Tag Archives: Easter Ross

Scones, topweird

The Oystercatcher Restaurant

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This  fine-dining restaurant, is situated about as far out of the way as you can get .. in Portmahomack. It’s on the tip of Tarbat peninsula in Easter Ross. Question is … is it the best restaurant in the world? Probably not, but it does make you ask the question so it’s pretty special. It is certainly unique. Oystercatcher 03

We were fortunate to be here for the first night of the season and we had been looking forward to it with much anticipation. Oystercatcher 07There is no doubt that this is fine dining .. fabulous menu specialising in seafood and almost a thousand different wines along with hundreds of whiskies and liqueurs to choose from .. and correspondingly expensive. It may only be three courses but, they provide extra palate ticklers between each dish. One was cullen skink, another was haggis neeps and tatties, another was peach sorbet topped with crowdie. All taster sized portions but fabulous. But places like this don’t do scones .. do they? No they don’t. Our excuse for writing this is pretty thin, embarrassingly thin.

The most clouds we saw in Portmahomack
The most clouds we saw in Portmahomack

 

Yes, I had the ‘seared scallop of scone’ .. because I like scallops and I like scones. So the dish was king scallops, black pudding; bacon & coral scone; airbag; garlic-sauteed samphire; partan sauce. I didn’t even get a picture of the scone because it was buried underneath everything else. Suffice to say it was delicious. Don’t ask what the airbag was, we have no idea but it wasn’t a safety device. Obviously this could not be classed as a topscone. We do have a weird scone category however so we placed it there .. top weird scone!

Fantastic

I can show you a picture of my pudding though. That’s good Talisker you can see burning away there. Susan, the owner/waitress, looked after us superbly well but don’t expect any of the us

Café Surprise o' the Cuillins
Café Surprise o’ the Cuillins

ual deference you normally get in fine-dining restaurants. No standing on ceremony here, just great friendly service. All in all it was a fantastic experience, hats off to Susan for making The Oystercatcher work in rural Easter Ross. Nothing short of amazing!

Port at 'the Port'
Port at ‘the Port’
Who owns Scotland?

Was it a better than Bruce’s Café at the Carnegie Hall, just round the corner? That would be like comparing apples and pears. Completely different but both wonderful. While Susan and Bruce work their socks off we don’t suppose either of their businesses will feature in the Panama Papers. It is disturbing to learn that ownership of great swathes of Scotland are simply registered to PO boxes in Panama. Also, if you have ever wondered why people in oil rich countries like Nigeria are still poor it is because the country’s wealth is squirrelled away in Panama. Most of it administered through the UK by RBS and HBSC.  What is being displayed in the Panama Papers is that the system is global .. and rotten. Maybe we already knew that? Nothing rotten at the Oystercatcher .. expensive but worth it.

IV20 1YB         tel: 01862 871560        The Oystercatcher

Scones

The Café at the Carnegie Hall

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Okay, okay, it’s not the Carnegie Hall. Please believe us however when we tell you that, if you are one of the 350 souls who live in lovely Portmahomack, this is definitely the Carnegie Hall. The Cafe at the Carnegie Hall is pretty much the centre of the universe.

Salsa Drumming in Portmahomack
Salsa drumming in Portmahomack
It all happens here

Very much a community hall, run largely by volunteers, you can book it for just about anything; birthdays, weddings, tai chi, yoga, salsa drumming .. what? When we arrived the local Salsa Drumming Band were in full flight with a practice session for an event the following day. The Budapest Café Orchestra will be performing here soon. It all happens in Portmahomack! Carnegie 05At the café, Bruce Edwards, chef extraordinaire and general superhero, reigns supreme and will happily rustle you up a tasty meal .. the emphasis being on ‘happily’. A nicer, more friendly person you could not hope to meet.  He is hoping to retire as soon as another franchisee can be found. If you are looking for a business opportunity in this beautiful part of the world, this could be it .. contact details below. Carnegie 800x800Amongst other things of course we had to have a scone, made that morning by Bruce’s own fair hand. Although not a topscone it was very good. We thoroughly enjoyed it, as we did everything about this place. Nothing fancy, just good honest fare and warm friendly folk. We were staying in Portmahomack for a few days and enjoyed wall to wall sunshine every day.

Rush hour in Portmahomak
Rush hour in Portmahomak
No news

Because we were preoccupied walking on beaches and eating scones news gathering was not high on our list of priorities. Wifi is pretty flaky here as well. Very quickly, we were completely out of the usual swirl of current affairs. Just what you need for a relaxing wee break. So you can probably imagine our surprise, on our return, to find that rich people have been avoiding paying tax. Absolute shocker … who would have thought? As always the rules don’t seem to apply if you have lots of money but at least, thanks to the Panama papers, we get some idea of who they are. No surprises here either but you have got to hand it to the Icelanders who seem to know how to handle bankers and tax dodgers.

All this must be particularly galling though for the folks in this wee village where the local restauranteur has to have a special licence just to walk across the street, to the harbour, to buy a lobster from Jimmy, one of the local fisherman. Plenty rules up here .. and they are applied!

Sunset over the harbour
Sunset over the harbour

Even superheros need a day off so please note that the café is closed on Wednesdays and Thursdays but otherwise open 11-4pm. No cards either so take cash … you won’t need very much.

IV20 1YD     tel: 01862 871798      Cafe at Carnegie TripA