Edinburgh Foodie Trip

Not long ago I went to Edinburgh for a wee visit to see if I could find something new.

Firstly was the Eat, Drink, Discover Scotland show, which sadly was rather quiet. I was there in the morning so maybe it was before the rush of people. I went for the main purpose of finding a specific company and I did.

This company was called The Wee Pie Company. I have seen their stall before but didn't buy anything. On that occasion I chose another pie stall, which I didn't like. This time around I made a b-line for The Wee Pie Company and was very happy I did. 

The pies I chose were their four Venison Pies.

• Stalkers Pie - venison with garlic and rich tomato and red wine sauce.
• Venison Wallace - venison with seasonal vegetables and haggis with a redcurrant and red wine sauce.
• Chieftains Choice - with chorizo and wild mushrooms and wild boar, combined with rich onion gravy.
• The Wee Black - venison and black pudding

The Wee Black Pie - The Wee Pie Company

Each pie can be eaten hot or cold and you can freeze them.

The pies are well made and very tasty. The pastry is just right, the sides are the soft and the top is a lovely puff pastry.
In my opinion the Venison Wallace is the best. The tender venison with perfectly cooked vegetables combined with the haggis that just brings it all together. Such great taste it's no wonder they won a Great Taste award for it.

My next and last purchase at the show was Fudge, Mrs Tilly's Fudge.

I got the Vanilla Fudge, Dark Chocolate Fudge and Orange Fudge. Each are very nice if you like your fudge with a more crumbly texture. I prefer a creamy fudge and a crumbly tablet but there is nothing wrong with these. I will definitely buy the Dark Chocolate Fudge again. Since it's dark chocolate, you get the rich chocolate taste but it doesn't add extra sweetness. It is a very nice blend.

After the show I went a wander around town, found some drinks for a friends birthday and some macaroons for myself.
Walking up W Bow street I couldn't go past a tiny cafe once I saw their macaroons in the window.

They have four or five flavours and are prices at £1.05 each or you can get them in a box. I chose the chocolate, salted caramel and pistachio. Although I was most excited about the pistachio, the salted caramel was the winner.

Even thought the day didn't bring many new discoveries it was fun and tasty and I look forward to my next foodie day. 

Wagamama

Who doesn't like Wagamama? I love Wagamama!

Ok, so you have probably guessed what this post is about. It's not necessarily a review more just a mention/chat about it as I was there not too long ago.

Malvasia Wine

For anyone who hasn't been, Wagamama is a Japanese style restaurant with great meals on offer. They have a selection of Ramen and Teppanyaki and Pad Tai ect.

I don't know anyone who has been to Wagamama and had a bad experience. I always enjoy my meals from there. They also happen to have my favourite wine.


We started with a drink, myself the Malvasia and my friend the Kirin Ichiban beer. Wine lovely, beer horrid, (but then I hate beer).

We each ordered a side, which I highly recommend as they are just as good as the main meals. I have a harder time choosing my side than the main dish.

Squid

My friend got the Chilli Squid and I got the Grilled Pork Bulgogi Wraps. My wraps were so tasty. They come so that you can build your own, personally I like that and the pork is soo tender. It's just something you need to order.
The squid, I don't like. If it was just the rings I'd be ok but when you can see a sucker, 'no thank you, I do not want to try that.'

Something to note about Wagamama, is that the food will arrive at different times, you'll get it when ever it's cooked. So like in our case you may get your main before your starter.

 

 

Yaki Udon

My main was my goto, Yaki Udon, which is udon noodles in curry oil with chicken, prawns, chikuwa, egg and various veg. If you like thicker noodles this is definitely one to try. The noodles are very big and soft and with that oil, so very good.

Katsu Curry

My friend got the Katsu curry, which although isn't actually very Japanese, is not bad for a curry (says the non curry fan).

Although Wagamama can be quite filling, the main meals are a decent size, we both ordered desert.





My friend got the Mix It Up Mochi Ice Cream plate. This is a combination of coconut, raspberry and Toasted sesame Ice cream. Each comes like a wee ball wrapped in rice. Sounds weird and it is weird. You don't really taste the rice, your ice cream just has a chewy outer coating.

