Wine Splodge

Fantastic Bargain @ The Ivy (Glasgow)

2012-01-18T22:11:00.004Z

There are many good reasons to go to The Ivy in Finnieston... staff who appear to be enjoying working there, great cocktails, decent wines by the glass, 100 rums and now this...

From Monday to Thursday you'll get two of these damn fine burgers with skinny fries for the price of one until 9pm. Great news for couples and greedy people. That makes this dish £4.25, well £5.25 after splashing out on three onion rings.

For vegetarians falafel fritters are included in the deal. I ate them just before Christmas and they're as good a falafel as I've had in Glasgow.

Remarkable value.

CLICK HERE FOR THE IVY'S WEBSITE

Matching Wine and Food - exciting discovery

2012-01-14T14:16:00.005Z

There are the famous matches like bone dry Chablis with oysters, the surprises, like rich sweet Sauternes with Roquefort cheese and then there are the utterly unexpected...

The combination of Carr's, a particularly tasty sweet chilli sauce and this Beaujolais worked brilliantly. After a bite of chilli topped cracker the wine comes alive. Remarkable. Be warned, you'll demolish the lot in no time at all.

Por Kwan Sweet Chilli Sauce, £2.99 in Sainsbury's (seriously good on just about anything)

Beaujolais, Cuvee des Vignerons, £5 in Waitrose (on offer)

Carr's Large 'Table Water', widely available

A Delicious Tomato Risotto

2012-01-07T11:57:00.013Z

In my teens I became hooked on cheese toasties. For months I'd eat nothing else. Then one night, without warning, the rush was gone, vanished without trace. I wouldn't give up without a fight though and started experimenting with the addition of 'exotics'.

Sometimes it worked... black pepper, sometimes it really didn't... cloves. One night, from the back of my parents spice cupboard, where every spice is still out of date, I pulled a jar of dried basil. Wow, what a revelation.

This combination so impressed my juvenile palette, I risked introducing it to my first proper-ish girlfriend. She was smitten. Not on me though. Months later I found myself opposite her new boyfriend in a bar, above the general hullabaloo all I could hear was, "Cheese toasties... bla bla...basil... bla bla... amazing". A silent rage began to swell, luckily I was just sober enough to hold back shouting across, "That's my recipe you bastard!".

Nowadays I know it's not really a surprise these ingredients mix so well. Pesto after all is mostly cheese and basil. Of course what basil's really famous for going with is tomato, so here's a dish other than pizza that sees them work so well together.

Tomato Risotto

Aside from butter, olive oil and hot stock, this is all you'll need.

The two cheeses are Parmesan and Tomme de Savoie. The tomato sauce is made by liquidising a tin of tomatoes then pushing them through a sieve with the back of a spoon. It's an adaptation of a recipe from the book 'Dear Franscesca' by Mary Contini. Follow the usual risotto recipe: like this one here , but omit the pancetta: and add the tomato sauce just after the white wine but before you start adding the hot stock. I used a low salt vegetable stock cube and it worked a treat.

Both cheeses go in at the end, let them melt then pop in the shredded basil. The original recipe used Fontina cheese but when I asked for some in Mellis's great cheese shop they told me they hadn't stocked it since 2000 !! The guy behind the counter explained it was because while it tastes great eaten in situ in the Valle d'Aosta they hadn't found one that travelled well. Strewth, a cheese that makes you come to it. How demanding. Instead he recommended Tomme de Savoie which worked perfectly, lots of melted, stringy cheesy goodness.

Tomatoes are a notoriously difficult wine match. But in this dish the tomato flavour is tempered by the cheese and basil and this wine worked well. It's on offer just now and an absolute steal for the rather odd price of £5.24. Full of delicious pink grapefruit flavours.

Forte Alto Pinot Grigio, Dolomiti, 2010. Down from £7.99 to £5.24 in Waitrose. What a bargain.

The Calm Before the Storm

2011-12-22T12:44:00.003Z

The night before Hurricane Bawbag I was invited along to the Inverarity Vaults annual wine tasting. Set in the clubbable splendour of The Glasgow Art Club. After snuffling about a bit, my friend the artist Omar Zingaro Bhatia announced that 'ladies' had only been permitted since 1983. That explained why 'gentlemen' had the use of a vast, beautiful cloakroom within pissing distance of everywhere, whilst the ladies had to hitch up their skirts and hike upstairs. What a refreshing change. Not only that, but urinals manufactured by Adam Ant. How cool is that.

There were 140 wines to taste and a lot of top notch whisky. In a rare moment of focus I scanned the list and quickly identified all the wines that interested me. There were some lovely bottles, far too many to list, but my favourite wine of the night came from the last table I made it to. Just after trying the Mas de Daumas blanc (no nose, interesting flavour), I noticed a Crozes Hermitage blanc. What a cracker. Inverarity's Mike Cottam who was manning the table seemed pleased. Turns out he made the decision to buy this wine after tasting it during a visit to the Domaine.

Lovely honeysuckle and almond bouquet, beautiful palate with an oily texture balanced by acidity and delicious mineral flavours. An absolutely delicious wine so good on it's own, you'll need two bottles if there's going to be any left for dinner. Etienne Barret Crozes Hermitage Blanc is a real bargain at £12.99.

If you live in Glasgow and haven't yet been to Inverarity Vaults 'One on One' shop then go soon. In a city deprived of decent independent wine shops this place is a gem. It's also one of the best places to buy properly stored cigars.

Inverarity One to One

185a Bath Street (it's a basement door)

Glasgow

G2 4HU

0141 221 5121

CLICK HERE FOR THEIR WEBSITE

And here's the now legendary Hurricane Bawbag "OMG Trampoline" footage:

Montgravet - tremendous value

2011-11-24T19:21:00.003Z

Quite definitely the best value red wine I've drunk all year. Not complex, just light, lovely blackcurrant and plum fruit flavours with a deliciously refreshing acidity that makes it shockingly moreish. Best of all, it costs just £4.99 in Waitrose. What a bargain.

Asian Gourmet - a dreamy restaurant.

2011-11-21T21:17:00.003Z

We were headed down West Princess Street to Asia Style on St Georges Road. It was Thursday, dark, damp and early. We'd skipped lunch. Almost there, stomachs rumbling, sensing some sort of atmosphere, we stopped, turned and stared down through a steamed up basement window. Inside were tables filled with Chinese people, all laughing, slurping, and passing pots filled with diabolical looking wonders. We fell down the stairs and through the front door.

Normally at this point I wake up. Luckily, this time I didn't. There was one table free. Within seconds of sitting a plate of delicately salted daikon dressed with chilli and vinegar arrived. Then an enormous pot of green tea. The menu was massive. The daikon was delicious and scoffed in minutes. Another plateful arrived.

From the massive menu came Shredded Pork in Peking Sauce with Pancake and from the Chef's Specials supplement Monkish with Spring Onion and Ginger. The Shredded Pork was ok. The Monkfish was superb and without doubt the biggest portion of monkfish I've ever been served. All this plus a mound of steamed rice came to £20. Remarkable.

The decor's best described as functional. Intensely bright lighting, paper tablecloths and after thought wall hangings. But the food's good. The daikon dish, which was free, was worth the trip alone. Really. The portions are huge, so you'd get the best out of the place by going in a bigger group and sharing. Over the next few weeks I plan to do just that and try the following...

crab and pumpkin soup £12

white clam and tofu soup £10

deep fried pumpkin coated with salted egg yolk £8

jellyfish with shredded cucumber in garlic sauce £7

salt and chilli crab £10

hot and spicy frogs legs £9.50

steamed tofu with king prawn in salted egg yolk £8.50

fried jade Japanese tofu with spinach £8.50

deep fried sea bass with leeks £11

Some other 'interesting' dishes on the menu...

braised pork trotters £6.50

stir fry pork head meat with green pepper £6.50

marinated honeycomb tripes £6

fried fish head with tofu and vermicelli £9

quick fried pork intestines in brown sauce £8

shredded pig ear and cucumber in garlic sauce £7

We headed off to Chinaskis for a digestive rum and passed Asia Style on the way. Completely empty. The staff stared back at us, somehow they knew.

Asian Gourmet

17 West Princes Street

Glasgow

G4 9BS

They do takeaway too, and the more usual Chinese restaurant fayre.

0141 332 1639

07588 598 862

Open 7 days a week 5pm - 3am.

Confessional... and a tasty tart.

2011-11-03T12:03:00.002Z

I've been a bit bored of food of late. That might not sound like much, but for someone whose life has more or less evolved around the stuff, it's quite an admission. Even evenings spent flicking through my favourite food porn failed to reignite the flame and I'd find myself heading straight for articles by Paul Krugman on the New York Times website, poor old 'Dining and Wine' didn't get a click in.

Well, I'm happy to say this fug is lifting. Yesterday, for the first time in ages, I found myself browsing blogs for a spot of inspiration, mainly those with Eastern Mediterranean leanings. I decided on a 'sort of tart sort of thing'.

Simple ingredients and couldn't be easier to make.

Roll out the shop bought, all butter (ideally), puff pastry and slightly push the goat's cheese and figs into it. Sprinkle with red onion and a generous amount of flaky sea-salt. Add the toasted pine nuts after cooking. Into a 220c/200c fan for about 20 minutes.

Oh it tasted good. Next time I'm going to double the quantity of goats cheese, it just needed a bit more tang to balance the figs. And, if two mini ice ages hadn't finished off my rosemary bush, there'd have been a spring of that on top too.

