Edinburgh eating notes

If you order a glass of house white wine in a pub in the UK you’ll usually be asked two questions: small, medium or large? (meaning the size of the pour); sauvignon or pinot? (meaning apparent). In Edinburgh, you were asked the same two questions, except the latter was sauvignon, pinot or chardonnay. I loved Edinburgh from my very first glass of house white wine.

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We ate dinner at the Stockbridge Eating House, a small restaurant in a white walled space that felt like it might’ve once been a small, suburban art gallery. Something about the white walls. There were four rows of long tables, enough room for eight people at each table; six if you allowed a small gap between diners who didn’t know one another. On one side of the space was a long, low shelf, upon which sat a wooden board of assorted room temperature cheeses, a small crowd of bottles of red wine, and a large stainless steel wine bucket filled with ice and bottles of white stuff and pink stuff. Above the shelf were three skinny blackboards that had the day’s menus written on them in chalk.

When we arrived for our 8.30pm booking, our table wasn’t quite ready. The man who ran the restaurant - though it felt less like running a restaurant, more like inviting you into his dining room - was exceptionally apologetic; well, of what we could make out he was. His was a thick Scottish accent. Our spirits were high, so we told him not to worry, we’d go to the pub across the road for a drink and be back. “We’ll just be five minutes,” Phil said. I said that was ambitious and told Phil he needed to order a half pint if we were going to be that quick. One pint and one large house white wine (chardonnay) and twenty minutes later we were back at the restaurant, and squeezed in the middle of the table at the back of the restaurant. A Scottish mother and daughter to my right, a young bloke and his mother visiting from Milano to my left. The kind man running the restaurant appeared with two coupes and a bottle of fizz. A glass on the house for the trouble we’d gone to popping over to the pub.

To begin, we shared a pumpkin, hazelnut and labneh salad and delicious dressed crab spread onto thick slices of charred toast. That crab was something else. Then we shared bavette steak with thick cut chips and a lemony rocket salad, and another plate of toast - this one topped with a duck and artichoke ragout. It’s hard to fuck up good things on toast. A little stainless steel coupe of chocolate mousse topped with two crisp little tuilles of dark chocolate to finish. Stonking pours of red wine to go with it all. The kind restaurant man topped up my nearly finished glass with the last few dregs of the bottle and didn’t charge me for the privilege.

Generous hospitality and fun food. Exactly the kind of dining room I want to be in, and like to create for others. Exactly the kind of restaurant I wish I owned.

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A pub crawl of sorts before dinner. My favourite pub was Kay’s Bar in Stockbridge. Phil thought it was mostly full of students who were too cool. I pointed out the two middle-aged couples with their dogs drinking by the front door.

Amused to overhear some of the Cool Students who worked at the pub talking about mince and tatties. Phil thought they were talking about the fact the pub hadn’t sold any that day. I, on the other hand, thought they were saying they only had a few portions left. “What the fuck is mince and tatties?” said Phil. When I explained, he assured me that I’d misheard the Cool Students.

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Yes, it’s very nice to go out for breakfast when you’re away for the weekend. It is equally true that it’s nice to have breakfast in bed in your hotel when you’re away for the weekend. But I’m not one to want to give some international hotel chain an extortionate amount of money for scrambled eggs made with powder and soggy bacon and cold toast.

The night we arrived Phil and I commented that it had been a while since we’d had a cheddar and posh pickles baguette from Pret. If you’ve had the good fortune of trying one, you’ll understand what we’re getting at. I’d clocked a Pret across the road from the hotel, so told Phil I’d go and get us the things for breakfast in bed. I was given strict instructions to get a small tub of chunks of mango with a little wedge of lime for squeezing over the fruit too. Room service for Phil (who, when I arrived back had found David Attenborough on the telly). For me, breakfast in bed in my trousers and woolly jersey, such is life when you’re the Catering Manager.

No cheddar and posh pickle baguette for either of us. Turns out they’re slow to get sandwich making underway at this Pret. Egg mayo sandwiches had to do.

