Good Food in Scotland

Let's just say Scotland is not exactly known for its goods other than fish and chips, haggies and black pudding. Good Chinese food is hard to get and most outlets serves a mixture of Italian and basic Western cuisines like steak and fish and chips. But yet somehow, we managed to uncover some gems and surprisingly all were seafood!

The first place is this little shack at Oban.

We chanced upon it while on our way to Isle of Mull. There was a long queue and reviews on Trip Advisor were pasted on the wall. So it has to be good right? This little shack sells local freshly caught shellfish. Its speciality appears to be oysters and mussels caused everybody seems to be eating those. But both of us don't eat oysters so we contend ourselves with this cold dish of seafood:

There were prawns, squid, crab, mussels and more mussels. And it was real good and cost only £20. 

On the Isle of Mull, there wasn't much option but what we found was probably the best deal ever. At Tobermory

there was this little restaurant, Cafe Fish - the only one that was opened at the time.

But what it lacks in size it more than make up for in this super giant size seafood platter

This platter cost £30 and just to be clear - it is only for 1 person. Can't tell exactly how huge this platter is? Just look at this next photo:

That how much food there is. Crab, prawn, scallops, squids, oysters, lobsters, langoustines. So this was the catch of the trip. The best meal ever!

Last but not least, up in the Highlands, the proprietor of Camus House recommended this joint, Lochleven Seafood Cafe for dinner:

Situated right next to Loch Leven, it serves seafood as well. For this meal, we decided to spurge a bit and ordered 

1) Another seafood platter for 1 at £40

2. A plate of small scallops for £10.50 although I certainly won't describe it as small

3. Brown crab for £12.95

Another sumptous meal. And this place is listed in the Michelin guide wor.... 

There you have it. 3 of the best in Scotland. If you ever there, die die must try.

On a side note, no place is worth visiting without tasting the ice cream and this place Nardini's, we went to at Largs has apparently the best ice cream in the whole of Scotland according to several websites. 

But frankly I think the ice creams here pales in comparison to what we have back in Singapore like those at Scoopz and Udders and all the little ice cream outlets sprouting up all over the country. But hey if you ever visiting in Largs, this is a must try of course!

Tanjong Katong

Tanjong Katong Road after Dunman Road in the direction of East Coast Road was supposed to receive a new lease of life and become just as popular as its more illustrious cousins East Coast Road and Joo Chiat Road but somehow along the way, it ended up a bit lost I think.

Like the other 2 streets, it comprises mainly food outlet but there are many more coffeeshops and food courts and a sprinkling of dedicated food outlets including a Donut Empire, Punggol Nasi Lemak, 3 pizza outlets (Pizza Hut, Dominoes & Canadian).

In the day, the place is bustling with students from the schools nearby but at night, it is a tad quiet with hardly any pedestrians.

I like this English looking condominium. It always reminds me of those houses in Hugh Grant's movies like Notting Hill; Love Actually and Bridget Jones.





There is this supermarket which boast of premium foodstuff but comes with a weird name. Do they think beggar can afford to buy the stuff there?





We wanted to have dinner at this nice cozy looking place with this interesting name but unfortunately it was closed for a private function. The food should be pretty good judging from the number of newspaper articles on its door.

Instead, we went to this 3 months old French Pizza joint, VIPizz.

We ordered a cream based smoked salmon pizza and a spicy meat tomatoes based pizza. I believe the pizza were prepared by a French guy in the kitchen. I hope it stayed open long enough though cos at 7.30 pm, we were the only customers there which was kinda a shame cos the pizza wasn't half bad - certainly much better than Pizza hut!






After the pizza, we went over to this ice cream outlet very seductively called 'Lick'. The place was pretty busy with customers walking in and out.

We order 4 different flavour of ice cream, strawberry for M; water melon for the Princess and Earl Grey/Kaya Toast for myself. I love the kaya toast best. Not too sweet and not too overwhelming in favour. Price was $3.20 a scope. I think I'll be back for more.

There were a Korean restaurant which looks rather good but we got all excited later when we passed a Japanese restaurant offering ala carte buffet.

We'll be back!

32 Degrees Fahrenheit

Suaku Uncle finally knows what is shaved ice or at the shop they call it Snow flakes ice.

Basically it is ice that is not crushed but 'shaven' so that the texture is very fine. The ice are flavoured and is topped with topping of choices.

Verdict - damn shiok especially in our hot weather.

Milk with strawberries and mangoes

Milk with Cococrunch

Chocolate with orea and nuts

Cold Rock Ice Creamery

Hopped over to Holland Village. Felt like a tourist there. Stood there gawking away. Been to HV before but always in the day and never know the night scene there so happening.

Looking for some thing to eat. The food at the hawker centre didn't look very enticing and didn't want to spend too much money on the fancier places (which were mostly packed anyway) so just walked around until saw this ice cream outlet.

Place was also packed but managed to get a table. Their unique feature was choose flavours, the topping and the staff will mix them together on a cold rock hence the name Cold Rock Ice Creamery. Went to order and this is what we had:
Not very cheap though. Regular cup (2 scoops) was $6.50. Each topping is $1.00 even the house concoction was priced the same way.

The ice cream was a tad too creamy. Not really worth it. Give me all the local made ice cream anytime!

Another more detailed review of the place here