The white wine was a recommendation from Ross @ Woodlands Road Oddbins. It's a Galician wine with an unusual grape mix. The exotic floral nature of the 'Torrontes' grape helped make this a pretty successful match. Drinks very well on it's own too. Well worth £8.

For Those Who Are About To Rock... Wau Salute You!

2011-10-20T13:29:00.001+01:00

Wau Cafe's just across the road from Kelvingrove Museum, along that strange little strip of Old Dumbarton Road. It's a Malaysian place with an interesting looking menu, kitsch interior and very friendly owners. Popped in for a bite to eat before heading off to the museum's AC/DC exhibition.

Prawn fritters to start. Cucur Udang? Odd but tasty and a very generous portion. They had a cake like texture with little flecks of dried shrimp throughout. Udang and Sotang Sambal's for mains (prawn and squid).

Both were really good although the squid tasted preserved rather than fresh, it reminded me of those little tins of 'squid in their own ink' you find in supermarkets.

Very nice none the less and the Nasi Goreng accompaniment was exceptional.

Sides were peanuts with tiny little fish and a bowl of chicken stock... I've no idea why, but it mixed nicely with the rice. The fish packed a taste punch well beyond their stature.

They spoke the truth, you wouldn't want to be in a rush. Luckily we weren't and the prices are remarkably cheap. There's no alcohol, instead some very tasty soft drinks like rose petal spritzer. As I sipped it through a straw, Bon Scott turned in his grave.

Kelvingrove Museum's AC/DC exhibition's well worth the £2 entrance fee for Bon Scott's letters alone. They also have some footage of an extraordinary performance at Glasgow's Apollo from 1977. Unfortunately there's also quite a lot of stuff from after Bon Scott's death... when, as far as I'm concerned, AC/DC died too.

Wau Cafe have a Facebook page with the menu and photos. It's well worth a visit, as is the place itself. CLICK HERE.

To A God Unknown

2011-10-08T12:22:00.003+01:00

A few years ago, making my way through old archive tapes, I came across a fragment of an interview between a journalist and a former Moderator of the Church of Scotland recorded 20 years before.

It's not the sort of thing that normally grabs my attention but I recognised the journalist's name. All that was saved was the very end of the interview.

Journalist: "What do you think happens when you die?"

Former Moderator: "I've given a great deal of thought to that question over the years. Eventually I decided that it probably boils down to nothing more than the moment just before death. In that instant you either feel great joy or tremendous regret."

Journalist: "And that's it?"

Former Moderator: "That's it, there is nothing else".

I'd recognised the journalist's name because he'd died suddenly a few weeks before.

Billiant Beaujolais

2011-09-14T21:54:00.001+01:00

Every now and again along comes a wine that's what wine's all about. Wine for which there's never a good enough reason not to open another bottle. This is such a wine.

It's a screaming Roman orgy of fruity lushness and on offer in Waitrose for £6.99. I've 'sipped' a third of a bottle writing this far {*} and I'm cursing myself for not buying more.

Pour into a goldfish bowl size glass, or a goldfish bowl, and inhale intoxicating perfume as sweet red velvety fruit caresses the palette. Togas optional.

Louis Jadot Beaujolais-Villages 2009: On offer just now: Waitrose £6.99

Probably the only Oddbins store The Clash ever played

2011-08-21T21:11:00.002+01:00

This was the first Oddbins to open in Glasgow. Way back in 1971. So I'm really glad it's one of the few that survived the chain's recent meltdown and subsequent sale. The sign inside was painted in 1982 and saved from the skip of another store that didn't make it.

It's been a weird few months for the staff. And the customers. For ages there was no new wine, then, not very much wine at all, then, briefly, some old, knackered and shockingly over priced stuff the new owners were clearing from a warehouse. Then, finally, after months of popping in, this weekend... there was wine. New wine too. With the promise of more to come on a weekly basis.

This being Woodlands you can choose your own vinyl soundtrack for browsing.

Although, if you'd been here on a certain evening in 1982, there'd have been no need. Apparently, after drinking in The Halt and popping into Oddbins for a carry out, The Clash delivered an impromptu performance right outside the door. On this very spot.

Aside from The Clash, a lot of other 'characters' shop here...

A bag of Cuban tobacco. Perhaps left over from an over ambitious 'roll your own' scheme?

Manager Ross recommended one of the new arrivals. A Spanish Verdejo for £6. Lovely stuff. A bit like that moment when a sherbet lemon release the first burst of sherbet.

I drank far too much of it while cooking porcini I'd picked earlier in the day. It's a great thirst quencher.

I'd like to pretend I was listening to this while cooking. But I wasn't. A friend and his friend playing a Clash tune on a ukulele made from a Cuban cigar box. How apt.

Barbecued Bison

2011-08-01T16:02:00.002+01:00

There I am, on an Italian hillside in the middle of no-where, sipping wine and contemplating tomorrow's lunch, when up pops this. An emergency situation had arisen. So, within 12 hours of being back in Glasgow, I'm offering assistance while sitting in the epitome of a Glasgow West End tenement garden.

The only downside of these marvellous old tenements is if you happen to stay on the top floor and forget something for the BBQ.

Claire's mother farms bison along the coast near Aberdeen. Bison are the animals I always thought were buffalo. Anyway, we had some steak and sausages.

Truly delicious. Like a cross between beef and venison.

The Saumur's on offer in Waitrose just now. Suits chilling and is a slurpy, fruity refresher. Well worth it's offer price of just over a fiver. Click here for the offer online where it's even cheaper.

Cannoli

2011-07-31T21:21:00.002+01:00

Here's a brace of cannoli. Served up by an apron clad woman in Ventimiglia. A lethargically shady border town that's forgotten the borders gone.

The shop made and sold a lot of good looking pastries and some bizarre but tasty biscuits.

CLICK HERE FOR THEIR WEBSITE

Sea Trout for Dinner

2011-06-19T14:22:00.002+01:00

Before industrialisation you couldn't walk through a puddle without standing on a salmon. Service staff had it written into contracts that they wouldn't get fed it more than twice a week. Pollution put an end to that when scarcity made it expensive. Then came salmon farming. In some of the country's most beautiful locations they mastered the intensive rearing of fatty fish whose flesh was only pink because of the dye in the food. The price plummeted and at one point the cheapest fish you could buy in Billingsgate Market was farmed salmon.

The wild fish is a different beast and a hell of a lot more expensive.

Wild Scottish salmon fillet was going for £34 a kilo in MacCallums yesterday. Luckily for me, wild Scottish sea trout fillet, which this is, was just £24 a kilo. I much prefer it's subtler flavour.

Impulse led me to pick up a few embellishments... samphire grass and squat lobsters.

Poached the squat lobsters in salty water, shelled them and used some of the cooking liquor in the samphire grass 'coulis'... how very retro.

The sea trout got pan fried, skin side down for a fair bit to get it nice and crispy. Oh and I scaled it first. The squat lobsters were warmed through in butter.

Went for a bottle of Gewurztraminer because I've become obsessed with trying to find unexpected things it goes with. I even put a few slices of ginger in the coulis to help marry food and wine. This Gewurz cost about £8 in Costco and was lovely.

But it didn't go with the dish. It was just too sweet and exotic, all loukoumi and lychee. Oh well, maybe I'll try powdered ginger next time.

Bargain White Soave from the Co-op

2011-06-14T21:43:00.006+01:00

It costs four pounds and twenty five pence. A figure that seems ancient for something worthwhile. If time travel was an option, for the same money, you could splash out on the world's first car, your grandparent's house, a slap up meal in a Hovercraft (for two)... or... a drinkable wine from a decade ago.

Given the exchange rate, I have absolutely no idea how the Co-op sells this so cheap. It can't be easy 'co-operating' with grape farmers, wine makers and shippers at this price. This Soave is not sophisticated and smells of little, but it tastes of pears and grapefruit and goes down a treat. What an incredible bargain.

Soave 2010: The co-operative's own label: £4.25

Good News for Glasgow - new independent wine shop coming soon

2011-06-13T18:22:00.007+01:00

At the risk of sounding oxymoronic, I've heard a substantial rumour that the former Oddbins store by Kelvinbridge will shortly re-open as an independent wine shop. Apparently the site belongs to the family who have the La Parmigiana restaurant next door and they'd just been leasing it to Oddbins.

Now, with Oddbins gone, they've decided to have a shot at running a wine shop themselves. So hopefully there'll be some interesting Italian wines to try. According to the rumour, they're re-employing the Oddbins staff too. Double good news.

Red Wine Bargain of the Year

2011-05-30T12:12:00.010+01:00

This Marzemino is spectacularly good. Best drunk after 30 minutes in the fridge when pure luscious berry fruits come bursting from the glass. As the label says, plenty of cherry and violet flavours too. I bought it because I was skint, hoping for something wine like and not too nasty. What a shocker! Of course when I went back the next day there was none left.

Managing to overcome the initial suspicion of two Sainsbury's chaps in the wine aisle I put in a request for 6 bottles and left my phone number. The call came within 24 hours, just in time for the Bank Holiday.

The first bottle was consumed with a spaghetti carbonara. Another near an open window grabbing bursts of sunshine between torrential downpours. Both matches worked a treat.

This wine is normally sold for the bargainous price of £5.99. At the moment, incredibly, it's just £4.49. Fill your boots! And, if there isn't any left at your local store, risk a "Code 99" on the wine aisle and order some. Wine this good at this price is unique.

Marzemino della Venezie 2010: down from £5.99 to £4.49: Sainsbury's

Espresso: probably the best panini in Glasgow.

