Since Bel & The Dragon shuttered and the team at The Lyndhurst moved on, my poor octogenarian neighbour Liz has searched in vain for somewhere to have a decent Sunday lunch, and it is a not easy in Central Reading. A decent political party would have taken up this crucial issue in our recent local and general elections, but no, they concentrated on housing and transport and such trivia instead.

So, we poor citizens are left wandering the streets in search of the crispiest roast, the deepest gravy and munchiest Yorkshires....

The Lido and LSB don't pander to this British tradition. A tradition so strong that the French actually named us after it. And we rosbifs cannot pop down to Valpy's, who did a wonderful line in Sunday roast takeaways during lockdown that, frankly, kept many of us sane, but now closes on a Sunday for a well earned rest.

Of course, you could go to a Spoons or Green King pub and order a roast, but only if you down a few pints first is my recommendation - one of those ready meals from Tesco and a microwave may be a more sensible option.

There are many, many places just outside of town that do a fine Sunday feast, but that involves logistics and driving and things you really don't want to be doing on a Sunday morning, because it comes after a Saturday night.

Côte do a decent roast if you can get past the irony of roast beef in a French brasserie. But otherwise it is a bit of a roasted wasteland out there.

So Liz was excited to learn that part of Raymond Blanc's restaurant empire had opened a new outpost, reachable via both the 17 and 18a buses and she excitedly reported back that it was excellent.

In a town where everything that opens seems to be Asian, fried chicken or burgers, a new gastro pub is to be welcomed with relief and open arms.

But there is a reason why Fullers closed down the Bel. These are straitened times. Students, transient professional workers and an increasingly ethnic population do not hold the local boozer as dearly as us old codgers, which segues nicely into a Monday lunchtime where G and I excitedly headed for The Rising Sun. No, not for a roast, but for a boozy 'midweek' (our diaries are a disaster at this time of the year, so please cut us some slack) lunch.

And there is a good reason for eschewing a Sunday review. I have written two reviews of Sunday lunches for this column, The Narrowboat and The Lyndhurst, and both closed down before I could publish. So, with no wish to voodoo this new and welcome venue, the a la carte menu gets our full attention on a warm, sunny July Monday...

A quick look at the menu reminded me much of the Bel, which seemed to vacillate between heating up Brakes' food (for those of you who do not know, Brakes has a massive warehouse on Sutton's Seeds roundabout that delivers pre-prepared meals and ingredients to catering establishments all over the country) and being a true gastropub. 

There is a checklist that most modern restaurants are obliged to provide involving steaks and chips and the like, but there are also brasserie favourites like bouillbaise and a good veggie and vegan selection, along with a merquez tagine, trout, crab and bream dishes. The menu is so well balanced that it could walk a tightrope across the Thames.

The ladies lunching on the next table had two bowls delivered and we drooled and asked our lovely waitress what it was, only to be surprised by her reply - the supergrain salad at a calorific value that would be expended by a walk to the bus stops at nearby Mary's Butts (provided you avoid a pit stop at our infamous local pie shop, the ironically named Sweeny Todd's). The supergrains looked lovely and delicious, as did every dish passing us on the outside terrace on a glorious sunny summer afternoon.

The pub has  a great location, just off St Mary's Butts on Castle St and apparently has cells beneath it - there used to be an old medieval prison next door and the pub had stabling for 50 horses, so when, in 1947, Bertram Mills’ Circus came to town, along with its elephants, they decided to bed down at The Sun. Unfortunately, the elephants went on a bit of a rampage and caused parts of the pub to collapse.

Now, a rather shabby boozer and a car park have been transformed into a massive space with a drinking area, two huge dinning area and a very nice terrace in the shadow of our friends at Blue Collars Corner. There are also Fisherman's Cottage type outside cabins. Sans elephants.

You can enter the pub by the front door, but the dinning area reception is down the side via the large patio. It is massive, capable of a couple of hunrdred.covers with the outside fully occupied, I'd guess. And that is the nature of catering these days. You need volume to keep prices sensible.

I was greeted like an old friend and had a drink in my hand almost before I sat down. Indeed, the staff were utterly delightful throughout. Friendly, competent and truly concerned. It is perhaps unfair to judge this on a Monday lunchtime, but they did seem a bit stretched and by the end of our service reinforcements had arrived. This is always get it right service that makes you feel special and puts a smile on your face. After our waitress saw us rubber necking the supergrain salad, she brought every dish she served past our table and whispered what it was. 



And so, to the food and drink. Well, the on tap booze is decent - Camden - which used to be a small local microbrewery when I lived in that parish, Cornish, Taylor's Chairman and Doom Bar. For me, on a hot summer's day, it was a Peroni (what is it with all the Italian and Spanish lagers that have taken over our bars ? Come on Denmark, come on Checkia, come on Wrexham Lager !). G joined me both literally and bucolically.

As ever, it took us half an hour to catch up before we could be bothered to look at the menu, with our smiley waitress making hovering a subtle art until we eventually turned our attention to the menu, which I have included below since it has clearly, like the rest of this enterprise, been carefully thought out by people who clearly know their stuff. The measure of this is that by the time you have finished your first scan you are already selecting what you will have on your next visit.

 




We were asked if we wanted nibbles, and one day soon I will return to see if the scotch egg gets even close to those that have been served at The Lyndhurst by the past couple of incumbents. But, no, thank you. The starter list is interesting but familiar testament to a great meeting at Blanc HQ (haven't I mentioned that this is a Raymond Blanc enterprise ?)

