Carvery food

SEPT 23 1989 · 19-02-2014 10:39PM

I go for the half portion as a full portion interferes with my pinting

Kiwi in IE · 19-02-2014 10:40PM

Why carvery lovers? Why why why?

What awful food do you eat during the week that makes carvery seem so palatable on Sunday?

eireannBEAR · 19-02-2014 10:40PM

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

I go for the half portion as a full portion interferes with my pinting

Ah if im out on the lash,Id just leave the meal and buy a taco chips + batter sausage on the way home.

Zen65 · 19-02-2014 10:42PM

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

The stuff is awful without exception. Why would anyone want to pay a restaurant for a few slices of meat, mashed potato, and some unidentifiable, overcooked vegetables that the average person could cook better themselves?

Not true.

Most, admittedly, are awful, or at best, dreary.

But I've found a few exceptions to that rule, where the food is genuinely very good. Perhaps a thread to highlight the exception would be interesting?

anncoates · 19-02-2014 10:42PM

It's just a stomach liner without having to leave the pub.

eireannBEAR · 19-02-2014 10:46PM

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

Why carvery lovers? Why why why?

What awful food do you eat during the week that makes carvery seem so palatable on Sunday?

My butcher is a kiwi and he holds similar views, is that you?

A lot of irish people like spuds everyday for some of us it doesnt feel like a dinner if it doesnt contain some form of potato.

Eutow · 19-02-2014 11:09PM

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

Why carvery lovers? Why why why?

What awful food do you eat during the week that makes carvery seem so palatable on Sunday?

Roast potato's on the Sunday seems like a luxury compared to a week of eating mashed potato. Compare it to eating a 100 Euro steak to eating a 3 Euro Lidl steak.

Anyway, I say a big no to carvery.

Sir Arthur Daley · 19-02-2014 11:10PM

Its hard to beat a good carvery, good value for money and filling food.

Guy:Incognito · 19-02-2014 11:11PM

wazky wrote: »

Don't forget the snotty offspring with their paws stuck in every jaysus thing.

Are you thinking of a buffet?

hidinginthebush · 19-02-2014 11:20PM

I used to work in a pub that did a carvery that would absolutely pack them in on a Sunday. It's was disgusting, you'd get grown men coming up to the bar asking for pints with gravy smeared all over their face.

We used to say a money saving scheme would be to have a trough, fill it with spuds, meat, stuffing and gravy, then two of those hamster drink bottles, fill one with bulmers, the other with bud, charge people €15 in a head and just let them go at it.

delw · 19-02-2014 11:21PM

At the end of the day it's really about a bite to eat at reasonable price & a drink or two.The busier the the establishment the more food gets used which in turn means it's some what fresher IMO.

Lawrence1895 · 19-02-2014 11:26PM

Less staff on the floor, less Sunday premium wages. Simples. And a Bain Marie is not asking for double pay anyway

19-02-2014 11:27PM

Ah a nice big roast beef carvery is lovely. Yeah you could make it as nice at home but that involves effort, driving down to the restaurant and walking inside to get your roast is a lot less effort.

bee06 · 19-02-2014 11:28PM

I hate carvery with a passion and when it's available you can't get normal food!!! Why does the chef need to be standing there cutting the meat ... Can he not go back to the kitchen and cook me a decent dinner!

Kiwi in IE · 19-02-2014 11:28PM

eireannBEAR wrote: »

My butcher is a kiwi and he holds similar views, is that you?

A lot of irish people like spuds everyday for some of us it doesnt feel like a dinner if it doesnt contain some form of potato.

HAHAHA! No I'm not your butcher, but I am unsurprised that he feels the same way. In NZ carveries are not popular or common. They do exist, but are usually the sorts of places that single old men, usually alcoholics who have burnt all their bridges with family, so have no one to cook for them and can't do much more in the kitchen than make toast, go to get their dinner. That would be about the entirety of the clientele in the sort of places that serve carvery I'm afraid.

There are plenty of utterly crap restaurants at home too obviously, but a least you get to choose the crap off a menu and have it bought to the table for you.

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater · 19-02-2014 11:29PM

Don't get it myself, the bar food in my local (and most pubs that do food) is streets ahead of a carvery imo.

Gran Hermano · 19-02-2014 11:30PM

I'm guessing the fondness for carvery fodder is a country thing in the main.

eireannBEAR · 19-02-2014 11:33PM

Gran Hermano wrote: »

I'm guessing the fondness for carvery fodder is a country thing in the main.

It could be,Maybe carveries outside dublin serve better quality food. I cant complain about the quality of carveries in kildare anyway.

Femme_Fatale · 19-02-2014 11:35PM

I'm sure lots of local pubs in Dublin (not ones in areas with lots of countryfolk living in them) provide carvery.
A few of us used to partake of one of a Sunday now and again in the Autobahn, Glasnevin, Dublin 11 (nearly Finglas).

dr.bollocko · 19-02-2014 11:38PM

My favourite part is when they get ideas above their station and start serving the meat with a sprig of parsley or two chives delicately organised at 90 degree angles on the plate. Withered vegetables, one green, one orange, one white. Doesn't matter what, they all taste the same in carvery land. And some smart arse has delicately sliced up some coriander to adorn the white sauce. Turd polising at its finest.