2011-05-14T13:48:00.005+01:00

Not so long ago Finnieston was only good for was skaggy bags of heroin and a Gaelic education. Thankfully the economic boom lasted long enough to brush aside Glasgow City Council's endemic lack of vision and shove the few remaining entrepreneurs into areas they could still afford. Thank god. Finnieston's now hoaching with good cafes, bars and places to eat. I even spotted an antiques shop the other day. Meanwhile, Byres Road, traditional commerce hub of the West End, rots amid a sea of chains.

One of the earliest beacons of hope was Espresso. Owned and run by the ever present Ricardo. It's without doubt the best snack bar I know.

The pizzas, pastas and soups are all good but for me the real stars are the panini. Choose your bread and choose your filling. All freshly made and quickly toasted.

Prices go from £2.60 for the Caprese: tomato, mozzarella, basil, oregano up to £4 for some of the meatier concoctions like Polonia: grilled marinated chicken breast, sun dried tomatoes, mayo and lettuce.

In total there are about 40 combinations. My favourite, always on ciabatta, is the Antipasto: grilled pepper, aubergine, courgette and onion with artichoke, anchovies, black olives and capers. It's about as good as a sandwich gets. A close second comes Quattro Stagioni: ham, artichoke, sauteed mushrooms and boiled egg.

Don't overlook the impressive and pleasingly underwrought salads and, of course, the coffee. It's sublime.

One time I happened to mention to Ricardo that the 'Young Turks' who'd set up a sandwich bar down the road also use Danesi coffee beans, but their coffee, while nice, wasn't a patch on his. After palpably bristling he said:

"Well you know Jonathan, everyday is different. When I'm heading in of a morning I'll notice the weather. If it's damp, the beans swell, if it's dry, they contract, so I'll adjust the grind accordingly. After that, I'll clean the machine and pour myself a coffee. Then I'll reasses, maybe alter the grind again, maybe adjust the water temperature, then have another coffee to check I'm happy".

At this point he paused, turned, and looked wistfully out the window in the direction of this 'other' place...

"So, I don't know, maybe these guys... maybe they don't do that".

Espresso

6 Claremont Street

Glasgow

G3 7HA

0141 248 9174

CLICK HERE FOR A MAP

Rum Chat

2011-04-30T11:58:00.003+01:00

It happened towards the end of last year. I was in a pub talking to a woman I'd just met about something or other when she suddenly said "Do you like rum?"... "Well, I don't mind it, I keep trying to find one that'll change my mind about it"... "Well, they've got a good one in here, my second favourite". And she came back from the bar with my first taste of Angostura 1919. With a little ice, nothing more, it was delicious.

She told me to keep out for her favourite. Havana Club 7. "It's not expensive but can be hard to track down". I spoke to some friends in Oddbins. "Oh yeah, we get an allocation every now and again, but it walks through the door as soon as it arrives. We'll keep a bottle back for you".

A few weeks later I got the nod and hurried home with my booty. It is an utterly sublime drink. Much more complex than the Angostura. Smells include citrus peel, sandalwood, cocoa and it has an aftertaste that goes on forever. Best drunk camp... a frilly shirt, eye patch, and knee high boots should do the trick... but definitely no embellishments to the drink itself. Ice if you must.

If you manage to find it in the High Street great. If not CLICK HERE as the Drink Store usually have some.

Rejuvenation

2011-04-20T21:11:00.005+01:00

It's springtime. I've had time to notice. Firstly ten days of quarantine. Then, despite protestations, another seven days off work. "Why are you arguing?" the doctor wanted to know. "I suppose it's because I'll be bored". He wasn't buying that. "I blame Calvinism. That 'work ethic'. Anyway, you're not going back to work, you need to get better"... "Can I go out for walks?"... "After tomorrow should be fine, you'll no longer be infectious. Maybe best if you go out after dark though"... "Eh?"... "Well", he said, waving a hand across my face, "Until you clear up a bit, you'll just make people anxious".

The net result is I've got time, lots of time. So today, when I decided to go for something healthy with a convalescence vibe, I also decided to make the pasta too. Actually, it's pretty easy, once you suss to do the kneading in the pasta machine itself. Just keep folding your loosely affiliated flour and egg mix over on itself and passing it through the lowest setting until it looks good.

My springtime vibe included fresh asparagus from Ross on Wye, fresh broad beans from Portugal, frozen organic peas, spring onions from Mexico and fresh basil from Israel. Eat local sounds good, but in Scotland essentially that means kale, cabbage and potatoes for ten months of the year. Some of the world's most boring vegetables. Sod that.

Make the sauce by sautéing the chopped tougher ends of the asparagus with the spring onions, then add a handful of frozen peas, a few ladles of stock or water, bring to the boil, simmer for a few minutes then blend. Pass through a sieve, add a tablespoon of good olive oil, a few torn basil leaves, taste, season and set aside. Chop the asparagus and steam above the pan the broad beans are boiling in. Cook the pasta. Drain. Mix the pasta with the sauce and drained broad beans. Top with the asparagus and some Parmesan shavings. Delicious. I felt better immediately. Helped, no doubt, by a medicinal glass of something spring-like to accompany it...

As fresh and invigorating as sticking your head under a waterfall. At the moment this is down to just over £7 in Waitrose. It would be a great drink for the park.

Lobster Spaghetti

2011-04-10T15:28:00.003+01:00

Costco is a vast Aladdin's Cave of things you don't really need but struggle to resist. 3 metre high TV sets, rolls of cellophane big enough to wrap Wales, BBQ sauce bottles so vast the label's got a life size picture of Ainsley Harriot's mug. Actually, even with the offer of a free tasting, everyone was managing to resist that. Then out of the corner of my eye I spotted something new. According to the lady manning the icy stall it was their 'seafood event'. Isn't it marvellous when retail managers come back from courses on how to enthuse shoppers? It only happens once a month, so I'd lucked out. Then she told me the lobsters had just been halved in price. Major result.

Lobsters have become more affordable in recent years. Thanks mainly to the greed of fishermen. Although Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall may disagree, hunting Canada's cod to extinction wasn't entirely bad. They fed on baby lobsters and crabs, so once gone, the sea starting hoaching with these much tastier crustacea.

The advantage of getting something luxurious cheap, is that I'm willing to experiment in a way I'd never do with say a fresh, live Scottish lobster. That just gets grilled with a little butter. With these, the shells got turned into Lobster Bisque, but that's for another time, for now, here's my Lobster Spaghetti recipe. It was rather good.

While the spaghetti's cooking, saute a garlic clove in a little olive oil. Add a couple of finely chopped tomatoes and cooked till they're a bit soft, then add some decent quality tomato puree. Fry for a few minutes then put in a good splash of wine and reduce by about a half. If you have any brandy in a tablespoon added with the wine would work wonders. Next in with some double cream, bubbled to reduce a little too, suppose it was about four tablespoons, then the lobster meat just to warm through. Finally added some fresh basil leaves and then mixed the whole lot through with the spaghetti. Parmesan's optional.

The reason I joined Costco was the wine. They stock some really good bottles often at a fraction of the price you'd pay elsewhere. So using the fine monetary logic that's served me so well over the years, I reasoned that having "saved" £13 on the lobsters I should trade up for a decent wine to accompany them. I went for this.

It was just shy of £17 a bottle and is without doubt the best return I've had on a wine in years. It was immense. Fabulous texture with a multi layered taste that included tropical fruits, smokey bacon and ginger. It's quite sweet and far too much for the lobster, probably for any food, it screams for your undivided attention. According to Costco, Robert Parker scored this wine 95 points. For once, I'm not surprised.

CLICK HERE to read more on the 2004 Clos Jebsal Pinot Gris.

ingr3dients @ The Ubiquitous Chip

2011-03-18T22:37:00.007Z

Forty years back when Ronnie Clydesdale opened The Ubiquitous Chip, Ashton Lane was a hodgepodge of abandoned stabling and dodgy dealing. Today it's the only place worth considering along this strip of boozeries. Upstairs you can watch as segregated packs spew in and out of 'Vodka Wodka' and 'Nude'. Last Thursday the lane buzzed with Oirish accents. The patron saint of Guinness was having his day. Men with ear pieces smiled and parted to let us pass. Twenty seconds later we were back outside asking them how to get into the restaurant.

Inside it was dark, very dark, as the effortlessly affable James showed us to our table. On the way there we crossed a virtual rockpool, apparently it's fishy inhabitants would nibble our fingers if we lingered long enough. We didn't, so they didn't. We got to our table and donned the 3D specs immediately... "Is that shrub over there in 3D? What about that light? The wine list?"

Thank god the wine list wasn't, it's scale was enough, much to the chagrin of my 'companion of your choosing'... as specified on the invite.

It's not cheap, but it's a damn good collection and Richard the sommelier was keen to help. Each course was preceded, or followed, by a 3D projection about... well I'm not really sure, but at one point a giant clam nibbled my nose. Honest. Meanwhile, on another wall, an impressive Alasdair Gray mural scrolled along. It reminded me of an early Sega Megadrive game and I could have gazed on it all night.

The food was good. The starter, marrow fritter and desert were seriously good.

Three attempts at a white Chateaneuf didn't fair so well. Four years in it's half bottle hadn't been kind.

There were no quibbles just apologies... from me too by the third attempt. The red Pic St Loup was delicious, a few pennies shy of £30 and worth it.

We couldn't help but admire the ambition of the night. At one point 'my choice of companion' uttered the immortal line, "A squid's gone inside that lady's head, do you think I should tell her?". Glasgow feels very staid just now and the more people pushing the boat out, even a virtual one, the better.

This was a freebie and part of their 40th anniversary celebrations. Something similar's planned for later this year. Normally it's £49 a head. When I went to settle the drinks they said it was covered, exceptionally generous.

