A Tale of Two Restaurants

I love eating out. Trying new things and food that is beautifully cooked.

Last Tuesday was Andrew's birthday, so we went out for a meal. We went to The Sisters Restaurant at Kelvingrove. We had a lovely meal. I had scallops to start, chicken for main and melting chocolate pot for dessert. The Scallops were a bit of a treat and the chicken was moist whilst the skin was crispy, yum yum. I have a bit of a soft spot for this restaurant and always recommend it to people who enquire for a good restaurant. Of course, our meal was quite pricey. Hoever, we could have had the pre-theatre menu but chose not to.

On Friday we went out with some friends from work. During the day I was trying to work out where we should go. We don't go to the city centre very often, so our knowledge is quite limited. So we asked around, but no-one could help us. So I consulted a few web resources, the first being the list. I looked on their hit-list and saw a restaurant that looked good, Ad Lib. The selling point was their gourmet burgers. We thought that would be great for an after the pub meal. I thought I should make sure so went on 5pm and it seemed to have some good reviews. So I booked a table. When we arrived at the restaurant we were greeted with the news that one of the chefs had walked out, so there would be a bit of a wait. Fair enough. However, when I booked the table they took down my mobile number and could have called me to let me know. So I pointed this out and asked if we could have some snacks to keep us going. They gave us some nachos, good customer service.

Then the food arrived. . . .

They were not Gourmet burgers. First of all they were tiny. I wouldn't have been bothered but they were much smaller than the buns. Hmmm, not good. The chips tasted of cardboard. Salad was probably from a packet and so was probably everything else. It just was disappointing. I hate that feeling, it could have been so good. I didn't want a Michelin star dinner, just a decent burger. Which isn't that hard, surely?

You don't have to pay a fortune to have good food, we have been to several good restaurants where the food is good and affordable. For example Henderson's and Wannaburger in Edinburgh, Mother India and Ichiban in Glasgow. With pre-theatre meals places like Two Fat Ladies and The Sisters are made more affordable.

Overall it just made me sad that meal was bad, especially as the night had been so good. And although I did consult with the my friends before making the decision, I feel partly responsible. So next time, I will try and find a word of mouth recommendation. Which I usually do. If not we will be heading to The Sisters again. Which means I will be eating out less.

OK, rant over. For now away . . . . .

Frittata for the climbers

It's amazing how bored I get in front of laptop these days. This week I have doing data analysis, which is as boring as it sounds. On Wednesday I wanted something different for lunch so I made some different salads. I made Jamie's pasta salad, potato salad and a carrot salad. I had it with some tinned tuna and some bread. Of course making the salads did allow to spend sometime away from the laptop, which was a happy coincidence.


The Veg Box arrived this week:

• Baby Cauliflowers
• Spinach
• Leeks
• Lettuce
• Parsely
• Rhubarb
  
• Carrots
• Onions
• Potatoes
  

The presence of spinach was a happy one, as I was going to Dumberton with Andrew and Stuart. I remembered a recent post from cottage smallholder for frittata. I thought it would be good crag food. We had a great evening in the sun and they actually managed to climb something too. The frittata was great way to finish the evening. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the frittata but this one of the boys enjoying the frittata will have to do.

Are our fingers looking green to you?

On Sunday we started are first adventures in growing something for our plate. Its no secret that my google reader is full of cooking blogs. But its also full of people who grow their own produce, from Stonehead with his fields of wonderful produce to people like My Tiny Plot and Fresh as a Daisy who make the most of their smaller plots. The idea is that I read these blogs and learn lots of tips for the day we get our own little plot. I know what people are going to say we should get an allotment but we will be getting our PhD's soon, hopefully. And we don't know where we will be next.

So on Sunday we planted some tomatoes plants and herbs in some window boxes.



We also did a window box with some cut and come again salad leaves, including rocket. Have to say it brightens up the flat.

I have to say I was quite (I think Andrew will say that was a bit of an understatement) excited when I saw that the salad seeds had started to germinate. This could addictive, however we only have a finite number of window sills!!!!! This could be a limiting factor.

Thanks to Stonehead and Thumper

Well this weekend has to go down in history - Serena relinquished her vice like grip on the kitchen and I cooked dinner on both Saturday and Sunday night! After an afternoon rock climbing at the local crag at Dumbarton we returned home and I made Jamie Olivers sweet cherry tomato and sausage bake. I've made this several times now and it lovely, just the sort of cooking that I enjoy - one pot simple cooking with loads of favour. We got the both red and yellow tomatoes from the Partick farmers market as well as a large circular veal sausage. This was British veal produced in a very ethical way.
Just as we were leaving the farmers market we stopped to look at a venison stall. To our joy we found that the bloke was also selling rabbit. We have been looking for a source rabbit for ages. We both first tried rabbit in a recent trip to France and loved it, but haven't seen it on sale anywhere over here. So we headed home with a portioned up rabbit trying to think what to do with it? Serena, being the blog reading fiend that she is remember that there was a recipe on Musing of a Stonehead. So after a day pottering around (I'm sure Serena will post about this later) I made an unprecedented second night return to the kitchen.
Both of us were constantly drooling over the pan the rabbit was cooking. It smelt and looked fantastic.
Thinking the bunny might have been a bit long in the tooth as the meat was difficult to get off the bone, but then I guess that's a risk to take with wild game. Still the taste was great. I think rabbit will be hopping into our bag again. Thankyou Mr Stonehead.

Pasta, rice or potatoes . . .

This is the usual thoughts that go through my mind when thinking about dinner. However, I had been browsing through one of my favourite vegetarian books, The Cranks Bible. There was a recipe that jumped out at me which was puy lentils with roasted veg. I always forget lentils! There are two versions of this recipe, a winter and summer one. On Wednesday, I made the winter one with swede, carrots and beetroot. The Puy lentils are cooked with lemon, onion and herbs, with spinach stirred in at the end to just wilt it. It was a great recipe. Easy and perfect for a summer day.

For dessert we had some rhubarb compote with yoghurt, yum.

I also made a potato and spinach frittata for lunch the next day which was also great.


The Veg Box arrived and this week we got:

• Spinach
• Spring cabbage
  
• Beetroot
• Cauliflower
• Purple sprouting broccoli
• Rhubarb
• Carrots
• Potatoes
• Onions