Koi, Edinburgh: Entertaining Eating

It's not high end dining, but it's not trying to be. Koi Edinburgh is a Japanese Teppanyaki restaurant - the only one in Edinburgh.

I'm not too keen on fish, so when it was suggested we go out for dinner with friends I was a bit wary. But when I saw the variety of dishes available on the website I was convinced, and booked a table for a teppanyaki set meal. We arrived not knowing quite what to expect.

Food

Diners sit on 3 sides of a square, with the chef in the middle. The table accommodates 18 people so be prepared to share space with people you've never met before.

We started with Miso soup, Wo Fo Salad, spare ribs, a scallop and a chicken skewer. Accompanied by Kirin beer.

Then the chef arrived to cook our mains. Some lighter fluid and candles created an explosive start to the meal, and the chef showed off his skills with a knife. For the main course(s) we had Tiger King Prawns, Chicken Teriyaki, Sirloin Steak and, the best dish of the night for me, some sublime salmon steak, cooked with soy sauce, rice wine, salt, pepper and garlic butter - amazing! To balance things out we also had some rice and vegetables, although I have to say I couldn't eat much of mine.

If we had had any room for desert we could have tried pancake ice cream (which looked delicious) and green tea or coffee, but instead the chef had ordered us a 'one time only' flask of saki on the house.

Overall Rating

Good food, fabulous salmon, the best japanese beer, and great entertainment. This is definitely a place to go for a unique experience which is immensely enjoyable. Book a teppanyaki table though, or you'll just be jealous of the people who did! One thing's for sure: you'll not be going home hungry!

New Additions to the Vegetable Patch

A visit to my parents (the green fingered ones) and we leave laden with little seedlings to nurture. And so my planned Sunday afternoon of relaxation turns into a weeding and planting session ...

On the bright side I now have cauliflowers, broccoli and purple sprouting broccoli for the slugs to eat, and for the cats to dig up.

You may be forgiven for thinking that we only eat brassicas, and actually you wouldn't be too far wrong. This could present certain crop rotation challenges though, so I may have to branch out.

Ducks on the March

Terrible new for Edinburgh restaurant goers yesterday as Malcolm Duck, owner of Ducks a la Marche Noir, has put his restaurant up for sale to concentrate on his East Lothian business.

This is especially bad news for us as we made our first visit there in January, and immediately marked it as our favourite Edinburgh restaurant. It has everything we look for: good food; good wine; reasonable prices; great atmosphere. It was this last aspect that really sold us on the restaurant: very relaxing and welcoming - a bit like having dinner at a friends house. All these facets came together that night to provide the perfect dining experience.


It looks like we will soon have to return to pay homage to Ducks before it shuts its doors for good.

F1 British Grand Prix: Press Conference Observation

Strange Transcript Anomaly!

How the Press Conference on Sunday began:

Lewis, you started the season with a win, you won the Monaco Grand Prix, but now the moment’s yours. Let’s savour the moment, describe your emotions on that slow-down lap, having won, finally, the British Grand Prix.

Finally? It's only his second attempt!

Funny thing is, the journalist seems to have realised the stupidity of his remark as it has been excised from all transcripts of the press conference on the web. This is how PlanetF1 amongst others are reporting it: Sunday FIA Press Conference.

I started to doubt myself but I had recorded it (so I could watch it in between rain breaks at Wimbledon) - and it's there all right.

Glencoe Mountains: some pictures

The river Coe on the way to the Pap of Glencoe

It's about time to add some mountains, so here are some shots of Glencoe after a week walking in glorious sunshine and t-shirts ... in May ... in Scotland - no, really, it was good weather! (and let us not forget the midges!)

First of all a shot on the Aonach Eagach - we didn't climb this, but a policy of climbing hills nearby deadly ridges is a good way to get the views without exposing ourselves to any danger!

