Where to eat in Edinburgh? And why?

I would like to suggest only five places in the Old Town. The number of independent cafes is high, but a wide percentage of them is frankly miserable, despite the effort: grumpy stuff, wrong cooking procedure, poor primary sources, clumsiness in the how-to-roast-a-coffee. 

The old town, back in the days

Considering the average prices a customer usually has to confront with, it is then reasonable to choose only what’s best on the market: like bees do, it is worthy picking up solely the nectar from the top flowers.

The five places I have chosen are the following: 

1. Olly Bongos bistro (http://www.yelp.co.uk/biz/olly-bongos-edinburgh-2)
2. Peter’s Yard (http://www.petersyard.com/ )
3. Victor Hugo (http://www.victorhugodeli.com/)
4. Peckhams (http://www.peckhams.co.uk/home/branches/edinburgh-south-clerk-st.aspx)
5. Earthy (http://www.earthy.uk.com/)

Why only this five? Some people may argue – with some rightfulness - that Le café Gourmand, Bar Artista, The Olive tree, Biblos, Black Medicine, Patisserie Valerie (though it is chain), Elephant house, The Scottish storytelling centre and Café Turquaz are pretty good as well. Many other friends talked favourably of the Chocolate tree on Brunsfield, but I could not pay a visit! In the end I wished to review those place I knew better, where the staff was always friendly, helpful and professional and where the food was every time impeccable and innovative.

Ollybongo: simple and splendid, especially the cutlery that seems to belong to a Scandinavian monarch (for my Canadian best friend Chels) to the Easter Island mysterious former inhabitants for me. 

Easter Islands or Rapa Nui	Magnificent Cappuccino
Helpful portion of pancakes	My vegetarian breakfast

Greek-ish Mediterranean breakfast and Chels' French manicure

The food is delicious, coffee and cappuccino were over the usual standard, the portions helpful, the service very kind. I tried it for a veggie British breakfast, but I feel it has some interesting wild cards for the other daily-meals as well! The toilet is functional.

How Olly Bongos looks from the outside (red frame)

Peckhams: lunch…oh what a memorable lunch! I have been here with several friends: David & Carolina, Marie & Gaëtan to mention two solid couples. My own couple did not survive, but I preserve a relish of great memories. Anyways, in Peckhams can pick up from the aisle what captures your attention and then an extremely enthusiastic staff will promptly serve you at the tables. Quality is superb, prices are a bit too high for a student wallet. Yet, if you wish to treat out someone or just yourself for a blossoming brunch Peckhams is brilliant choice. Moreover, if you wish to food-shop you can seriously find some of the best delicatessens in town. The toilets are downstairs: an occasion to peep into the cellar.

Antipasti artichokes as big as scepters	Soup of the day with brown bread
Quiche comes always with salad

Peter’sYard: Peter, as a person, can be considered a fanatic, yet in a good sense. His ambition is that of making people happy and comfortable, to deliver the best to them. Check this review as well.

Basia, a recent incredible friend, told me, Peter changed his oven almost after the purchase, since he wanted to deliver a different pizza, not jut a belly-filler one. He truly believes in what he does! Pizza, desserts, bread, scones, tea and coffees are embarrassingly gorgeous. 

I regret it is too central, so, of course, swarms of people who appreciate his philosophy gather there. The university is close by and because it is fashionable it is full of hippy-hipsters as well. 

Food-prices are convincing and the staff looks committed and sympathetic. Perhaps the service is too slow! Toilets are clean and spacious and marked by cookie cutters.

VictorHugo is, instead, dimensional portal to France. From the frame, the tablecloths and the offer of produces you are not anymore in Edinburgh. Now that I live in Paris, I can confirm this early impression. 

The variety of tarts and specialities puts some joy-powder on your wings. They also display a wonderful range of teas: as you may remember Teapigs is becoming my tea-obsession. And, for carnivorous palates, their aisle keeps both Spanish and Italian hams is well equipped. The Italian Parma ham I tasted was beyond imagination, yet dully cut too thickly. 

