The Clink Restaurant at HMP Brixton

https://athome.theclinkcharity.org/

This seems a fitting end to English week. This is a very late post as just after we ate this meal – Clink delivery closed their kitchens because of an outbreak of COVID-19 in the prison. We are posting it now as they have opened up again from 3rd March! So if you live within 10 miles of Brixton Prison you can now get an order – we suggest you do that quickly to support a worthwhile charity.

We’ve visited once – see here – and ordered once before – see here. This order was placed just before Christmas just after moving into Tier 4. We were keen to try it all again as a treat at home and we weren’t disappointed. So, don’t wait to the end of this review – just order as it is wonderful and incredible value. And if you eat it at home. you can also choose the wine accompaniment, which is not available on site.

All dishes come with lids that explains what each one is and how to heat or serve it. This is really helpful, as we have tried other meals and had to guess how they were all put together – sometimes with interesting and unpredictable results. The food has a shelf life of three days so you can put some in the fridge for another day.

There are three in our bubble so for starters – Arancini (sun-dried tomato & parmesan arancini with rocket pesto) for two and a portion of Fougasse with rosemary and garlic garlic butter. There were plenty of really tasty and crispy Arancini – even some left over – but we wolfed down all the bread (beware of the very garlicky butter). The Arancini were as good as the last time we ordered them. Well done guys.

For the mains we ordered three – potato. leek and Cornish yarg pie; slow cooked beef brisket with colcannon potatoes; and barbeque pork ribs with spicy rice and coleslaw.  We also ordered (again eyes bigger than stomachs) potato wedges and roast root vegetables. We saved the pie and the colcannon potatoes for another day, as we were overwhelmed by the meat dishes. We have been mostly vegetarian and this was a bit of a treat with the soft and spicy ribs and the really soft salty and “umami” brisket. We ate them with the wedges, vegetables, rice and coleslaw. There were enough ribs to satisfy the three of us and, although we ate the vegetables, there was still some rice left over, as we were absolutely full.

Well not quite totally, as it doesn’t matter how stuffed you are there is always room for the spiced autumn fruit crumble with creme anglaise. Lots of apple and red fruit with a particularly good crumble topping. not the usual crumbs but more shortbread and crunchy. We all loved it – even the person who “doesn’t usually eat dessert”. We still had some for the next day’s breakfast.

We ordered £54.35 worth of food and paid £4.95 for the delivery. This served three people with a really high quality meal that cheered us all up. We had some left over for lunch another day. The intervention of Christmas meant that we ate it beyond the three days that were promised, but we’re still here, so it must have been OK. All in all, brilliant value for money. So order now and if you are in a bubble, this is definitely an easy cheat for a dinner party box.