YouTuber raves about Knaresborough and Harrogate takeaways

A YouTube star with nearly 500,000 subscribers has given glowing verdicts to two takeaways in the Harrogate district.

Danny Malin, the man behind Rate My Takeaway, visited the The Roast Inn, which is a roast dinner food truck at Knaresborough’s St James retail park and Starling Independent Bar Cafe Kitchen in Harrogate last week.

Mr Malin’s reviews can have a significant impact on trade, as occurred when he recently visited Harrogate’s Thug Sandwich.

His video review of The Roast Inn went live on Friday and already has 124,000 views. He gave it a glowing endorsement, describing the food as “a solid 10 … heavenly”.

The food truck, which has been based on the retail park for 17 years, sells roast sandwiches and roast dinners. Mr Malin opted for a turkey and stuffing sandwich and a roast pork loin dinner with a side of pigs in blankets for £14.

Sitting on his signature camping chair, he said:

“If you’re like me and you like a roast dinner, this is spot on. The gravy is beautiful, nice and thick, the pork is cooked to perfection and absolutely gorgeous. The whole dinner is smothered in gravy with bit of apple sauce, just delicious!”

“To me it’s just like eating heaven, my kind of meal.”

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Moving onto the sandwich, he said the proportion of turkey to sauce and stuffing was “spot on”:

“That’s the one, you know what the thickness of the turkey is bang on, it’s not dry with all those sauces. Oh wow that is spot on, just amazing.”

Giving his final verdict on the Roast Inn, Mr Malin said:

“For me it’s probably one of my favourite takeaways for a while, a solid 10. I’m going to be coming back next time I’m here.”

Rate My Takeaway reviews Starling

On Saturday, his review of Starling went live and by today had 118,000 views. Mr Malin ordered a meat sweats pizza, Philly fries and a Mars bar slice for £22.50.

Mr Malin tucks in at Starling Bar and Kitchen last week.

Starting with the pizza, he said:

“That meatball topping is absolutely quality and the sauce is spot on. I’m getting a proper Italian vibe from those meatballs.

“The only thing is because the base is so thin the toppings can slide off but the flavour, oh my god. I’d describe it as a messy one.”

Whilst sat outside Mr Malin was approached by lots of local fans all keen to know where he’d been to review locally.

The Philly fries, which are skin-on fries topped with pulled pork, gherkins, barbecue sauce and cheese, also won praise:

“Ooh they’re nice them, the chips have got a bit of a crispiness and with the sweet barbecue sauce and the pulled pork its a beautiful flavour buzzing around my mouth.”

Describing the whole meal as “delicious “he gave Starling a 9.5 rating and said it only missed out on the 10 because the toppings fell off.

The Ship Inn near Boroughbridge to reopen after serious fire

The Ship Inn will re-open its doors tomorrow, after a fire damaged the pub last October.

The fire, at the pub in Aldborough, was started by a washing machine and caused extensive damage. The restoration has cost £500,000 and the pub is now larger with enough seating to accommodate up to 200 people inside and outdoors.

Brian Rey and Elaine Howden, the owners of The Ship Inn, have been restoring the pub since January.

Brian said:

“It’s been amazing the response we’ve had from the community and our staff. We had 16 staff members and they all wanted to stay on, which I have to say was quite moving.

“We now can seat around 200 people throughout the garden and pub. We now have wi-fi outside and a second card machine to bring outside. We’ve also now bought a new pizza oven.”

Last October, the pub set on fire through an electrical fault with a washing machine. The emergency services were called when a fire alarm sounded at 2am.

Brian spoke about his experience when the pub set alight. He said:

“It was hardly believable, I thought I was hallucinating. When we called 999, five fire engines turned up. We were told that if we ingested smoke for another ten minutes we wouldn’t be here today.

The store room after the fire

“We just stuck some face masks on and I knew we needed to get out of there.

“After the fire, we had no heating so we spent a lot of time in bed, simply to get warm. We had one electric heater plugged in and that’s it.”

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Brian and Elaine have seen many high-profile guests to their pubs, including Prince William and Harry, as well as Gordon Ramsay.

The couple’s old pub, The Fenwick Arms, was featured on an episode of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares in 2006. In the episode Gordon said he had ‘a lot of respect’ for Brian, as well as claiming that their Yorkshire puddings were ‘excellent.’

The episode led Gordon and Brian to set up a ‘Real Gravy’ campaign, which was created to promote Brian’s gravy and Sunday roast.

“I’ve had five million emails about the Real Gravy campaign and I’ll never be able to get through all of them,” Brian said.