Tag: food critic
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Tebay Services, M6, Cumbria.
One of the many proclivities my auntie the gourmand, my uncle the retired vicar and my mother have in common, apart from their parents, love of odd dogs and a tendency to pedantry around the written word, is their deeply felt, somewhat illogical love of Tebay Services. They idolise Tebay. Both north and south-bound. Wonderful…
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Wild Bean Café – Harthill, and everywhere
‘I suppose,’ said Sancho, ‘You’re in some café, stuffing yourself…’ Au contraire. Not Proven. How on earth is she so prescient? I shouldn’t have taken this call. ‘…when you should be working.’ The horrid truth was I had stopped in a ‘café’ and I was ‘working’. Unfortunately, when we gentlefolk light hauliers are toiling away,…
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Loch Fyne Oyster Bar Tree Shop Garden Centre café
It should be a truth universally acknowledged that one must avoid drinking coffee in a garden centre café. Hold on, I said that last week. But if a humble scribe must steal they should steal from the best and then get one’s karmic money’s worth by repeating it. Even into inanity. It also seems that…
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The Oven at Overton Farm, Clyde Valley.
It should be a truth universally acknowledged that one must avoid drinking coffee in a garden centre café. Said establishments have a captive, pliant audience of pensioners with time on their hands, home improvement on their minds, triple-locked income in their digital pockets and simply no idea of what a single origin bean blend or…
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Tempura, Ayr.
Is Fusion a good thing? Nuclear fusion, well it has its uses. We probably can’t do without it. Jazz Fusion, I’m not sure. I think we could do without it. I know Sancho could*. No music whatsoever from a genre beginning with the letter J is allowed on the van stereo when Sancho is driving,…
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Brambles, Inverary.
Inverary, originally a model town constructed by a typically ambitious Campbell Duke of Argyll always seems inexplicably busy. I cannot quite fathom the attraction. It could be the spectacular view, or the absurdly castle-y castle. The explanation I favour is that the journey time for a coach-load of pensioners from Glasgow to Inverary exactly matches…
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Auchentullich Farm Shop, Loch Lomond-side
My petite yet perfectly formed friend revealed what her father gets up to now he’s retired. He had worked variously as a rep for a champagne vineyard, a whisky distillery and as a wine merchant. He’s a cultured fellow who travels a lot. He loves ice cream and will regularly drive 30km to visit a…
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Cadzow Bakehouse, Bothwell.
I had failed to find suitable refreshment in Bothwell in the past and held out faint hope for satiety. Main Street seemed to be more concerned with outward appearances; hairdressers, salons, skincare etc than satisfying inner fulfilment. Unless you count the colonic hydrotherapy clinic. Which I suppose provides the opposite of inner fulfilment. This time…
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Kennoway Coffee, Thornwood – Glasgow.
Just nip off the Clydeside Expressway at the Dumbarton Road roundabout and park your chariot outside the West End copshop on Dumbarton Road free for 30 minutes. What more assurance could the light haulier require that your load will remain unmolested? Then stroll to Kennoway coffee. This small coffee shop is run by a dapper…
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Stonehaven special; Dunnottar Castle coffee truck, Molly’s Café Bar, Picos Deli, Marine Hotel, Carron Fish Bar
Escaping back from or unfortunately driving towards Aberdeen, one can loop one’s van off the A90 into Stonehaven. There is a lot to like about this town. Stonehaven has a large bay and coastal respite from the North Sea. The long, pebbled beach has a bit of sand at low water and concrete defences to…