Aonach Eagach from Garbh Bheinn

Buachaille Etive Mor is my favourite Mountain top of all time (so far). I would say favourite Munro, but I don't want to exclude other countries, notably New Zealand. This was part of the view from the top after a stunning climb up through Coire na Tulaich. A fabulous top with loads of high level walking available, and on a day like this, fantastic views.

Stob Na Doire from the top of Buachaille Etive Mor

Next up another view of Aonach Eagach, taken on the way up to Stob Coire nan Lochan. With perfect timing we did all the hard climbing in the cloud, and the sun started to break through just before the top, giving another day of breathtaking scenery.

Cloud clearing on the Aonach Eagach, from Coire nan Lochan

And finally, after a short stroll up Glen Nevis, a view of Steall falls:

An Gearanach from Steall Meadows

All Photographs © BrokenMountain 2008

Horsehoe Inn, Eddleston: Restaurant Review

We went to the Horseshoe Inn a few months ago so I thought I'd post a quick summary of my impressions on the blog. Hopefully this can become a regular feature!

The Horseshoe Inn is a great restaurant set in an old Blacksmiths in Eddleston, just outside Peebles and about 30 miles south of Edinburgh on the A703. It won AA Restaurant of the Year 2007-2008, so we thought it was worth checking out.

Accommodation

The Horseshoe Inn is a "Restaurant with Rooms". At £50.00 per person per night they aren't cheap compared to B&Bs, but look to be a relatively good deal for a restaurant of its calibre compared to what other establishments charge. The only problem was the size of the room: whilst it was nicely furnished, it was quite small. Yes it has everything you could want - large bed, desk, TV, tea and coffee, ironing board etc, but it was all just a little bit cramped for the price. Also, the ensuite shower room was a little tired - a few cracked tiles, some unused rawl plugs - you get the idea. We've just had a new bathroom fitted though, so perhaps we were being hypercritical.

All in all staying there didn't add anything to the experience for us, but to be fair, the only reason we did stay was because it wasn't going to require us to remortgage the house.

Wine List

One thing you should know - we won't go anywhere (expensive) unless there's a decent wine list (preferably not that expensive) ... or it's BYO!

We started off with a bottle of Champagne on arrival: Delamotte NV, which is the second wine of Salon. Phenomenal value - so much so that a party (not us!) drank the restaurant dry that weekend. I would highly recommend it! I can't remember what wine we had with the main course, but we finished off with a lovely Beerenauslese Austrian sweetie.

A definite thumbs up for the wine list: great wine and some really good value bargains!

Food

This is, after all, the reason why we went in the first place! To start: snails, as I was being brave - interesting and good to try but I'm not sure I'd eat them again; followed by fillet and braised shoulder of beef, which was absolutely delicious; and the sweets were fabulous - lots of roasted bananas and chocolate, so right up my street.

What I especially liked was that there were lots of amouse bouche served between courses (including a pre-dessert!!) but it was all done in a way which was completely unpretentious.

Overall Rating

Great food served in a really nice restaurant with a relaxing atmosphere. Staff are friendly and knowledgeable too.

Value for money? £30 to £40 for 3 courses, but well worth it. Tip: save yourselves a few quid by staying in a B&B in Peebles and forking out for the short taxi ride!

Beginning to Garden

To have a garden and not to use it is a bit of a crime, and one which I have been guilty of. The problem is that to use a garden invariably involves a higher level of 'gardening' than just periodically ripping weeds out. So, putting aside the fact that I'm not very good at it, and the fact that I don't particularly enjoy gardening (I am hoping it will be like running but with less effort - not actually as bad as you think its going to be, and slightly enjoyable after a while), I decided to grow something this year. I thought this would:

(a) get me into the garden.
(b) (more importantly) help me attack my weeds and keep them under control.

I wanted to start small and not give myself too much to do, but what to plant?

For me there are 3 types of plants (excluding weeds):

1. Plants you can stick in the ground and forget about, whilst they grow on their own without taking over the garden - we have several of these including a huge buddleia and some rhododendrons. I really like this kind of plant, especially when they can contribute to keeping weeds at bay!
   