I got The Three Mini Cakes. This consists of Passion-fruit cheesecake, white chocolate cheesecake and chocolate Fudge cake. I recommend trying a bite of each one together. A very nice combination.

As always it was a very nice dinner and I look forward to my next trip there.

Topolabamba

One of the newer restaurants in Glasgow serving Mexican Street Food.

A couple weeks ago I visited Topolobamba to see what they had to offer. They have a smaller menu but they focus on sharing with street food style dishes. They advise choosing 3-4 small dishes per person or 2 small and one big.

The smaller meals are priced between £4 and £6 pounds and the larger meals being £6 - £10.The food is moderately priced if you keep check of what your spending but the drinks are where you can loose count.

My friend and I both chose a cocktail to start. Both priced at £5 and the same size. I had the Totapuri Mango and they had the Lemony Caramelised Pineapple. The latter won in this round for taste. Also they just tasted ok but they were also mostly ice in small glasses. I drank mine with a straw and it was gone in seconds but the left over ice came in handy once I started eating.

Choc & Pear Frozen Cocktail

The menu has a spice guide of one to three chillies but the restaurant has a daily traffic light guide as to how hot things may really get. We went on an amber day and, as I am someone who cant handle anything with more heat than southern fired chicken, I nearly lost all feeling in and around my mouth. Quickly asking for another drink, and reconsidering not having water on the table, the very nice staff asked if I would rather the frozen version of my selected second cocktail (Tamaya Pear and Chocolate). This I very happily accepted and enjoyed. The frozen version you will be able to get more of a chocolate hit whereas the normal version tastes more fruity. My friends second drink, the Buenos Tiempos, however was very overpriced considering how small it was. 


  

Here is a run down of the food we ate and what we thought:

• Salt & Chilli Pepper Fries - such nice fries with quite a kick of chilli but even a non-chilli fan will keep eating these.

• Pork Pibil Taco - Hot, Hot, Hot - that is all I got when trying this.
• Shredded Beef, Spring Onion & Chipotle Aioli with Crumbly Cheese - great combination, tasty beef with some heat but this balanced nicely with the cheese.
• Tangy Cactus & Marinated Chicken Taquitos  - different but you won't really taste the cactus, just have a bit of crunch.
• Chorizo, Spring Onion & Potato Taquito - lovely flavours here, the light creamy mash with a slight hint of spice from the chorizo and such nice crunch from the taquito. A really great mix here.

• Coco Cola Mexican Short Stack Rib - not as pull off the bone as you'd like with not much sweetness from the coke.
• Chilli Squid - nice crunch but surprisingly not much heat

Buenos Tiempos

 
My favourite was the Chorizo, Spring Onion & Potato Taquito. If you are struggling with heat then these are salvation to your burning taste buds.

Nearing the end we were feeling rather full but as I had never had a churro before, we had to try them. The churro (Spanish dounut) was nice. I was expecting it to be a little more fluffy on the inside but they were good although maybe a little overloaded with sugar on the outside. As you can see from the picture they were nice enough to eat, you get four good size churros per order.

Overall the place has tasty food on offer but is a quite over-priced for the sizes of what you are getting.
I would go back and try the more mild items on offer and leave the cocktails. 

New Food/Drink Discoveries

Lets discover some new flavours. Some will have been around awhile but these are all new to me. 

The Deli crisps by Walkers.

Walkers Deli Crisps

These are made with more 'authentic flavours' and with a thicker cut potato for more of a crunch.

They certainly are more crunchy than regular walkers and they have quite a depth of flavour which is just right.
I chose the Flame Grilled Spanish Chorizo with Roasted Onions. At first I thought they were just like any other pork flavour from Walkers but then the sweetness of the roasted onion came through and then after a few crisps came the heat. I cant handle any heat and these were too much for me but they are nice crisps.

I was a bit surprised when it said British Pork made the chorizo but I guess you still need it to be quite British as it is Walkers however to keep with the 'authentic title' they have Spanish paprika.

