Traditional Sunday Roast at Feast

I’m a frustrated world traveler. Too little time, too much
responsibility, too many places to see. All these things conspire
against my natural born wanderlust.

So I’m always looking for those opportunities in Houston where you
can go and feel like you’ve been transported to a different
country/city/culture or even a different time.

Once such experience is at Feast restaurant.
The British co-chefs Richard Knight and James Silk, alongside James’
wife Meagan, have transplanted a rustic British restaurant to lower
Westheimer.

In addition to a constantly rotating menu of rustic European and
British fare, Feast recently started offering a traditional Sunday
Roast. The Sunday Roast is a mainstay of British culture. It usually
consists of a roasted meat, roast potatoes and various accompanying
vegetables and gravy.

On a recent Sunday afternoon I bundled up against the January cold
and walked the few blocks from my house to Feast. Though only a few
hundred feet in distance, the experience felt like a trip across the
pond to the mother country.

Let’s get this UK party started right with a glass of room-temperature Fuller’s ESB Ale.

The Sunday Roast included a choice of Leg of Lamb or a Fish & Scallop Pie. I chose the lamb.

The dish included roasted leg of lamb cooked medium-rare with a
savory/crackly skin, mint sauce made of fresh mint and apple cider
vinegar, roast potatoes, garlic infused mashed rutabaga, and pan
roasted brussels sprouts, all soaking luxuriously in a shallow pool of au jus.

In the UK, rutabagas (a kind of turnip) are variously called “swedes,” “neeps” or “snaggers.”

In Scotland, a variation of this dish is called Lamb with Tatties (potatoes) and Neeps (rutabaga).

The brussels sprouts were a nice choice for some greenery. I never imagined I’d be typing the following words: those brussels sprouts were spectacular.
But they really were. Pan roasted simply in the oven with some meat
drippings and minimal seasoning resulting in a rich caramelization.

The dessert course was a warm bread pudding infused with brandy, sherry and scotch (glad I was walking home).

This bread pudding was the silkiest, creamiest, and alcohol-iest (in a good way) I’ve ever tasted.

—J.C. Reid