Yearly Archives: 2007

Outsider – George IV Bridge Edinburgh

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I have been to the Outsider restaurant on George IV bridge before, many years ago with Ed and Mary.  Thought I would pay it a visit on a quiet Monday.  In fact I ended up eating there on Monday and Tuesday.

The restaurant is on multiple levels, and has some reasonable views of the castle through its back windows.  The decor is trendy, and the clientelle (apart from moi) the same.  Food prices are reasonable, quite possible to eat there for £10.

First night I ate there, I had a swordfish steak on a Japanese fish broth.  I had some mashed potatoes on the side to soak up the broth.  I was a little disappointed in this dish.  Not sure the broth did much for the steak.

Next day I was much happier with the fish kebabs.  Salmon chunks, prawns and scallops on a skewer.  Augmented with a salad in pitta bread.

Definitely worth a visit.  I am sure it would be very busy on a Friday.  It was almost full on a winter Monday evening.

Hanam’s – Kurdish and Middle East Restaurant

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Having been somewhat extravagant, and pushing the limit on my expenses, I wanted somewhere close by, i.e. on the way back to the hotel and relatively cheap.  A quick scan on the Internet came up with Hanam’s nearby in Tollcross.  The advertising blurb says it is Edinburgh’s first authentic Kurdish and Middle East Restaurant.

Authentic it is. No alcohol for sale, though it is a BYOB, with no corkage.  The restaurant is small, and set with Ikea cutlery.  It was not busy, just one Kurdish couple eating.  The owner was jolly and chatted to everyone, including me.  He asked why I had come, where I had seen it advertised.  Later he explained about Kurdistan, how it was incorporated into Iran, Iraq, Turkey and another country. 

One interesting story about how he had to provide a takeaway for 100 people in Kent, from Edinburgh!

I started off with stuffed vine leaves, and then went on to the lamb casserole. The lamb casserole, I forget its real name, was served in a deep dish with lots of vegetables, not carrots, but onion and peppers.  It was served on a base of their nan bread which soaked up the juices and sauce.  The flavour was quite tangy. All this was washed down with apple juice.  Next time I think I will have kebabs.  The couple next to be ate Kebab with the Kurdish Nan Bread which is thinner and crispier than Indian bread.

Tuesday and Wednesday in the dark in the grey city

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Latish supper in the Petit Paris.  You can tell it is winter, the downstairs was not in use, well it wasn’t until the party of 8 turned up.

Supper, well a boring steak.  Ordered rare, slightly over cooked I think.  Still red, but not totally raw in the middle which is my definition of rare.  Usual 500 ml of wine to wash it down.

I thought I was meant to be meeting Mary tonight, but confusion in text messages without the punctuation meant somehow we missed each other.  So anyway to the Mai Thai for my Wednesday meal.  I needed their free broadband, I had quite a few large uploads and downloads to complete for a number of websites.  I hate those hotels that charge, and then the free ones seem to throttle your bandwidth as well.   So probably have to spend more time at the Mai Thai.

Couple of large glasses of a South African Cabernet Sauvignon and the duck.  Tends to raise a laugh now when I order the same food over and over again.

No snow in Edinburgh, but I believe there were a couple of inches in Buckinghamshire.

 

Howies

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Monday, and a normal working day started.  Walked over to the Lothian Road, listening to the sweet tones of Green Day on my new toy.  My whole, well almost, CD collection in a box smaller than a packet of 10 hamlets.  Worked the whole day through, until well after 18.00.  I am sure a sales man would say I worked until 19.00.

Eating, today is a Monday and in the Winter.  So many of my favourite places are closed.  The Petit Paris has its blinds firmly in place. The Mussel and Steak is in darkness, ah a sign, the establishment is under refurbishment! It’s been open only for a couple of years.  So time for new places.  How about Scottish fare? – there is Howies on Victoria Street.

Entered, quite empty at the moment, not surprising for a wintry Monday.  Very industrial style, huge great ventilation pipes over the ceiling taking the fumes from the kitchen,  large cast iron pillars in the restaurant supporting the road and houses above.  Two pretty waitresses though, and some men in the kitchen.  This smoking ban allows you to see the chefs, as they dash outside for a quick nicotine fix.

What did I eat? Well started off with the Cullen Skink, or as I almost said, Cullen Skunk.  It had a nice smokey smell of the smoked haddock flakes, oh and one small bone.