We wandered upstairs to the bar where friends were drinking in memory of Allan Mawn, someone else whose ambition went beyond bottom lines. He died suddenly and far too soon. As we chatted and supped, a woman who'd just been given short shrift by one of our crowd, came back to pour wine on his head. He shrugged, she returned to her seat. No one got punched and no one got thrown out. It was a perfect Chip moment.

Gandolfi Wine Club

2011-03-08T12:34:00.008Z

Once a month Cafe Gandolfi's 'wine club' meets up to taste a supplier's selection and vote for the next 'wines of the month'. Anyone can join and membership's free. It takes place on a Monday in Gandolfi Fish and when we arrived at 6.30 last night the place was packed. No mean feat.

A guy called Guy from Chilean wine giant Concha y Toro stood up to tell us about his career so far and that he was visiting Chateau Mouton Rothschild next week. As the wines began to arrive Guy started talking us through them, with more than a smattering of company shpeel. I'll summarise:

Conco y Toro are enormous. 53% of the entire Chilean wine industry. But that's okay because it's run by a man called Adolpho who employs geese in the vineyards, loves the planet and is just simply, brilliantly, amazing.

The wines came in decent sized servings so it didn't take long for the place to start buzzing. And you get nibbly bits too.

I can now reveal the winners *drum roll*...

White of the month is the Gerwurtraminer. It reeked of lychees and was as refreshing as a mountain stream. Red of the month is the Explorer Pinot Noir. Nothing like Burgundy but good. The other Pinot Noir, Los Gansos, despite the help of geese, was rubbish.

It's also worth mentioning the Camenere, which to Guy's surprise didn't make the grade. It tasted okay initially but came alive after a bite of the miniature Pheasant Empanada. The best food and wine match of the night.

At the end of the tasting there was a true or false competition to win two bottles of wine. Three people were left in for the decider, Guy asked, "The first Chilean wines were made in 1565, this means that wine was being made in Chile before it was being made in the Medoc, true or false?". According to Guy... this was true.

Having watched that 'can you recognise them now' round on a repeat of Never Mind the Buzzcocks last week, I spotted the winner was Manda Rin, once lead singer with a band called Bis.

If generous friends aren't treating you, tickets cost £15. For two hours of sociable imbibing on a Monday evening, that's an absolute steal. It looked like a sell out too, so be sure to book.

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS

And here's what happened when Bis headed home after drinking their prize...

Vegophilia

2011-03-03T19:37:00.008Z

"What a gorgeous looking lettuce". The words that actually came out of my mouth as I pulled this from the bag. I blame my grandparents. They didn't hold back when it came to vegetables. Not any vegetable mind. To qualify for wolf whistles they had to grow here. None of that foreign nonsense like "orbojeans". And of all the veg giving them a come on, two in their prime were utterly irresistible. The lettuce and the 'colly'. To see them fondling both, in raptures, you'd think they'd popped drugs. It must have been a war thing, all that rationing.

Seemed fitting to use something frugal to accompany my prize. Squat Lobsters. Not lobsters at all but something visually akin to slaters, or woodlice as they call them south of the border. The tails were £9 a kilo and there's a hell of a lot in a kilo.

Boiled in sea strength salted water then peeled. There was a lot of roe.

You can put anything you like in the salad. I went for some tasty radishes, sexy tomatoes and ooooh, would you look at the cress on that. Spot of homemade thousand island dressing. Delicious.

The wine's £5.99 in Oddbins and a cracker. All lime sherbet refreshment. A bargain and if you buy 6 they'll give you 20% off. Well, don't you know there's a war on! Speaking of which the roe got pummelled with butter, rolled up, refrigerated and then slices got popped on a steak. Phwoar.

Phwoar! Would you look at the legs on that.

2011-02-21T20:20:00.007Z

Big, brash and leggy and I just can't get enough of this swirling, whirling Dervish of liquorice, smokey bacon and hedonistic fruit that just explodes in the mouth. This is an awful lot of wine for £6.49. A French red for people who think they don't like French reds.

Chateau Bois Pertuis 2009: Waitrose: on offer just now down from £9.99 to £6.49. An incredible bargain.

I know this great little place in... Shettleston!

2011-01-31T19:07:00.016Z

Amid the discount booze outlets and fast food emporiums that litter Shettleston's edgy streets nestles a foodophile's gem. A while back I'd read about Eusebi Deli... grilled fish with lemon and garlic, beef in Barolo and all good things Italian... and thought 'I've really got to go there'. Then I saw the address and, somewhat unfairly, Eusebi slipped down my list of things to do.

Then about a week ago a friend posted on Facebook that he'd just had the 'cannoli moment' in Eusebi. Anyone whose had it will know what that means. The profound, life changing experience that comes from your first taste of great cannoli. After years of trying mediocre ones and wondering what all the fuss was about, my moment came some years ago in Valvona & Crolla. Sweetened ricotta dotted with candied fruits and wrapped in pastry transcended its earthly components becoming manna from heaven. I've been chasing that high ever since.

Despite almost knocking the door off it's hinges I tried to play it cool by looking about and pretending I was browsing. It lasted all of fifteen seconds. "Hello, do you have any cannoli?"..."Oh, I'm not sure there's any left. Giovanna, do we have any cannoli left?" she shouted through a door to the back. "No, it's all gone" came the reply. Crushing. Now I really would have to browse. I'm glad I did.

The lady behind the counter was called Gina. She told me the family used to have an ice cream factory in Partick and a cafe where Billy Connolly came to play the juke box. Photographic evidence adorned the walls.

A man stood around eating and chatting told me he comes in every day for his lunch... and he lives in Troon. They just heat it up for him and he eats it there. As he spoke I found my eyes fixing on some individual 'fondues'...

Gina's daughter Giovanna came out from the kitchen. It was her voice that had delivered the cannoli coup de grace minutes before. She was clutching a piece of freshly made pasta and explained that if I telephoned ahead they'd be happy to prepare not just cannoli but anything else that might take my fancy. Now that's what I call a service.

I was treated to a very nice espresso and while I stood around more dishes kept appearing. Gina explained that they keep cooking new dishes throughout the day so it's all super fresh. As she spoke Giovanna appeared with a cod dish that looked so good I almost dribbled...

This is a wonderful place, it even smells great, well worth the effort getting there. Aside from the great food and warm welcome, there's the sheer oddity of finding yourself in one of the best deli's in Scotland in an area that's always being reported as having one of the worst diets in the western world.

Infuriatingly I'd already bought my dinner, this after all had been a cannoli mission, so I picked up some deserts and a couple of bottles of wine. I'll definitely be back, not just for the cannoli, the Valentines Menu's worth the trip alone... even if you are alone... just pretend you're not and that way you get to eat 'their' share too.

The Chocolate Caramel Cheesecake and Torta della Nonna, just £2 each, were first rate. The wines too were excellent at £15 for 2.

The Gavi's really good. Taught and surprisingly minerally.

I'm a big fan of Dolcetto and this was a good example with that lovely sour prickle which makes it very moreish.

So that's Eusebi Deli. Go go go. But call ahead if there's something you really fancy, they're only too happy to make it. Oh, and if you get the last cannoli let me know, I'll make you an offer you can't refuse.

CLICK HERE FOR A MAP AND DIRECTIONS

Mzouda Restaurant - a Moroccan in Glasgow (***Update 7/6/11: NOW CLOSED DOWN)

2011-01-18T22:39:00.009Z

Mzouda sits in that strange bit of Glasgow's West End, once known as Sandyford and now generally referred to as 'behind the Mitchell library'. If you're in the area and don't fancy Karaoke with your curry, or an alcoholic drink, then it's worth a visit.

The food's described as being Moroccan with Spanish leanings. I booked it through 5pm.co.uk for the frankly astonishing promise of £8.95 for two courses. I can't cook my own dinner for that price.

In the absence of alcohol we went for a couple of delicious and authentically very sweet fruit cocktails @ £2.50 each. One was mint and vanilla and the other raspberry and rose. Seriously good.

It's a small set menu but interesting enough and who's complaining at this price? Here it is:

******

Harira, wholesome soup with chick peas, tomatoes and coriander

Fish Roulade, fresh Mediterranean fish rolled in crispy filo pastry,

Briwat, goat cheese and spinach wrapped in crisp filo pastry (v)

Ensalada de Pollo, leaves, goujons of chicken with honey & mustard dressing

Lentejas estofadas green lentils, potatoes, garlic and bay leaves (v)

MAIN COURSES
Mzouda Lamb, tender fillet with honey, raisins & almonds, with sweet rice

Bacalao Pil Pil, Cod with garlic, chilli and parsley, served with mashed potatoes

Mechoui, tender kebabs of marinated chicken and chunky chips

Alcachofas Estofadas, artichoke, potato and pea casserole (v)

Djaj bel Hamed, Chicken, preserved lemons, olives & potatoes

******

Really enjoyed the Fish Roulade, it tasted like salt cod creamed with garlic to me.

The chicken goujons had a healthy dose of cinnamon and tasted almost Chinese.

Couldn't decide between the cod or the artichoke for mains, so after considerable dithering, I blurted out "Lamb".

Glad I did. Delicious, rich and tender. Just the thing for a cold, damp January night in Glasgow, although it left us far too full for deserts.

For the price, the food and service is very good. The interior needs a bit of work though.

'Tenting the ceiling?' was one suggestion, some Moroccan rugs on the walls might help too and more subdued lighting would be good. Tonight there were only two other tables in, so the atmosphere was a little lacking, but I'd still recommend a visit because it's truly remarkable value for money.

