Scotland Food Adventures
Our food adventures from our UK trip part II – this was a very gastronomic vacation! Here is the Scotland part of our trip – look at this wonderful flight of the finest Scottish whiskey! (See part I for London/England)
We started in Glasgow. The UK is famous for Indian cuisine, and we enjoyed the prix fixe lunch at Dhakka Indian. At dinner we ate at the Mini Grill Scottish Food, where we tried haggis – a Scottish dish consisting of a sheep’s or calf’s offal mixed with suet, oatmeal, and seasoning (B was a fan, although I was not).
The Ox and Finch was a very trendy tapas restaurant. All the dishes were great – the poaches hake, curry duck leg, venison carpaccio, and lamb shoulder were my favorites.
We then took a 3 day Rabbies tour to the Isle of Skye and the Scottish highlands. Words can’t express how beautiful the views were – it’s easy to see why Harry Potter, James Bond, and Game of Thrones were filmed here.
Our bus driver/tour guide Grant was great and wore an authentic kilt, which was awesome. The weather was chilly but cooperated on the whole, so we had perfect beautiful skies on our trip (very unusual for the October rainy season).
Also, the Scottish Highlands have SO many rainbows – we saw 9 rainbows in 3 days!
We stayed in a charming bed and breakfast in Portree, Isle of Skye, and you can see we had a very hearty Scottish breakfast.
We had Scottish pizza at L’incontro our first night in Portree. Unique toppings include spicy Scottish beef (alas the word Scottish was crossed out, so I guess we had normal beef), lorne sausage, and black pudding. The gelato pizza is very heavy but a novel treat worth trying once at least.
Bonus: the restaurant had a sign that said “Dogs welcome!”.
I loved the water views on the island, especially with the beautiful sunsets. The local fish and chips shop by the boat docks definitely had the best deal of all the fish and chips shops we tried in the UK – the portions were massive, and it was very reasonably priced.
Our last night in Skye, we had a fancy dinner at Cuchullin Restaurant. The seafood was lighter alternative to all the red meat we had been eating the trip, and I loved the scallop plate.
On the way back from the Scottish Highlands, we stopped by Dalwhinnie Distillery. B and I just shared one drink between us since we aren’t big whisky drinkers, but we got lots of whisky bottles as gifts for friends and family.
We had amazing gelato at Mary’s Milk Bar – we ordered the knickerbocker glory (this isn’t a classic way to serve it, so it’s more of just a sundae, but I do love the unique horse and cart bowl). When eating here, you have a great view of the Edinburgh Castle as well.
For the best pulled pork sandwich in Edinburgh, go to Oink. You can add different things to your sandwich – B added haggis while I added baked apples. You can get a drink and chips in a lunch set for a good deal. This place is extremely popular but the line moves quickly.
Finally, I was obsessed with all the Harry Potter links throughout Edinburgh (I stalked Spoon cafe, where JK Rowling wrote the early chapters of Harry Potter), and just had to try the Knickerbocker Glory because Harry ate one in the first Harry Potter book. We found a classic Knickerbocker Glory, served properly in a tall glass, at Martone Restaurant (the waiter was very confused that I was taking pictures of my ice cream). Sadly, after Edinburgh, we had to fly back to the USA.
Hope you enjoyed our Scottish food adventures. We’ll be back for sure.
The food and experience we had in the UK was amazing! These pics make me happy =)
I bet the scotch was really good. Could use some now haha…
The scotch was very strong! It was an experience
Lots of delicious food during the trip!