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Lots of excellent cups of coffee and a very good canelé as we stomped our way up and down the hills (glorious hills!) of Edinburgh.

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We had lunch at a small corner cafe, the Singapore Coffee House, in a suburban part of the city. And I mean small - only four tables. It was on a list of good places to visit in Edinburgh that came tucked into my copy of Jess Elliott Dennison’s book Weekend Recipes, which I ordered from her directly towards the end of last year.

We queued for a while and enthusiastically agreed with the couple behind us who commented on how slow two women were to vacate their table after having finished their food, and in spite of the queue outside that they kept peering out at. “Some people have no bloody idea, eh,” I said. “Yeah, fuck, we’ll just freeze out here, no problem,” he said.

Roti was made from scratch and cooked on a small hot plate. It was flaky and charred in all the right places, and came with a beautifully rich curry sauce and a very good, very kicky achar pickle. We both had laksa, a big bowl of noodles, chicken, prawn, tofu, egg and sambal. It was the best laksa we’ve had on this side of the world. High praise from Wellingtonians. My sinuses haven’t been so well cleared out for some time.

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I love how pubs are people’s living rooms over here. Some sit quietly with a book or the newspaper (the pub we liked so much we went twice had a stash of papers for punters to choose from). Some repeatedly tell their yappy dogs to shut up between sips of their pint. Some gas bag away. Some stare aimlessly into the distance, at the sport on the telly, or at other people minding their own business. Some eat three scoops of vanilla ice cream topped with a swirly scrawl of chocolate sauce and a smattering of chopped nuts from a small glass bowl. Some play cards (us).

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Dinner is in the part of the city where the university is located. I tell Phil it feels like student-ville. “The moment you see heaps of kebab shops around you know it’s where the students hang out.” We don’t eat kebabs, but instead Korean food at a restaurant called Kim’s Mini Meals, which I think is quite a sweet name. The restaurant is another one on Jess Elliott Dennison’s list. It’s BYO, rather little, and run by an older Korean woman who cooks in a beanie and thick socks. Her staff are two earnest university students who are, quite possibly, the most efficient staff to work in a hospitality establishment that we have ever come across.

First we are presented with five little bowls of banchan. Banchan are always the best bit of a Korean meal. One of the bowls, we are told, contains pieces of beef sausage in a spicy sauce, which I think might be gochujang. I remark on how delicious it is. “I knew that you’d be into that,” says Phil. The banchan will be the only part of the meal that can be described as “mini”.

We share a perfectly crispy kimchi and prawn pancake, and I learn from Phil that while he is very grateful he never has to worry about meal planning at home, he wishes that sometimes we could have corn fritters for dinner. Spinach and ricotta stuffed cannelloni too, but he tells me not to worry about that because he suspects it’s a faff to make, “unless you can just find one in the freezer at M & S, or something.” I have a beef bibimbap for my main. I’m given a little squeezy yellow bottle emblazoned with “Joie” in case I want to squeeze more spicy sauce on my dinner. It’s perfectly kicky as is.

Though the wait staff are efficient, they tell us we don’t need to rush to finish our glasses of wine. When they eventually give us our bill, we’re also given two little paper wrapped sweets: one cherry flavoured, one orange flavoured. They’re delicious. I want to ask for more; I’d even offer to pay for the things. I said the same about the banchan; the beef sausage in particular.

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On our last morning, we walk to Ante for breakfast. It’s a small cafe in the basement of an old house. Tim, who used to own Customs in Wellington and now lives in Edinburgh, told me that there’s nothing better than a French omelette at Ante. He’s quite right. It was quite something. Our knives and forks came in a beautiful ceramic pot, and looked exactly like the “good” cutlery we have at home - sturdy old silver forks and bone-handled knives. We both remarked on how nice it was to be eating with implements that felt like our own. It made me miss all of our nice things, just a little.

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At the airport, we finally get a cheddar and posh pickle baguette.