Mzouda

141 Elderslie Street,

Glasgow G3 7AW

0141 221 3910

CLICK HERE FOR THEIR WEBSITE

'Damien Hirst Style' Fish Soup

2011-01-09T14:10:00.002Z

Got invited to a rather spiffing party last night. An artist called Stephen's birthday bash in his flat, part of an old Gothic style mansion high up in Hyndland and looking out across the whole of Glasgow. There was only one stipulation... bring some food that'll look good on a light box. After a bit of brain racking I slipped off across Kelvingrove Park to the fishmonger.

A Tom Yam soup cube was dissolved in water, strained through a coffee filter then added to melted gelatin leaf. Next the uncooked prawn and his partner in jelly were popped in and the lot got chilled for a few hours.

The idea being that when ready to eat, the whole lot gets popped in a microwave to cook the fish and liquefy the jelly.

I popped my fishy offering amongst the other food and part of a massive mosaic he's currently working on. Over the course of the evening just about everything got munched, just about...

An Elixir of Extraordinary Powers

2011-01-03T21:31:00.004Z

Roll up, roll up. 'Dr' Wine Splodge proudly presents his 'restorative tonic'. Capable of reinvigorating livers and humours amid the aftermath of that digestive carnage called Christmas. Indeed, regular usage of this wonder draft has even been proven to aid both cognitive capabilities and attraction to the opposite sex. What's more, as a reward for the goodness of your custom, I shall be parting, not with bottles of this most precious of potions, but with the very recipe itself!

This is all you will need. Oh, and a drop of this....

Squeeze the pomegranate as you would an orange, then pass through a sieve into a jug.

Top with Prosecco et voila. A droplet of Angostura aromatic bitters works wonders with it too.

This elixir will, I promise, cure all afflictions known to man, woman or child. Alas though, it's not yet suitable for teddy bears.

'Teddy Bears Picnic' by Omar Zingaro Bhatia. Otherwise known as "My Christmas Present to Myself". CLICK HERE FOR OMAR'S BLOG.

The Ghosts of Christmas Past

2011-01-02T16:16:00.010Z

Some places seem timeless. You can feel the genteel force of an all absorbing continuity making sure things go on more or less the same and more or less forever.

Everyone arriving here gets surrepticiously assimilated. Linger just a little too long and generations of your family will live and die beneath the Iron Age fort on Table Mountain.

Llangattock church tower was built by the fierce, expansionist Normans some 900 years ago.

Today it's policed by contractionist Christians repelling invaders through smugness rather than battlements. It's just a short stroll across the graveyard and across an ancient bridge, to Crickhowell.

Here I still regularly bump into the descendant of a man who fought with Henry V at Agincourt (himself born just down the road in Monmouth). Often in The Bear Hotel, founded 200 years after that famous trouncing of the French. Recently it's crackling fires warmed Johnny Depp's breeches after a hard days filming at Tretower Court, a medieval manor near by. It's a lovely bar with real ale, passable food and a good wine list. There's a slightly different experience to be had across the road where the pretty exterior of the 18th Century 'Brit' belies what lurks within.

The last time I opened this door on a Boxing Day it was packed to the gunnels with people dancing, singing and screaming... high on life and quite a lot else. I was bear hugged by an old friend not seen in years who shouted in my ear, "Bloody marvellous to see you! I got married!"... before pointing to a woman lifting her top while dancing on the pool table and shouting, "That's her there". Well, what do you say?

Continuity don't do it for me. Maybe that's why I'm so fond of wine. Variability, surprise and endless contradictions all make life more fun. Amid some Jacobean warmth this was the finest wine I drank all Christmas...

From the 1990 vintage. Over the years the power and tannin of Cornas has given way to a beautiful, complex, fragrant wine more Burgundy than Rhone. I could drink it for breakfast. Not that I'll get the chance. The wine maker Robert Michel retired in 2006 and sold his vines to various concerns. There will never be any other wines like these.

CLICK HERE FOR SOME GUFF ON THE BEAR HOTEL

& HERE FOR SOME ON TRETOWER COURT

Seafood and Saffron Risotto

2010-12-12T20:11:00.002Z

Maine lobster tails are on offer in Waitrose just now. £4.50 a pop. An absurd price for a crustacean who spent years growing on the other side of the Atlantic. It's not as good as Scottish lobster but spectacular value for the money.

I sautéed it till part cooked, popped the shell in some hot fresh fish stock for 10 minutes, added saffron then made a risotto. The shell's packed with lobster flavour and that infuses into the stock. So, as the rice absorbs the stock it becomes saturated with lobsterness.

Once ready I stirred in a pack of pre-cooked 'seafood selection', cooked through the lobster in a little butter and...

Well, if I say so myself it was rather delicious. As was this...

From Piedmont in Italy and the 'not often seen' Arneis grape. Beautiful wine, great with food, don't serve cold... just cool. It's £9.99 and worth every penny.

Raising a glass to recommendations

2010-12-05T11:27:00.004Z

It's not often people recommend wines to me. Maybe it has something to do with the blog? I hope not because I love them. There's an extra dimension to popping out for a bottle someone else enjoyed enough to tell you about. If the wine turns out to my taste too, well all the better, but even if it doesn't, that never detracts from the original gesture. Mayu 'Carmenere' was described as being "too good". That's my kind of description.

Now one of the best things about recommendations is feeling the need to try a wine that ordinarily I'd probably avoid. Chilean Carmenere's often overtly fruity, alcohol saturated monsters with little nuance or finesse. Nothing wrong with that, just not my bag. Spotting the 15% alcohol content as I pulled this off the Oddbins shelf made me fear this could be more of the same. It wasn't.

On the back label it explains this wine was made using a method similar to that used for Amarone called appassimento. Only in this case, instead of partially drying the grapes off the vine, they were left on it. Part of me wonders if they just couldn't harvest the vineyard in time and came up with Plan B. Farmers are canny buggers after all.

Even the whopping alcohol content was lost amid a seamless stream of beautifully integrated flavours. A piercing nose of black fruits, blackcurrant and elderberry with a whiff of blackberry picking fingers too. The palate was incredibly powerful yet balanced, tastes of coconut, tobacco and even liquorice. An impressive wine that would probably repay keeping a year or two.

Mayu Carmenere Reserva 2007: £10.99 from Oddbins who, just now, offer 25% off any 6 bottles. Which makes this about £8.25 a bottle and since it's well worth the full price, that's a steal. Like Amarone, probably best enjoyed with a spot of after meal 'contemplation'.

Do you come from a land down under?

2010-11-26T22:11:00.011Z

This photograph is titled: "Stop going to Waitrose to buy dinner you arse".

It follows a distinctive pattern. Plan to stay in to save some money. Head to Waitrose intending only to buy 'reduced' items. It always starts off well, then with equal certainty, rapidly descends into farce. Half price monkfish, tick, 30% reduced wine, so cheap I'll buy two, a few accompaniments (the bill suddenly rockets as this includes unpasteurised cheeses and all other kinds of nonce nonsense) and then I spotted these chaps.

So alive they were moving their little sign around... "New Zealand Clams £10.99kg". I've been awaiting their appearance in Glasgow's malnourished Waitrose for some time. Yes, I am that sad. They caused a flood of mixed emotions when spotted in the Monmouth store last summer. Wonder that live clams, from the other side of the world, could be sold in Wales, a triumph of human ingenuity. Yet simultaneously a rush of profound disappointment that we were actually doing so. These shores are crawling with wonderful shellfish, why the hell are we flying clams first class across the globe? Then I tasted them. And that's why food love costs so dear.

Tonight they went with some half price Monkfish. A few years back a guy on the fish stall in another Waitrose told me they only ever keep fresh fish three days and the stuff they buy in the first place is spanking. So to this day it's the only place I'll buy reduced price fish.

Cooked with shallot, garlic, flat leaf parsley, olive oil, butter and white wine. The clams and the juices were immense. The monkfish dry with that odd watery texture fish gets when it's been badly frozen. First time I've been seriously disappointed with Waitrose fish.

Anyway, seemed appropriate to drink a Kiwi white with a Kiwi clam. The reduced price Wither Hills Sauvignon Blanc was tasty. Better as it warmed up too. Great value at £8.99 so a steal at £5.99. Drunk while playing the clams final request before getting steamed... they got a glass of it too. At least, I think this is the song they were asking for, clams are terrible mumblers.

Fastish Food: Crab Spaghetti with Beaujolais

2010-11-24T20:13:00.012Z

Beaujolais is a beautiful, jolly name and nowadays one of the most reliable of all the French regions. They make wines here for most occasions and best of all they're delicious to drink with and without food.

Tonight's choice came from the region's latest 'best ever vintage', 2009. Hot on the heels of the many other 'vintages of the century' the region claims to have been blessed with of late. This time though, the hype maybe right because every wine I've tried from 2009 has been delicious. This was too and went unexpectedly well with my latest 'Fastish Food' invention... crab spaghetti.

While the spaghetti's boiling fry a clove of garlic and a chili in olive oil for a few minutes.

Loosen up a few tablespoons of tomato puree with water then pop it in the pan with the garlic and chili. Fry briefly then add in sliced asparagus tips. Cook a few minutes more pour in a small tub of double cream.

Boil till it thickens add a tub of mixed white and brown crab meat.

I spied some left over Russian vodka so popped a drop of that in too.

Heat through and season. By now the spaghetti should be cooked, drain and mix with the crab sauce. That's it. Ten minutes start to finish. Seriously tasty.

