Edinburgh on My Mind

Where to begin? No, I haven't thrown in the towel. Just yet. It's been a whirlwind of a past few months with a jaunt to Scotland, trips to London, and lots of work in between.

Along the way, there has been food, however. Oh, has there been food!

Itchy feet caught up with me in February, and being whisked away to Edinburgh for a stay at The Balmoral Hotel was all that the Rocco Forte destination promised and more. I don't think I've slept as soundly as I did in those three nights than in three months together.

An afternoon spa package came with a complimentary light lunch at Hadrian's Brasserie. A goat's cheese tart and braised beef with cabbage and potato gratin must have been miles away, however, from the Michelin starred Number One restaurant, just a hop across the hotel lobby. The beef had not reached the melt-in-your-mouth state that any properly braised bit of protein should, and the tart--probably constructed twelve hours earlier--tasted like it.




No harm done--I was off to the spa! Emerging 3 hours later as a new woman, dinner brought us to The Outsider, where my most memorable meal of the trip was had. There is nothing like Scottish wild salmon. One thinks one has had salmon before, and Copper River fillets are certainly up there with the rest, but this salmon was otherworldly.

Dressed in a light, creamy roasted red pepper sauce and served on a bed of wilted spinach and fennel, all of the earthy, charred flavours heightened, rather than detracted from, the delicate fish. Accompanied by garlic shoestring frites, we were happy customers.

I think Scottish hospitality has something to do with it as well. Every server, doorman, sales person, and clerk was helpful, charming, and...well...just nice. Also, the men at the Missoni Hotel, dressed in Missoni kilts, were not hard on the eyes, either. This, enhanced, I think, by the delightfully deadly Vespa martini I had at the bar.

Other highlights, gastronomically speaking, were a bresaola, rocket, and Parmesan salad at too-cool-for-school CentoTre and a glorious 28-day aged Aberdeen beef fillet with bernaise at the more starched-collared Tempus, both on George Street.






Topped off, of course, with sticky toffee pudding!





Edinburgh was like a bigger-dare I say it?-better Oxford. For student life, Oxbridge is the place--a veritable playground of Colleges to choose from, each one offering a more packed social schedule than the next. But what about life after the Ivory Tower?

A recent incident involving a Bodleian librarian julienning my old reader's card with a scissors really drove home the fact that that chapter has ended, as much as it smarts to admit it. Doors, metaphorical or otherwise, tend to slam behind one when living in a university town sans programme of study, and it's time to look steadily onwards. And the view from the castle was breathtaking.