Showing posts with label Inverness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Inverness. Show all posts

Thursday, 31 October 2013

A week in Scotland: Eating & drinking

We spent last week in Scotland and Bob the Bunny visited some lovely new places in Edinburgh, Perth, Aberfeldy and Inverness.
We start our eating and drinking by seeking out a newly opened veggie place in Perth called Spring Greens Bistro.





A lovely little place and I think the highlight after a tasty light bite starter was the dessert. We found rocky road with vegan marshmallows, yum, and below you can see their version of a 'healthy' granola style peanut butter cup, very moreish!


The next day we went to Edinburgh and on the list of things to do was seek out a particular coffee shop who do fab coffee of course and a good range in veggie food. The place was Brew Lab and the plan didn't exactly go smoothly.

It was pouring with raining and we had a long way to walk to find this place, near to a college. Of course we got there very wet and it was full of students, there was no room whatsover to stay and eat so we had to make do with a take out brew  (which was nice) and a long walk back to Princes St. Now I don't object to it being full of students but I do get a bit mad when I see them all sat at the tables, laptops open not buying any food and probably only bought one drink which has been consumed hours ago in order for them to stay there and use the free WiFi. I also felt very old and uncomfortable in that environment so I comforted myself by saying if there had been some space, I would've no doubt felt very awkward sitting and feasting alongside the young people.

Here are some Brew Lab pics.




Slightly more successful on the Edinburgh trip was a visit to Hendersons, this place is often to referred to as Scotland's first veggie restaurant, dating back to 1962. It was huge  so we easily found a table and we didn't feel old in here so big tick!



It was quite late in the day so we just had a little salad bowl followed by a rather tempting vanilla gateau with fresh fruit.



Onwards and upwards north to Aberfeldy, I've saved the jewel in the coffee crown until last. One of our coffee friends has a cafe called the Habitat in Aberfeldy and it sits nicely in prime position in the square.





The cafe has won the BSA (Beverage Standards Association) National Award for Best Espresso in the UK 2013, this is a fabulous achievement as they've only been open a year. We couldn't wait to get inside and offer our congratulations but what a shame, our friend was off that day, maybe he'd run off if he'd heard we were coming! 

Not to worry, the staff made us wonderful coffees, I enjoyed this brew followed by a delicious flat white and then of course an amazing Costa Rican espresso.





We also tried the food, the feta salad was lovely and then I tried some gingerbread which seemed to go very well with my coffee.





I liked the Habitat Cafe, nice atmosphere and Aberfeldy is a lovely place with some quirky little shops and galleries.

Lastly, but there's no food pic, we found a little whole food, organic cafe in a natural therapy centre at the other side of this bridge in Inverness.


It was a bit more of a socks and sandally sort of place, tiny, but we had a lovely sweet potato and coconut curry.

I think that's it for our eating and drinking around Scotland, thanks for sticking with me to the end!

Monday, 3 December 2012

Lovely things from Skye & Highlands

I like to support local producers wherever possible and on my brief trip north this is what I managed to bag in 3 days.

This hand woven scarf from Skye Weavers is created on a loom powered by a bicycle pedal, how groovy is that! Not for me this one but a pressie.

http://www.skyeweavers.co.uk/


A scarf for me this time, not made on Skye but somewhere in the Highlands from Jacob Sheep wool, I liked it because it is sort of a patchwork of different patterns.


Both the above scarves & this lovely wool were purchased in the super SkyeWorks Gallery



In the same building as Skyeworks is the Skye Baking Co and they had these lovely treats will which find their way into the festive hampers I do for relatives.




Handmade on Skye, these lovely soaps, scrummy!

http://www.skye-soap.co.uk/


Next, my favourite shop, which has a few of my designs in, Skye Batiks. I picked up these festive, batik shopper bags.

http://skyebatiks.com/


Moving away from Skye our next shopping destination is Inverness and that important subject, chocolate!
A Belgian chocolatier named Fabienne used to have a little shop & cafe in Strathpfeffer called MAYA, but in the last couple of years she has moved to bigger premises in Inverness. 
Here you can see the most delicious chocolates being made and have a sample or two whilst you choose from the fresh counter. They no longer have a cafe but they do sell their legendary hot chocolate drink in little bottles which you can take home to heat.

I was in chocolate heaven, their produce is fabulous. I do get to sample quite a bit of Belgian choc as my sister lives near Brussels so she treats me occasionally but the Maya chocolate is equal to any I've had in Belgium.

The little bottle has now been drunk.




 I have 4 of these left. The pretty green flowery ones are jasmine, not tried those yet. I wish I could share them with you! You'll have to believe me they are delish!!




http://www.mayachocolates.co.uk/