Beaujolais-Villages, Louis Jadot 2009. Currently on offer in Waitrose @ £6.99 a bottle. Bargain.

Arran

2010-11-18T22:00:00.007Z

Ferries still excite me. The prospect of sailing across the sea in a little Noah's Arc filled with all the things that probably shouldn't get saved come the floods.

The smell of chips cooking slowly in old fat. Patterned carpets that could start a fit. Fun Zones. People.

Freed from the insulation of the car, a motley collection of this shore's inhabitants get a captive audience and the chance to express themselves. If you ever fancy shining a light into contemporary Britain, ferry travel gives 'Come Dine With Me' a run for it's money. The only drawback being, unlike TV, once on you can't turn it off.

My formative ferry years were different. Back then it was called 'abroad'. We'd leave these floating sociological melting pots and drive out, onto the wrong side of the road, into smells of garlic, seafood and real coffee. Cherbourg, Le Harve, Santander... nowadays it's more like Dunoon, Stornoway and on this occasion Brodick. At Brodick you disembark straight into the smell of fish and chips.

Despite the greeting aroma, Arran's gone to some lengths to punt itself as the home of great food. Unfortunately, the impressive "Taste of Arran" marketing campaign doesn't seem to have made getting hold of the stuff on the island particularly easy.

In a small complex on the outskirts of Brodick several businesses group together. Creelers, a restaurant that's closed for winter but also a fishmonger is ok, the Arran Cheese Shop has been good to me in the past but this time their Arran Blue was well past it's best. Across the road at the local brewery they were selling my favourite of their brews Arran Blonde for £2.12 a bottle. In Brodick's Co-op it was £2.10. It was even cheaper in Sainsbury's in Glasgow the week before. Am I being penalised for visiting the brewery in November?

After a beautiful walk through cliffs, bogs and endless startled wild deer, I popped next door to pick up something local.

Determinedly I walked up the driveway to a lean-to on the side of a house. After negotiating my way past a man intensely staring at the gravel he was sweeping, I went in. "Yes?" asked another man behind a tiny display counter, which also happened to be empty. "Hello, I'm staying next door for the week"... "Yes"..."Well, funnily enough I'm after some meat"..."Any particular sort?"..."I was thinking something local would be nice"..."All I've got local just now is venison". Stewing venison it was then. I bought some onions and carrots too.

This is what I did: Sauted an onion till golden in clarified butter. May have been local. Popped the onions into a casserole, reserving the oniony butter in the frying pan to brown the meat with a bashed clove of garlic (skin still on). After browning, put the meat with the onions then added a tablespoon of flour to the left over butter in the frying pan, stirred until lumpless then added Arran Dark Ale a bit at a time. Used about half a bottle. Added something sweet to balance the bitter hops... a tablespoon of heather honey found in the cupboard. Brought it to the boil, poured over the meat and onions, popped the peeled carrots, lid on and into an oven at 160 c for about 2 hours.

Quality bit of venison in a really tasty, straightforward dish served with tagliatelle. Something they do a lot with rich daube stews in Provence. Although tagliatelle's not strictly local there either it works brilliantly. Unfortunately the Arran Dark Ale was so tasty it was gone by the time the stew was ready. So drank this from the local Co-op instead....

This has to be the best value red wine I've had all year. Delicious blackberry fruit and a nice, dusty mid palate with good structure. The fruit's so powerful even the vanilla oak taste, presumably added for the English speaking market, seems in balance. Utterly incredible value for £5.19.

Actually Brodick Co-op's wine's worth a mention. It stocks one of the best Cru Beaujolais I've ever drunk, the 2004, only ever found by me in Stornoway's Co-op way back in 2007, was sublime. This one would have been fermenting while I was drinking Stornoway's bounty, it's good, but maybe needs a year or two to show it's charmes.

It's in good company too. The shelves boast cru class Bordeaux, Muga Rioja and good German wines.

They've also got a tasty own label Chablis and a selection from the US that goes beyond Blossom Hill. Not exactly a taste of Arran, but damn tasty none the less.

Revelation

2010-11-09T20:24:00.003Z

Picked this up in Oddbins tonight because it was new and I was curious, although I suspected it would be a rotten match with what I'd bought for dinner. Turned out to be a light, nicely acidic rustic drop of grog with a dusty aftertaste, not unlike the aftermath of cycling accidents when you end up with a mouthful of grit. Reminded me of the wines you can buy from the barrel in French campsites. In fact, I'm pretty sure a wine very similar to this came out of a fountain all night during a village fete once. Messy.

Lupe Pintos sell really good tortillas... in overly generous packs. Having bought some for my previous post I'll be eating them for a week. So tonight I decided to try a trick learnt from my friend Jo... tortilla pizzas.

Preheat the oven to as hot as it goes with the baking tray in. Smear the tortillas with some passata and a splash of habenero sauce. Sprinkle some precooked seafood and sliced spring onion onto the sauce. Top with torn up mozzarella. Into the oven for five minutes.

Then came the revelation.

While the 'pizzas' cooked I nibbled some of the left over seafood then had a slurp of wine. Unbelievable. A perfect match. That strange dusty gritty flavour and the wine's lightness were a perfect match. Just to make sure I tried another mussel followed by another a slurp of wine. Yup. Better try a cockle with the wine... yup, that works too. Mmm, what about prawn... yup. Squid... just in time the cooker beeper sounded.

So the first red wine I've ever had that really, properly goes with seafood. It's high acidity worked a treat with the tomato, chilli and cheese on the pizza too. Remarkably unexpected. I'll definitely buy it again to serve with a seafood platter to freak people out. Otherwise, as a wine, it's a tad overpriced.

Domaine Mas Theo's organic Coteaux du Tricastin: £8.99 Oddbins.

A red wine for seafood.

Lupe Pintos - The Half Canned Cooks

2010-11-07T19:04:00.019Z

Recently I started introducing myself in all the places I've been going to for years in relative, or at least nominative, anonymity. One of my first 'outings' was in Lupe Pintos. Now, I've been using this brilliant deli for years but somehow never got around to saying hello.

Aside from an incredible array of hot sauces, chillies and tortillas, their cooking chorizo and morcilla from Asturias are as good as you'll get, and, where else in Scotland will you find the Spanish air dried tuna 'mojama' or a bottle of the thirst quenching Basque wine Txacoli?

I accept not everyone finds themselves suddenly short of cave aged Manchego of an evening, but it happens to me and the fact this place has been here a decade suggests I'm not entirely alone.

So, not long after introducing myself, as Keith Floyd might say, '"my latest chum Ian" tells me Lupe Pintos have just launched a wine list of purely Spanish wines and are having a free tasting on Friday. Result. Then on the Monday he tells me there's the shop's cookery book launch where, for the price of the book you get to sample some of the recipes, a talk by the author and a signed copy of the book. I decide that introducing myself to people is a very good thing indeed and resolve to do much more of it.

Two decades back Doug Bell started a wholesale business distributing tortilla chips, refried beans and Monterey Jack cheese in Edinburgh. He sold the wholesale business in 2007 but kept the delis in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

The book launch was in Mancini, a restaurant next door to Lupe Pintos, a place with an admirable selection of wines by the glass. While waiting for the author to say a few words everyone flicked through the book and nibbled nice nibbles. While he seems rather shy and withdrawn initially, I'd seen at the wine tasting a few days earlier that once Doug gets going he's quite a captivating speaker.

Utilising props from a suitcase, Doug had a dig at the homogeneous nature of supermarkets and the absurdity of celebrity chefs. As he poked fun at people trying to make restaurant food at home I stared awkwardly into my wine glass recalling times spent stuffing quail legs.

The admirable ethos of this book is that food should be good, fun and not a faff to prepare. No need to soak black beans for 24 hours and boil them for 2 when you can open a tin. The book's intention is to help people make the best rendition of a dish possible with the least amount of fuss. Fortunately for Doug's deli businesses you'll not find a lot of this stuff anywhere else!

My first foray into cooking from the book came tonight. Pollos Asados De Dos Hermanos With Salsa Boracha. The book explains the name's a tribute to one of US televisions best ever series 'Breaking Bad' in which a roast chicken business is used as a front for mass distribution of meth amphetamine produced by a terminally ill chemistry teacher.

Oh, and you shove a half finished can of beer up the chickens jacksey. Keeps the breast moist apparently. The little white container holds the deli's own achiote seasoning.

Well this was pretty damn tasty. Lovely unusual flavours combining deliciously together. An impressive start. Only one thing to drink with this really...

Very pleased with my first foray into The Half Canned Cooks. But next up a real challenge. One of the recipes is for a seafood paella made entirely from tinned fish. It goes against the grain for me... but I have to try it. Will post the results soon along with a few of the very tasty wines they're now selling there.

Click here for Lupe Pintos website

Click here for Ian's record label El Rancho Records

Ian also sings in the band Schnapps click here for details

Click here for the Mancini restaurant website

Choose Life

2010-10-20T17:54:00.006+01:00

"I was never depressed. But I couldn't understand why I was alive. Wine was a very satisfactory answer to my question. It was indirectly an answer to the mystery of existence". Serge Hochar.

Some things in life pass us by, no matter how hard we try. Everyone should try Musar's white wine once. Nothing else comes close. A lot of people hate it... which makes me love it all the more.

Click here for a great article on Chateau Musar.

Parva Farm Vineyard

2010-09-29T17:23:00.008+01:00

The Wye Valley seems to nestle in it's own little time warp. Here amongst wooded hills and gently bending flows, streams of day trippers lick on fluffed up fatty cones and pay through the nose for pub grub fresh from the freezer. You wouldn't be surprised if Terry Thomas ran you off the road shouting, "Hard cheese old man". It's a little piece of Britain that's stuck forever in the 1950s.