Prices are meant to attract the posh students dwelling in Marchmont road, but the standard is seriously high and the staff well trained to make you stay at ease. Even the toilet is fancy, dark and glittery as a cave or a submarine, Spartan and elegant at the same time.

Possibly the greatest French writer,
buried inside the Panthèon, Paris
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Hugo 

Evidently, pioneers of sustainable nourishment run Earthy. We have to make a distinction between the food warehouse and the cafeteria. Within the first one you can find raw materials and primary sources, like in a supermarket, whereas the cafeteria puts in acto the care for this food philosophy. Both are top quality areas. I won’t comment on the food hall here, but it deserves a visit: especially if you wish to find organic and biodynamic wines when you pay homage to some of your friends.

The patio area

The cafeteria offers a unique coffee…wondrously done and close to the best Italian tradition. I feel to complain only with sizes. If you want a cappuccino, ask for a white coffee, since the actual cappuccino is a bath full of milk: the service is quick and extremely warm and in the end you seriously wish to leave tips. The environment is woody and rustic, but efficacious.

A cleverly done Macchiato

Cakes, tarts, scones (OMG) and salads are a serenade of taste and health. Water comes in old bottles filled with mint or cucumber. Every sugar bag is branded with fair-trade logo and MOST IMPORTANTLY during the Scottish “summer” (hoping it lasts) there is an astonishing backyard, half a garden, half a patio, half a playground, half a plant nursery that will positively surprise you. Thanks to a wide mirror, you can actually see who’s coming at your back, if you are waiting for more friends, and spaces are redoubled! 

Check this blog as well 
the Earthy I am describing is instead in Ratcliff Terrace,
opposite the petrol station

The toilet is welcoming and desecrate and you can be sure that toilet paper comes from renewable sources. There also is a comfortable easy access for strollers and wheelchair. Finally a good size parking lot enables you to park really close, in case of big shoppings.

Steam with esteem en papillote: lazy cooking mood on

Fancy but it is a space eater, if you have a small kitchen	Practical but ugly
It tends to get mouldy	I personally favour this one

Just to show off a little bit

There are at least three ways to deal with steam in cuisine: the first one is having either a bamboo, a glass or steel steamer, the second having an electric steamer, the last one is cooking en papillote, that is wrapping your desired food in aluminum foil and exploiting its natural humidity. In addition, you can spice up your recipe with flavorsome olive oil, organic lemon and fresh herbs! 

HOW DOES IT LOOK LIKE

FIRST OBSERVATIONS

Advantages: 

1. you do not dirt any casserole;

1- 1/2. you can prepare it in advance or even frozen it;

2. it does not take more than 25 minutes to cook for fish, or 40 minutes for a chicken thigh, 20 minutes for chopped vegetables all at 200 °C;

2- 1/2. if you feel lazy it really takes the time of a long shower or mail check;

3. you can cook more than one papillote at a time;

4. guests are usually impressed by the taste and the absence of excessive smell in the living room.

Disadvantages:

1. guests will ask for more, because it is QUITE LOW IN CALORIES;

2. the food tastes better when you serve it straight away from the oven;

3. you do not have to break the foil;

4. if you spoil it, it is better to get a regular dinner deal with your local restaurant!

"PLEASE SIR, I WANT SOME MORE"
(C. DICKENS, DAVID COPPERFIELD)

IN ADDITION

Which are the major benefits? You keep all the nutrients inside what you are cooking. Secondly, you can season less, so, as a consequence, you add less calories to what you are eating. Thirdly the texture of your preparation will appear more genuine and you will have less kitchenware to clean. Lastly, especially for vegetables, the colours will remain vibrant, a sort of visual crispiness. Let’s move to some eye-sizing examples: 

• duck pullet;
• chicken with vegetables; 
• sea bream with vegetables;
• vegetarian couscous.

Duck pullet with herbs	Duck pullet with a disk of lemon underneath
Chiken with vegetables	Sea bream with a rose of vegetables

Here I'm cheating a bit, using a moroccan tajine: my sister brought me some cumin from Istambul! I was spoiled!

Final result: add couscous only during the last 5 mins of the cooking process.