BerryWhite Organic Drink

Next here is the BerryWhite Organic Drink, which I received in this month's Degusta Box.

This is a nice fruit juice drink but all I could taste is peach and with three other flavours meant to be in there I was disappointed as I am not a peach fan.

I would try the other flavours though and look forward to finding these. Will report on this brand again when I find them.








Now onto a white chocolate battle. Usually I'm a frequent milk chocolate eater but Dark Chocolate (Bournville) is my favourite. However lately I've been wanting to try white chocolate for a bit of a change.

Lion Bar

In this mission I discovered a White Lion Bar and White Kitkat. These are usually two of my favourite sweets. I didn't think a regular Lion Bar could be beat but this version is just lovely. They have the chocolate just right. Not too sweet, not sickly or too thick. Its a great sweet. If you find one and like Lion Bars, get it.

KitKat

 Next was the White Chocolate Kitkat Chunky. I don't want to know why they did it but they ruined a KitKat. I won't go near these again. The chocolate was just too sweet and overpowered the bar. It would of benefited from having more of a crunch with this type of chocolate.




What can we find next? Look forward to finding and sharing.

Recent Baking Trials

I have done several baking rounds over the last couple weeks and to be fully honest they didn't all end well.

This is just going to be a post to note my current baking failures and see what I can learn from it and hopefully that may help one of you when your baking.

Vanilla Cupcake

Day 1

First I went back to basics and just did vanilla cupcakes. These turned out well before getting to the cream. They tasted lovely but the cream I may have left a bit to long mixing (whilst eating a cupcake).

                                               Day 2

Choc Chip Cupcake

The second attempt were Jumbo Choc Chip Cupcakes. I wouldn't really call them jumbo but they were bigger than others I've made recently. They tasted nice but were a little crispy on top. This was due to the oven being at too high a temperature.

Mini Lime Cupcake

Then there was the Lime Mini Cupcakes. These were lovely, I ate too many but they were just so nice in light and the icing wasn't too sweet due to the lime cutting through the sugar. These I will be experimenting with to get bigger cupcakes with the same light and zingy taste.

Day 3

Chocolate Cupcake

Being a fan of Fairycakes/Butterfly cakes as a kid I thought I'd try Chocolate and Orange butterfly cakes but these were doomed from the start. Where was the orange! I didn't put in enough coco powder! Once these where baked it was clear I hadn't mixed the flour well enough either. 

They were edible but not successful but to top it off I didn't have enough butter to make the icing to disguise them and by that time at night I didn't want to.

Fudgy Cupcake

Finally was the attempt of Fudge Cupcakes. Let's ignore these. This wasn't a night for baking.

Wish me luck for next weekend's baking.

New Coke!

Hello

Lets start these next few posts with something I love, which is Coca-Cola (Diet Coke to be specific). I drink diet coke all the time, don't manage long without it and collect a few coca-cola items.

When I heard there was a new coke coming out I had to try it. It's called Coke Life and comes in the usual coca-cola design but green. It comes in most sizes and becoming available in most stores.

Coke Life

Coke Life is all about the more natural route, think normal coca-cola but slightly healthier. Coke have managed this by gaining their 'sweetness from natural sources'.

Coke are using the stevia leaf and blend of sugar for this drink. This means that Coke Life will have a third less sugar than regular coke and have a third less calories.

On reading the ingredients you will find that it is better for you than regular coke but I think it tastes just like Coke Zero. Regular coke I find hard to finish a can due to that full fat taste at the end but I can drink coke zero.

Coke Life

I think the idea of Coke Life is great, many people want more natural ingredients in their diets however I think loyal coke fans won't change to this from their favourite but this could win some healthy living fans back to the coca-cola family.

Coke Life may be healthier for you but being a Diet Coke fiend I'm not going to switch. I don't drink Diet Coke because I think it's better for me than regular coke, I drink it because I love the taste.

In my opinion it's not bad, tastes like Coke Zero. I would drink it if Diet Coke wasn't available but it wouldn't be my first choice.