culinary cuisine is it? And if I was being really really picky my beef wasn’t the greatest (and there were only two potatoes each, compared to the five or six shown on their plates on the website. Not that we need six potatoes but you know, just saying) but when you really really need a roast dinner and have nothing in the fridge, you can’t beat it.
Featured image of Sunday roast written in chalk, courtesy of Shutterstock