Friday 27 September 2013

Perkins Reveller, The Wharf, Tower of London

The other night I had an exciting trip over to St Katherine's Dock to look at our potential new flat. Very exciting indeed. Ill keep you posted on the success of that.

Hi there nieghbour! 

I've never been there before and I was totally surprised by it. What a lovely part of London, the dock is quiet and has loads of fantastic restaurants round it (ideal/not ideal depending on the state of my bank account. I'll always choose food over impending poverty). I've fallen for the area hook, line and sinker. Fingers crossed!


Isn't it pretty? 


I had arranged to meet a friend after work but unfortunately she wasn't going to be able to get away until late, so asked to take a rain check. As I wandered back towards The Tower of London there were so many different food smells tantalising my nostrils and as a I'd spent all day inside I weighed up the options of taking myself to dinner. I'm a strong, independent woman, I could handle dinner on my own and so I did.

As I settled down to my candle lit table for two now one, I whipped out my kindle. A handy weapon of choice that now lives in my handbag and is available at a boring moments notice, or for times such as these as you decided to go for dinner alone. Im reading a really awful book at the moment. I chose it because the story line is thus: Single woman (who inherits a child after her sister dies, but I'm ignoring that part) decides to branch out and become private chef, first client is a super hot, rich, single racing car driver. They hate each other, he woos her, they fall in love. The end, well I'm assuming thats the end, I haven't actually got that far but I see it as a no brainer. See where I went with that? Jenson Button, Ill be sending you a business card.

I digress, back to my meal. Before I went in I did do a sneaky google to a) check the price and b) check I wanted to eat things; belly pork? I was sold. When the menu was put in front of me I was horrified to see the belly pork wasn't there, and for all the tempting things on the menu and the child in my head having a tantrum, I couldn't get the belly out of my head until I spotted it with salmon. God knows why they had paired salmon and belly pork but there we have it, at least it was on the menu, therefore I could have it in one way or another.



The extremely friendly waitress came on over to deliver my glass of red and take my order. I questioned her on the pork and told her of my hatred for salmon and she told me to wait a second she had to double check something. She came back bearing the best news ever. I could have the original belly pork dish that I'd seen on google, they'd just moved it to the lunch time menu but chef was willing to whip it up for me. Excellent. 
The dish was: slow cooked belly pork with black pudding mash, a pork croquette and crackling topped off with a red wine reduction. GET IN MY BELLY. I ordered some spring greens to go with it and settled down to Jamie and Chase and my wine (Im such a cliche but I'm embracing it.)

Then it arrived and it was so pretty...


 The pork was so juicy and the sauce was divine, though I could have done with more of it. The mash was a bit of a let down if I'm honest but the real star of the show was the croquette. They had filled it with pulled pork, capers, tiny cornichons and mustard seeds.



  Check out that bad boy. It was just the right amount of sour to go with the sweet belly pork. Moments later I had devoured it and a pudding menu had been placed in front of me. As always I glanced at it not expecting to find anything that I would bother with, until I saw that magic word. Cake.
Apple and pecan cake with caramel sauce, a vanilla ice cream, apple mousse and an apple crisp. Served warm. Now that my friends, is a pudding I can deal with.


It didn't disappoint. I wandered off to the tube very happy and content.
Perkins is a place I would return to, with friends, I'm not sure you could go to the same place twice alone. If I was an old hand at this blogging thing I would have thought to take pictures of the restaurant and the great view but alas, I didn't. It's on the river right next to Tower Bridge, the back wall of the restaurant is actually part of the bridge and you exit out in the middle of it through a pretty fantastic wooden door, I do love wooden doors. It has a great outside area thats heated and covered and the inside is great too, large and spacious so you don't feel like your sitting on top of people. Its not the cheapest place, my meal for 2 courses and 2 125ml glasses of wine was £35. Mains are pretty much from £12 to £19, but perhaps if it were date night... 

Here's the website if you're feeling so inclined to check them out... 

Square Meal

1 comment:

  1. Nice,
    Many moons ago I lived near by, Milk Yard, near The Jolly Sailor. It was Yuppies Vs. Locals back then (I was neither, so got it from both sides).
    There was a great Pub called The Prospect Of Whitby (oldest pub on the river). A Jazz band called To Damn Hot (with lots of home made instruments) were the star attraction.
    Not sure how much has changed.

    ReplyDelete