In general, just make sure you are using an extremely nice extra-virgin olive oil and you will enoble with it the humbleness of your dish. Usually, we link the idea of taste to elaborateness. It can be true for some preparations, yet it is false for the majority: BRING OUT THE NATURAL FLAVOR. Now that I am working in a restaurant – experience I’ll treat in this blog as soon as it will be over – I can see how much waste and tastelessness there can be on both sides, that of pseudo-chef and that of customers (a thing very sad to state!)

With beetroots you can give a nice distinctive sweet taste
and a purple pigment to the meat! Dare trying!

Quite often I see too richly dressed dishes, killing and covering, under shrouds of cream, the actual taste of things: this preparation allows you to bring forward the true taste of ingredients with a lazy cooking mood on!

Frugality: LOLITA AS A FOOD (no morbidness allowed)

AFTER A TRIMESTRAL ABSENCE I'M COMING OUT AGAIN WITH TEN POSTS, EACH LINKED TO A SPECIFIC THEME, WHOSE IMPORTANCE CAPTURED MY ATTENTION DURING THE SUMMER BY NOW AT OUR BACKS!

Frugality: the Lolita of food

Could “being sparing or economical in regard to food and money” be a correct definition for frugality? My answer is “no”! A flute of Prosecco or Gewürtztramier (literally aromatic) served with strawberries and whipped cream are both frugal and self-indulgent, if not even decadent.

What does frugal mean to me then? I would define frugal as something that is able to be tiny, catchy, fresh, balanced, simple in terms of basilar ingredients (ingredients should be almost raw), light and fulfilling (more for the soul that for the stomach): elaborated pastas, hamburgers, baked potatoes, meatballs, aubergine parmigiana, risottos, pizza, steaks, fish, sushi aren’t frugal to me and my list could have been much more wide-ranging. So how can I preserve the idea of favour when dealing with frugality? I shall suggest merely four options, a sample of how your average eating day may radically change:

Raw bar (a morning break)

Antipasti a range of tastes (a starter)

The rose of products may vary a lot,
but it is important too keep a contrasting effect.

Quail eggs disposed as a sun (a light lunch)

Yogurt with banana (an afternoon break) [peaches or plums would have added even more colour]

Cheese and salad (a dinner)

The simplicity within frugality can be also caught in a derogatory sense. If we examine Pablo Picasso’s Le repas frugal (1904), here frugality is privation. Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955) instead, at least in the early stages of the tragic infatuation of professor Humbert, offers another idea of frugality.

Pablo Picasso, Le repas frugal, etching, 1904, Paris.

Picasso portraits hunger and yearn. Nabokov emphasises that sense of plenitude given by non-elaborated customs and attitudes, the revival of a buried memory that springs up naturally, as a chance to be teenager again (clearly I am not encouraging anyone to spend time with underage female adolescents!). How splendid and pure appears in comparison the paternal affection showed by Jean Valjean toward Cosette, his adopted daughter, in the historical novel Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Professor's Humbert's desire slips quickly into something disturbing.

Published in English during the '50,
was immediately accused to be a scandalous novel.

The state of ravishment professor Humbert demonstrates is very close to a frugal dish that tickles the expectations of the palate with those flavours that cannot be made by men, but are buried into the soul of aliments. Unfortunately, Humbert's passion goes far beyond the boundaries of decency, he does not feel the inappropriateness and the pathetic urge of being young again. 

Lolita, a famous film directed in 1962 by Stanley Kubrick.
The american actress is Sue Lyon, born in 1946, is still living.

Moreover, Lolita represents not just Humbert's sin, but enacts the professor's soul, who is corrupted by innocence and simplicity, that is to say his desire to avoid growing older. In the early stages, when perhaps a more platonic affection was at stake, Lolita’s name sounds like a fruit-salad or a sorbet itself, it is sufficient to evoke all the rest:

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. (Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, Chapter 1, p. 26)

Paul Émile Chabas (1869-1937), The nymph Loire

Lastly, as my Polish friend Basia pointed out “frugality is humbleness crafted with taste”, a form of elegance then and grace.