Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves

Now who was it who told me that?  Probably me Glasgow grandad.  And that was most certainly the case on my recent trip back to Fife.  Prices varied from town to town and village to village.  I couldn't believe it when we were charged over eight quid for a beer, a large (I must admit) glass of white wine (if your favourite tipple is wine you are better of going to the supermarket and buying yourself a bottle 'cos it works out cheaper than a glass of the stuff!!) and a packet of crisps (which incidentally cost about 10p in Morrisons if you buy their 22 pack bag for 1.99)...and then we went off to a bar in Glenrothes

 where the beer cost almost two quid less a pint.  We are not doing Scottish tourism any favours with this type of capers - or the public in general.  I also got one of my most reasonably priced lunches there too. We got two burgers with chips and a side salad for about a fiver each plus drinks too (i.e. a pint of Guinness and a medium sized glass of wine) plus capuccinos for 99 pence each.  Usual  price in a tea room was over 2 pounds.

Scottish smoked salmon

On my recent trip back to Scotland I tried smoked salmon on several occasions and it  was absolutely delicious.  The first time was in Pitlochry where I had a smoked salmon platter

Actually, this photo is quite misleading 'cos it was on what looked like a wooden chopping board, with some salad leaves, lemon and, distressingly, only one slice of thickly cut bread with a portion of butter.  Luckily, the waitress brought some more bread and butter because there was too much salmon for the amount of bread I was given.  Or perhaps people in Scotland don't eat too much bread with their salmon?

I also tried a smoked salmon ciabbatta with sour cream and a side salad in Auchtermuchtie which was lovely too, but again there wasn't too much bread.  Certainly, nowhere near the loaf in the photo

and which should have looked something like this but didn't...because what I got was some sort of smoked salmon which had been grilled with warm sour cream on top.  I had to have a cake afterwards to fill myself up..

Also tried a wild garlic risotto with salmon too but that's for another time..

The "combo"

The latest in sharing foods for lunch or dinner in Scotland  is basically this, the combo or a combination dish served on a wooden platter.

Tried out several last Sunday just fresh off the Alicante-Edinburgh plane.  First we had the onion ring, mushroom, sausage and goodness knows what else combo platter as a main course with sour cream and a pepper sauce and then we had the combo dessert, 5 generous helpings which included

two scoops of clotted cream ice cream,



sticky toffee pudding,



chocolate fondant pudding

and lemon tart.  Yum, yum and very filling.  Less than £9 per platter.