A sausage salad is tempting, but not an a boiling hot day. the fish soup sounded delicious, but just didn't stand muster at 28 degrees. So I opted for the heritage tomato salad with avocado paste. And G went for the souffle.

 



It took us a while to order the very excellent pink Picpoul (now my wife comes from that part of France and she never knew that was a thing) and I predict that it's going to be the new thing. The markup on a £15 wine to £37 is reasonable, and clearly pricing has been carefully, carefully thought through. And boy, it was a great bottle of wine for a hazy, lazy summer afternoon (and we ended up ordering a second, of course).

The tomatoes were on a very generous smooth avocado bed with radish, onion and thinly sliced olives and mozzarella balls, The cheese wasn't really necessary and added little apart from protein. Oh, and there were sprigs of baby basil (the big stuff in my kitchen tastes better) with a tiny, right amount of oil. The dish looked summer perfect and tasted summer good. 

The thing about tomatoes is that they are quite salty, but my grandad grew them in copious quantities and my grandmother's favourite meal was a pile of her husband's tomatoes and a pile of salt to dunk them in. And I am their grandson for a reason. But salting tomatoes is an art and here they were both the best ingredients, from the nearby Isle of Wight, with absolutely the right amount of saline seasoning. Who would have thought that some tomatoes dressed in a bit of salt became the best dish I have tasted this year to date ?

Sometimes simples is bestest.

 



G's cheese soufflé was, well, a perfect and generous souflee with some chesse sauce to pour in the middle and make it even more cheesy. You will gather from this that I am not a souffle fan, as much as I admire its cuisance, but at The Rising Sun you knew that, on a Monday afternoon, not only was there generous talent in attendance, but there was prodigious talent in the kitchen. G could not fault the dish. Being consistent was something the Bel never got right and Valpy's struggles with. LSB is better, generally. But here I am confident that any time I turn up I will be served a correct plate of food.

So, after a further hour gabbling, onto our main course. For me a pork roulade with apricot sauce, hisbi, duphinoise and a sauce. For G a sweetcorn and peqiluillo pepper fritter with a salad. Yes, G went veggie ! I blame it on the heat.

 

 

The pork also came with crackling, which I put into my pocket for my wife, who loves the stuff. I hate it, the texture and overly strong flavours shock my taste buds. Our darling waitress, who is of my wife's persuasion, insisted that I try some. I did and hated it. Thankfully at this point reinforcements arrived for the wait staff and I never needed to disappoint her reporting back on my experience (until now).

But everything else was superb. The hisbi - one of my favourite things - was sweet and soft and ever so slightly charred. I think there was butter involved, but the residue had been obscured into a veil of taste that would have left me content if this was the only item on the dish.

The dauphinoise lacked a bit of creamines and was less garlicky than I like, but perfectly soft and delicious. There was a pink sauce (they call it jus) which, for some reason to do with the intrinsic loveliness of the other ingredients, I ignored. And then the pork, shaped into a roulade with apricot jam on top and inside. Now, a lot of people do not eat pork and a lot of people do not like pork - it can be a very dry meat - but I throw an L forehead at them. They are missing out. This pork was epic.

My father was brought up on a farm in Wales with geese and hens and sheep and cows and decided he was a vegetarian, apart from bacon. Well, I bet he would give up bacon for this pork, sweet, succulent and slightly charred. The best pork I have ever tasted this side of a Chinese recipe. And the apricot chutney was a perfect accompaniment. Better and more interesting than the more traditional apple sauce.

 



G said that his fritters were delicious. His plate was empty. In fact, I do not think a dishwasher needed to be involved post meal.

Onto our second bottle of pink Picpoul. We both went onto Vivino to try and add and rate it, but the transparent bottle defeated poor, paltry AI driven superphone cameras.

We could have drawn a line there. We were totally full - G had polished his plate and I had left a third of my meal. The portions were generous but not excessive, as seems to be the trend these days - double the quantities to justify the doubled prices since it is the overheads not the variable costs that define the profitability of catering establishments.

But, no, dear reader. We are your humble servants and we need to complete our report on this wonderful new addition to the Reading food scene properly. So, desserts there were.

They are, again, carefully priced. You can get three scoops of ice cream or sorbet for five and a half quid, which seems like a bargain these days.


I had something that involved an orange and chocolate mouse, with teeth crunching crumble on top (honeycomb might have worked better) and a 99 flake and chocolate ice cream. (Apparently the 99 designation comes.from the fact that the Italian monarch had 99 bodyguards and this was considered the height of esteem in Italy. And most ice cream in the UK was sold by Italians, including the grumpy much mustachioed Mr Bertotelli in my home town.)

It was OK and I really didn't need it and sometimes a dessert is just a mistake.

 


And G, who willl henceforth be known as Mr Souffle, had yet another souffle, this one made of pistachios with a chocolate ice cream dollop that he plonked in the middle of his dish. I stole a taste and, boy, did he win this one, despite not realising that souffles come from an oven and scalding himself on the dish.

And this sums up The Rising Sun. Just one visit tells me that this place is convivial, well managed, with dependable but also serves interesting dishes and provides good value for money. Their formula is spot on and something Reading has desperately needed.

And, much more important, we finally have somewhere the lovely Liz can go for a good Sunday lunch.