It was the 1950s that witnessed the first tentative steps towards establishing vineyards in this country. A movement led mainly by retired colonels with a little too much shrapnel left in the brain. Who else would try? They persevered and gradually, as the years passed by, innovations in the vineyard and the winery, together with a spot of global warming, meant some of these wines actually became drinkable.

Around one bend, waved on by a pitchfork yielding yokel, and up a steepish hill, you'll find Parva Farm Vineyard. First planted in 1979 and under the present regime since the mid 1990s.

There's an unmistakable and not entirely unexpected whiff of 'The Good Life' about the set-up, but some of the grapes growing here are a real surprise.

For a small fee you get a signed walk around the vineyard followed by a tasting. It's well worth it.

The views across the Wye towards Tintern Abbey are profoundly genteel and they even throw in a bit of rural leg pulling. My grandfather was a farmer, fond of both literal and metaphorical leg pulling, I could hear his voice whilst reading this.

Aye, right, Romans is it. We came back down into the midst of a minor crisis. The owner's daughter had lost her new puppy. I was impatient to taste the wines so after a brief glance around said, "Don't worry, I'm sure he'll turn up", as '101 Horrible Farm Deaths' flashed through my mind.

I tried to block out images of sad puppy eyes sinking slowly beneath a pit of silage and concentrate on the wines. Annoyingly, and this is a problem with a lot of English and Welsh wine tastings, you have to make do with little disposable plastic thimbles. That said, even a decent glass probably wouldn't have helped the first few offerings. They were, at best, "interesting". Also, they don't do tastings of the sparkling wine. However, spirits lifted immeasurably when the wastrel turned up unharmed.

Then we tasted this...

This is a delicious wine. Off dry and a blend of several varieties. It's aromatic, with a refreshing acidity and that beautiful purity the best UK wines have. I bought a half dozen on the spot, it's the most enjoyable Welsh wine I've drunk, by quite some way. After a few glasses in the garden with my sceptical brother he grudgingly conceded it was very good. My Dad opened a bottle of expensive Italian white afterwards and it just tasted 'dirty'. Hard cheese old man! We nicknamed Parva's Afon Gwy "the spoiler", Terry Thomas would have loved it.

CLICK HERE FOR THE PARVA FARM VINEYARD WEBSITE

Let Them Drink Chablis

2010-09-25T20:34:00.016+01:00

In my wine formative years Chablis was the height of pronounceable sophistication. A just about affordable treat that occasionally tasted sublime. I still love the stuff, although unfortunately it's still usually in the same price bracket. So imagine my surprise when I spotted this in Tesco last night.

The shock wasn't finding Chablis in Tesco... but the price.

Incredible, just incredible, Chablis for £4.49...!!!

I was convinced it was going to taste like battery acid but had to take a punt.

Well, I'm glad I did. It's a good, typical basic Chablis. Sharp, with a lick of butter and a hint of all those fossilised oyster shells lurking below the soil. A remarkable price.

Pizza East, Shoreditch

2010-09-20T12:55:00.002+01:00

Off to Shoreditch last night for the HOUSE of BLUEEYES Show, part of London Fashion Week, and a little keen so got there early. Inside the pub they'd taken over for the night the final touches were being made... mainly to knitted penises, being enthusiastically fluffed up by both men and women, and yours for just £15. The phrase chocolate teapot sprang to mind.

So we popped along the block to Pizza East for a quick nibble before the main attraction. The place was jumping but they managed to squeeze us in at the bar.

"Anything to drink?" asked our server... "What's the Sangiovese like?"... "Mmm, it's on tap and can be a bit weird, it's particularly weird this weekend, I'll give you a taste". I loved that description and she wasn't kidding. We had a pleasant half litre of Primitivo instead for about £15.

Unfortunately all, or some, of the ingredients were missing from just about every pizza we tried to order. "It's been crazy this weekend". Eventually settled on a cheesy, eggy, leeky one and the classic margherita.

Half of mine hit the floor on it's way to the table. The other half was cold. Lots of genuine apologies and another was promised. The cheesy, eggy, leeky one was good.

The next attempt at a margherita took some time and had to be chased. When it eventually arrived the tomato sauce was raw and they seem to have run out of the advertised buffalo mozzarella too.

It was acknowledged at payment. "I'm really sorry, that was a catastrophe, I'll just charge you for the wine". That was a shame. The staff were friendly and the place was buzzing, just the pizzas and lack of ingredients let it down. Right enough, that's a pretty big 'just' for a pizza joint. I'd definitely give it another shot, but last night, as Reggie Perrin's son in law would say there was a "Bit of a cock-up on the catering front". Which reminded us...

CLICK HERE FOR THE PIZZA EAST WEBSITE

CLICK HERE FOR HOUSE of BLUEEYES

Fungal Foray

2010-08-30T13:44:00.003+01:00

The fruits of the forest floor are ancient organisms capable of so many different things. They're the re-generators of life that occasionally take one too. You have to know what you're picking and I wouldn't advise eating these. The Fly Agaric is the hallucinogen of choice for reindeer and their herders, the latter drink it through the formers urine, once all the really bad stuff has been filtered out. It was these chaps, not magic, that got Santa's reindeer flying.

I was musing on this, and other assorted nonsense, while walking through forestry near Aberfoyle. Maybe I'd got it wrong? That quasi mystical feeling that now is the time. For the past few years I've never failed, but now, whilst finding plenty of pretty specimens, my true quarry was proving elusive. Too early in the year, too late?

Then suddenly an urge to look in a different direction...

Bingo! These porcini were in pretty good nick, one almost perfect... and both smelt amazing.

Rounding a corner I bagged my next lot.

Chanterelles this time, managed to pick nearly two kilos before the hunter became the hunted. A haze of midges descended and started eating me alive. I scarpered.

Stopped off in 'The Aberfoyle Butcher' for a couple of popseye steaks from local cows. Terroir and all that. Back home sautéed some garlic to golden then threw in the sliced porcini.

After five minutes added a little stock and cream, then cooked for five minutes more. The steaks were cooked and kept warm while the pan was deglazed with a little light red wine

Then put the porcini into the same pan with a little Parmesan. Heated it all through. Served up with 'healthy' oven chips... slice and par boil potatoes for 3 minutes. Drain and lay on a baking tray to steam dry for ten minutes. Rub with a tablespoon of olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt and pop into a hot oven, 210 C, for about 15 - 20 minutes. Works every time. In my excitement I forgot to photograph the wine. It was a Loire gamay from The Wine Society. £7.95 and delicious. Click here for details.

The porcini sauce was incredible and would work well with turbot too. An utterly beguiling aroma that grew from within for half an hour after eating. The scents of the forest floor just kept coming back through my nasal passages. I know that sounds weird, but believe me, it was very enjoyable and, I'm pretty certain, a hell of a lot nicer than reindeer piss.

Click here for The Aberfoyle Butcher website.

Nurture the Nuts

2010-08-22T14:24:00.002+01:00

Normal is such a hateful word. So run of the mill, average and mundane. Given a choice, who chooses normal? If money was no object would you drive a Fiesta, live in Woking and shop at Tesco? Yet the desire for conformity, to 'not stand out', to be 'just like everybody else' has gone viral. Walk down any High Street in Britain. Look at the shops, the way people dress... capitalism can't even be arsed creating the illusion of choice anymore. It's all gone stale.

I'm waiting for the backlash, it has to come soon. The first time I hear... "Oh, if only I was abnormal, life would be so much more fun"... I'll be popping a cork in celebration and it won't be champagne.

It'll be something life affirmingly odd like this absolutely beguiling Savennieres.

It smells of honey dribbled on hot buttered toast with a hint of foosty old cellar. The colour's deep and oxidised and you'd expect it to be sweet. But it's not, because despite tasting uncannily like golden syrup, it's bone dry.

Utterly weird and totally delicious. Normal is an illusion created to sell product. Don't believe the hype.

It cost just £9.99 from Inverarity One to One on Bath Street. A wonderful little wine shop, tucked down at basement level and run by the very smiley, and extremely knowledgeable Pete. Aside from splendid oddities, this is also the best place in Glasgow to buy good bottles for special occasions. They also stock a fine range of cigars in their walk in humidor.

Inverarity One to One

158a Bath Street

Glasgow

G2 4HU

0141 221 5121

The Wee Hurrie, Troon

2010-08-14T13:21:00.012+01:00

This isn't just any fish and chip shop... this is a MacCallums the Fishmonger fish and chip shop. To find it just keep driving all the way to the dock in Troon harbour. There isn't any sineage until you're right on top of the place and even then there's not much.

A seemingly pointless lane closure meant I arrived an hour late and absolutely famished.

Everything here, and there's a lot, is cooked to order, so it's probably best not to be in a wee hurry... or starving. It was a long ten minutes before I finally spied my squid tempura being lifted out of the fryer.

Troon's what they call a 'working' harbour. Presumably as opposed to an 'unemployed' or 'retired' harbour.

As I munched away someone popped out from one of the trawlers to meet a guy stumbling down the dock.

"Awe, Davey man, sorry, ended up a 3 bottles of JD night! Totally forgot I was supposed to drop this off". I glanced up and judging by his face he was telling the truth.

The squid was delicious. Nice bite giving way to melt in the mouth tenderness. It wasn't tempura batter but tasty nonetheless.

