Scotland

After the lovely meal at the Drunken Duck, a good night's sleep and an excellent breakfast, we drove to Scotland. And from a culinary point of view things went downhill.

The hotel we stayed in had the most generic of menus. Burgers, fish & chips, steak. Nothing to indicate a sense of place. We were staying about 1/2 mile from a smokery, but they didn't have any of the local product available. Disappointing.

(By the way - I have no idea if these were edible mushrooms, but we were on a walk and I thought they were cute).

Fortunately on our last day we drove for 3 hours and finally found an internet cafe, which pointed us to a hotel about 20 miles from where we were staying that did seem to have an interest in local produce, so we booked a table.

A long drive across a moor, followed by a short run through midge-infested air got us into the Moor of Rannoch. Surely the most remote restaurant I have ever eaten at. It wasn't a bit fancy, but it was really what we had been hoping for.

We both started with big flat mushrooms stuffed with haggis and grilled until crispy. A very good use for haggis! I really like haggis, but being faced with a whole one can be a bit confronting.

Then I had delicious salmon, slowly cooked in the Aga with lots of butter and lemon and the best capers I have ever had. It was moist and succulent and so very lemony! Paul had roe venison, with what the menu called red currant sauce. We thought it was more like a Cumberland sauce because there was a distinct citrus edge and some shreds of zest in it.

It was so disappointing to spend time in Scotland at this time of year without even seeing grouse on the menu (saw loads of them running around though) but at least we did get one good meal.