Seriously. I'm at a carvery because I have no other option and / or it's after a funeral.

Serve me the pre-chewed beef if you must but don't fúcking put a stick of rosemary on my lamb and pretend like this is haute cuisine. We both know what this is you lying bastards.

Schwiiing · 19-02-2014 11:40PM

bee06 wrote: »

I hate carvery with a passion and when it's available you can't get normal food!!! Why does the chef need to be standing there cutting the meat ... Can he not go back to the kitchen and cook me a decent dinner!

These words do not go in the same sentence.

MonaPizza · 19-02-2014 11:47PM

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

Why why why why why is it so popular here?

On a Sunday afternoon when you feel like going out for lunch, all that can be found are restaurants that have perfectly normal, acceptable menus at other times, serving carvery! And they are always full!

The stuff is awful without exception. Why would anyone want to pay a restaurant for a few slices of meat, mashed potato, and some unidentifiable, overcooked vegetables that the average person could cook better themselves? They are like a boring week night dinner. I just don't get why people want that sort of food when they go out for a meal. Perhaps it's just me, but if I'm going out to dinner I don't want to pay for something I could cook better myself. I want food that is different that I wouldn't think to cook at home very often. The most useless cook could make a roast dinner taste better than carvery!

Also there is the lining up to get the awful food! Carverys remind me of hospital/school/workplace canteens, and the food certainly tastes no better! I would actually rather get McDonalds and I'm not a fan of that either.

That is my carvery rant over. Maybe someone could enlighten me on their popularity!

Some mothers and fathers are knackered after working all week and don't have enough left over to go to the "Tavern on the Green" for canapes, prior to fois gras and a cheeky little valpolicella before their lobster thermador. Some people would just love to be served the slop that they've doled out all week without a moment for themselves. Why don't you invite us all to your gazebo for haute cuisine?

Red Pepper · 19-02-2014 11:51PM

Wedding food is often just poor carvery food and yet people go on and on about it.

Kiwi in IE · 19-02-2014 11:53PM

MonaPizza wrote: »

Some mothers and fathers are knackered after working all week and don't have enough left over to go to the "Tavern on the Green" for canapes, prior to fois gras and a cheeky little valpolicella before their lobster thermador. Some people would just love to be served the slop that they've doled out all week without a moment for themselves. Why don't you invite us all to your gazebo for haute cuisine?

Well you are very much in defense of carvery!

If I felt like you described above I would seriously rather go to McD's or buy a cooked chicken, packet of salad and bread rolls from Tesco and eat them at a picnic spot, even of it was raining and we had to sit in the car.

MonaPizza · 20-02-2014 12:02AM

billyhead wrote: »

I love Carvery food. Roast Potatoes, Gravy, beef and veg. Pure Bliss:P

Hear hear! And all the carvery haters on here will be the very first to say that they've never eaten so well in a (carvery) on their bullsh!t trip to Orlando. "Oh my GAWD, they had a mountain of corn on the cob!!", "the all you can eat buffet was just the best!", "the unlimited ribs (horse-hide included) were to die for"

Funny that

ThirdMan · 20-02-2014 12:02AM

I love carvery food. I never cook 'Irish' dinners so it's nice to get a good one every now and then. And if all you're being offered in your local is roast beef and overcooked veg then the problem is with the restaurant/pub, not the format. I had a lovely slow-cooked leg of lamb recently with honey glazed root vegetables and the ubiquitous potatoes. And I don't mind standing in a queue. I do it in a pub every time I go for a pint. Food hipsters indeed.

Sir Arthur Daley · 20-02-2014 12:05AM

I feel alot that hate carvery have had bad carvery experiences where the food is dried out, stick to good places and a good carvery is impossible to beat.

Pinch Flat · 20-02-2014 12:09AM

WikiHow wrote: »

I feel alot that hate carvery have had bad carvery experiences where the food is dried out, stick to good places and a good carvery is impossible to beat.

Holy cross pub outside Waterford, love their carvery when I'm visiting that neck of the woods. Agree with a lot of the previous posters though - there's a lot of mank out there as well

Dyr · 20-02-2014 12:10AM

Coleman Slawski wrote: »

The day after a night out drinking stout its hard to beat heading to somewhere like O'Neills on Suffolk Street, getting a whopper turkey and ham dinner, having a massive dump after it and then getting stuck into more pints.

/perfect Sunday

O'Neills serve the carvery till fairly late too, nothing better than falling in there half cut and starving then pigging out on a roast beef dinner

eireannBEAR · 20-02-2014 12:14AM

The Silken Thomas in kildare is my nomination for the best carvery in the land,But it also has a separate restaurant if some of the food snobs wish to pay double the price.

Carvery food

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