2. Plants with a purpose i.e. vegetables. We grow them with the aim of getting something back from them (food). For me flowers do not fall into this category.
3. The rest: flowers are fine (especially the ones that grow every year - see above) but they don't actually do anything, except provide a bit of colour; and those plants that only last one year - why were they even invented?
   

So with this in mind, the obvious answer seemed to be to grow vegetables. I went out and bought a growbag (if I put it on my newly weeded earth it'll stop the weeds beneath it - right? Well actually it doesn't, but it was worth a try).

I stuck a couple of tomato plants in it, saw some brussel sprouts in the sale and shoved them into the ground. And I also bought some marigolds, as I read on the internet that they keep whitefly away. Do marigolds only last one year? Maybe this is why such plants were invented!

I have looked after my new charges well so far: I have tended them; watered them; fed them; weeded (continually it seems); and started a battle with slugs and snails that I didn't even know we had in the garden. Funnily enough the marigolds are what the slugs go straight for. Conclusion: not even slugs like sprouts ...

To my surprise, the sprouts are actually doing quite well so far. I bought a pack of 12 for fifty pence and reasoned that some would die, but now it looks like we'll be eating sprouts all winter (good job we like them).

The tomatoes are a different story - one small plant doesn't really seem to be doing much, but I'm hopeful for the other one - just starting to flower. As they say ... time will tell.

Weeds ...

I've had a garden for over 5 years now, but, although I like the idea of gardens I have to admit that I am not what you would call 'green fingered': last year for instance I managed to kill mint, which I believe is quite an achievement. Until recently though I have not really attempted to grow anything in the garden - read more here on my first attempts ...

But despite my failings in this area I am remarkably good at getting weeds to grow - why is that? And why do they grow at ten times the rate of anything else? The answer to these questions, it seems to me, lies with a higher power.

I guessed the answer was hard work, so I ripped out all the weeds. To my dismay only a week later thousands of the little b*!**!s were growing up through my beautiful soil again, throwing into disarray any plans I had for planting things. What to do???

As any fully independent adult will do when faced with uncertainty, I turned at once to my parents for answers - my parents who for years have grown organically all manner of fruit and vegetables in quantities so large that they cannot even give them all away. My mother, usually so good at reassuring me, had only one piece of advice:

"Kneel down and weed out each one by hand."

She kindly followed this bombshell with the information that seeds can lie dormant in the ground for seven years!! I think I know what I'll be doing for some time to come ...

On Wimbledon ...

Photograph by Michelle

As we come to the end of a remarkably dry Wimbledon fortnight, we reach a mens final that all would have predicted, and a womens final which, although the seedings tell a different story, perhaps few are surprised to see.

So why are the headlines about what's happening off the court (or is that just me)?

• We started with front page photos of what the stars are wearing - Roger in his cardigan, then Maria and her 'tux', not to mention Serena's mac (will she wear it for the final today?) The headlines reached around the world: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/06/25/1214073302908.html But who cares ...

• Then there's the gripping question of Nadal's pants which seem to fit him incredibly badly ...

• Jamie Murray was obviously cowed by press coverage, and perhaps comments from his brother, as he moved quickly from Macenroe tribute act to skinhead.

• And don't get me started on Andy: one gripping 5 set match and the press turn him into the next winner of Wimbledon - all this from someone who (let's be honest) hasn't been playing at the top of his game so far, struggles with his first serve, and hits a second serve so slowly that even a tortoise could reach it and send a winner back. Beat Nadal?? No matter how optimistic you are it was never going to happen (not in this universe anyway). Strike 1 for the British press - build him up knock him down (on that subject Hamilton surely must be going to win the grand prix tomorrow, but lets pillory him if he crashes again ...)

Let's just ignore the press, ignore the fashion statements, try and ignore Nadal's fiddling with his bum, and sit back and enjoy what could prove to be 2 great singles finals.

Oh .. and if Laura Robson should win the girls tournament, lets try not to turn her into the next national sporting hero.