Mains, was Borders pheasant breast wrapped in bacon on crushed potato and some cabbage.  Very nice.

Afters, I missed this, went for the Scottish Illy espresso coffee.

I have to say, there seemed to be lots on the menu which would not have struck me as Scottish, such as the chili sauce, the Banoffee Pie….

 

Edinburgh on a Sunday

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Had a call from the bank during the week.  As I was working in Edinburgh for another company on Monday, would it be possible for me to work for them on the Sunday!!

Flights are a bit sparse on Sunday, so flew up to Edinburgh Saturday evening.  I really think I must do this always.  There was nobody in Luton airport.  Just two check-ins for Easyjet, no queues.  Nothing. Lovely.  (Only joking, Rosemary.)

Plane late though, but with my new solid state 8Gig MP3 player (thanks, Dad!), and a book (Boris Johnson, thanks, Joan!), I was well away into fantasy land.  Funny though arriving in Edinburgh, and walking through the streets to the hotel while everyone else was out in the streets shouting, laughing and enjoying themselves in a typical British City binge drinking Saturday evening manner.  Oh and when some do good prissy nanny state paid employee defines binge drinking as four pints of beer, then all their credibility has gone out of the window.

Peaceful Sunday in the office working, bus station next door was even more peaceful.  It was closed because the side of the building had been ripped away in the storms.

Petit Paris open for business, had their plat du jour.  Black sausage starters followed by tartiflette, made from Reblochon cheese.  New waitress, she comes from Angers, quite nice.

 

Working in the office

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I had a whole week working in the office.  Don’t worry, it was all chargeable work, so I am still wanted.  Quite unusual being in the office, I still have a desk and nobody had thrown the contents of my pedestal out.

Quite a wild week this week.  One panel of our fence blew out in the gales on Thursday.  easily repaired though, just slotted it back between the concrete posts.

Sheep have arrived on our field this week, they are making good progress in eating the organic grass.  So weird watching them, they have access to our field, and the field next door.  They all have to be in one field or the other.  Not sure what makes them move from one to the other. All this rain and wind can’t be nice for them sheep, walking across our field I noticed how deep the water was now.  The whole of the field is covered in water.  Everyone blames global warming for this rain, but last year there was very little rain during the winter.  The field was never water logged.  The pond was never full until quite late on.  No matter what the weather does, it will be blamed on GW.

The Esse cooker has been giving us problems this last year.  Sooted up withing two months of using it this year.  We found a new company to service the cooker, but the engineer was having dreadful problems trying to make the cooker run smoke free.  Lets just hope he has it cured.

The OldWalkerites

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Decided it was time to entertain a few people, so we had a dinner at home on Saturday, and entertained the Curds and the Willsons to roast pheasants (one of whom was shot by David L) cooked in a Gary Rhodes style with barley in a whisky sauce.

The evening started fairly early at around 6.00  Not much point waiting around on these dark and wet winter evenings.  A few G&Ts, then starters based upon a few Middle Eastern recipes.  The pheasants, cheese course (Rosemary had forgotten to remove pudding from the freezer) and finally the frozen Christmas pudding ice cream.

 

 

I am still alive

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I have not posted my blog entry for a while.  I know you all must be missing my exciting missives.

Christmas has come and gone.  We had Selina and Graham over for turkey.  Eating at the usual time of 4 in the afternoon.  Next day I went clay shooting.  Now called Clay Target shooting in deference to the tree huggers and cute feathered creatures.  Talking of which we plucked and disemboweled a pheasant, kind present from David.

 On New Year’s Eve, we had an excellent lunch of roast lamb at M&Ds.  (Must click the review checkbox.)  The lamb, as usual was cooked to a tender, mouth watering succulence which only Margaret seems to be able to achieve.  Good fresh British lamb, and not that frozen entombed stuff from across the world with all those carbon units.

 Since then I have been travelling to Scotland, and have just arrived back.  Very windy, and lots of the smaller flights from and to Edinburgh were cancelled.  Weather in Scotland and at home has been crap.  Windy, rain, not at all nice.  At least the hotel is snug and warm, with the free Internet access I have no need to venture out.

 But, yes, I ate at the Petit Paris and at Mai Thai.  Then out of share perversity I went to Black Bo’s, a veggie place, and had a meal there.  Don’t worry I did tell the waitress I was a carnivore, just checking out how the other side survives.