As I went back to the car an old guy sporting a Pringle sweater came up, "I say, do you know what that ship over there is unloading?"... "No, I was just taking a picture, but I reckon that the ship sized pile of timber on the dock might be a clue!"... "But you don't ACTUALLY know?"... "No". He seemed genuinely annoyed. I could almost hear him thinking... what is the world coming to? People hanging around harbours without even basic shipping knowledge, a chip shop selling squid... he pulled a face and shuffled off.

'Wee Hurrie'

The Harbour,

Harbour Road,

Troon

KA10 6DH

01292 319 339

Tinto Tapas Bar

2010-08-08T13:01:00.004+01:00

The Southside of Glasgow is littered with amusing place names. 'Strathbungo' could have been one of the wombles, 'Crossmyloof' sounds like something you'd ask for round the back of a railway station, 'Pollokshaws' an unpleasant affliction and 'Mount Florida' an offer only the brave would consider.

The whole area is a complete mystery to most Westenders and tends to get sneered at like a hicky cousin. For a long time that wasn't without some justification. There was a place in Shawlands called The Granary that sold wine by the glass, a Greek Taverna rumoured to have an espresso machine... and... well not a lot else. Things are improving.

Tinto's situated on Battlefield Road. As a ten year old boy I couldn't have imagined a more perfect address.

At 7.30 on a Saturday it was just getting busy, it quickly became very busy. As they searched for the reservation I spotted a barman topping up somebody else's half finished almonds, he handed them to the waitress who brought them with us to the table.

Anyone who has ever read what's to be found in communal bar offerings will understand why I like to get to know someone before they go rummaging around in my nuts.

The wines are well chosen and decently priced. You can't go wrong with Navarra and this melon fruited refresher was good value for £13. After that we moved onto their jugs of house red. Again about £13, but this time for a litre and it's plonkably quaffable.

The food's good and actually manages to taste Spanish at times. Highlights were caramelised scallops, crispy fried sea bass, home made chicken croquettes and kidneys with wild mushrooms.

Their Fabada Asturiana had a whiff of the tin but was still pretty tasty. My favourite dish wasn't really a dish at all but two ingredients that went well together. Braised celery and 12 month old Manchego cheese. Delicious.

Now the real test of any Spanish place is the calamari. Tinto's was... well I've no idea because it was so cut so thinly it was impossible to taste. At least the batter's good, a triumph of light tempura-like crunchiness. Finished off with a nice Crema Catalana, which was really a Creme Brulee, and a cracking espresso. The staff were friendly and despite being packed the food didn't take long.

We left the Battlefield and wandered off, rather appropriately, towards the 'Pollock War Heroes Social Club' for a spot of Ska.

Seems we'd got the nights muddled and ended up downing social club measures of Southern Comfort whilst dancing to the sound of a high energy disco. My, how war heroes and Southsiders are changing.

Click here for the Tinto Tapas Bar website.

What were the skies like when you were young?

2010-07-24T16:22:00.001+01:00

My early years were urban, then, as I began reaching an age capable of appreciating the city's bounty, my parents started moving. Move by move we ended up further and further away from the metropolis.

At school I spent a lot of time staring out of the windows. I'll never forget one class, within sight of the Brecon Beacons, a teacher was extolling the virtues of Wordsworth's Prelude while sheep bleats drifted slowly on the breeze. "Breath in, breath in, can you not smell the genius?".

What seemed to fascinate him most was that way back in the 18th Century, someone was capable of expressing a desire to flee city squalor and head for pastoral peace. As classmates turned up late after helping their fathers castrate bullocks, all I could think of was heading in exactly the opposite direction, and as fast as possible.

Aside from plotting my escape, there was something else keeping me sane. Global Warming had just been invented and suddenly, for me, there could be a purpose to the countryside. A vineyard, and not any old hippy, dippy British style 'Good Life' nonsense, but a proper, full on, 'watch out Burgundy' one. I'd been to Beaune and while there, decided in a fit of precociousness, that it was going to be my favourite wine. Also, I'd read that Pinot Noir was very difficult to grow and all attempts to ape Burgundy elsewhere had failed. A challenge.

After months of research, mainly spent staring out of the school bus window, I'd isolated a site. It sort of faced in the same direction as the Cote D'Or and the soil looked suitably vineyardish, especially after a very dry summer. The fact that it belonged to someone else didn't seem to bother me.

Summers went by, plotting continued and eventually I escaped, so my vineyard dreams got left behind. Whenever I'm back I still cast a glance across the plot, one day, one day... then, just the other day, in Abergavenny Farmers Market, I stumbled across this...

Organically grown near Monmouth. Somebody else is living my dream! "Oh it's very nice. Has a bit of fizz to it, spritz is what they do call it my love". I was very excited.

After the fizz blew off, the bouquet was nice, more New Zealand than Burgundy. Unfortunately it tasted a bit odd, actually very odd. Not unpleasant, but a small 'novelty' glass is quite enough. The same people make delicious cider and perry. Really funky proper old school stuff, refreshing, complex and with more than a hint of badger's bath.

Click here for Wernddu's website: makers of organic wine, cider and perry

The Orb - Little Fluffy Clouds by real mccoy16

Drinking Wine

2010-07-20T10:44:00.016+01:00

House sitting in Wales just now. It's a bit like squatting with permission. I'd recommend it to anyone, provided the house is a good 'un. Fortunately this one is, although since it belongs to my parents, I couldn't really say anything else.

Of course, it's not all fun and games. Besides lying around in the sunshine wondering... what to eat?... to barbecue or not to barbecue?... whether to have a pre-dinner pint of Bass in the Bridge End garden?... whether it's perhaps best to go for that pint then carry on wondering about all the other stuff?... there are 'responsibilities' too.

In between chasing blackbirds off the figs, it's the little things that niggle when the big things are far away. "Help yourself to our drinking wine", shouted Dad as they headed off to Russia.

Is there any other kind of wine? Ornamental wine? Strictly for external use only wine? I'm guessing he meant 'everyday' wine. So last night, after a hard days wondering, I popped the cork on an interesting looking number from, what appeared to be, the 'drinking' section.

Lovely bouquet of smokey blackberries and a really sensual, fleshy taste. Delicious, so delicious in fact that doubt started to creep in...I decided to take a closer look.

That could be the mark left from a hand corked bottle. Which would mean a very small scale production. Rare, hard to get...

Okay, 30 year old vines, 18 months in small oak barrels and a further 6 months aging in bottle before release. None of that comes cheap... oops. I have resolved to spend today worrying about it...

Cascina Cavolpi Barbera d'Asti Superiore: £ No Idea.

Although a google reveals the label was designed by Kiwis and the name translates as Fox House.

A Winner's Dinner

2010-07-10T16:52:00.018+01:00

This year I took a punt on our office's General Election sweepstake. A fiendishly complicated graph where, for a £1, you get to place 3 Xs depending on... well I can't actually remember. It was explained to me by a very clever person and, for a fleeting few seconds, I thought I'd grasped it. But when it came to committing my Xs to paper I did what I always do... put them in the big spaces where nobody else had put any. My reasoning is simple enough... if very clever people could actually predict outcomes then they'd all be very rich and bookies would all be very poor. This isn't the case. And what would you know...

I'd decided to invest my new found wealth in a nice bottle of wine. Something with which to remember my good fortune. Then I popped my winnings into a drawer and forgot all about them... until yesterday. Excitedly I decided to pay a visit to one of my favourite wine merchants...

After a brief conversation about the provenance of an interesting looking Alberino... "Eh, I've nae idea pal, never drink the stuff. Think ma burd likes that wan though"... I settled on two bottles.

The Chablis costs £23 and comes from apparently 'on form' producers William Fevre.

The Cornas I'd spotted a few months ago, lurking behind some other bottles on it's own... but it was £25, so I'd left it. How could I possibly leave it behind again? Surely worth a punt.

The Chablis was special. Buttery pineapple, mouthwatering acidity and an incredibly long lasting finish. This was a seriously uplifting wine. After a few glasses I was feeling positively euphoric and found myself dancing round the kitchen as I knocked up a 'Poulet Frites'.

Decanted the Cornas into a rather fetching Ikea decanter. What an incredible smell... powerful aromas of decay intermingled with black fruits. No way was this going to work with chicken, so I cracked open a Morgan for that and the Cornas got savoured afterwards. Actually this wine is so savoury it doesn't need food... it's a meal and a drink in one. Perfect for someone on a diet. Amazing how much flavour can get packed into a wine with only 13% alcohol. Still incredibly young for a nine year old wine.

Both wines came from the superbly priced range of top drawer stuff that Costco stocks.

And, I'd suggest anyone else overcome by euphoria half way down a Grand Cru Chablis should try sticking this on. It worked for me.

Jolly Nice Wine

2010-06-26T11:07:00.001+01:00

It's not often that I do a 'here's a bottle of wine and it's very good' post. Couldn't resist this one though, because drinking it's so bloody enjoyable I could cry.

Stuffed to the gunnels with buttery lushness and it has a beautiful, mouth coating texture. Without doubt one of the most pleasurable wines I've drunk this summer.

Macon Aze from Louis Jadot will cost you £9.49 in Waitrose... I reckon it's worth every penny... sob, sob, sniff.

What I had for dinner

2010-06-21T20:37:00.007+01:00

The Albarino is piercingly aromatic, pineapple cubed loveliness coated in icing sugar. Don't drink it too cold.

The Picholine olives are brilliant. Crunchy, fruity, almondy deliciousness. If you like olives and haven't tried these... you'd better. Come to think of it, if you like almonds and haven't tried these... you'd better.

Both came from Waitrose. The olives were just over £2, the wine just over £10.

Saturday

2010-06-13T14:19:00.002+01:00

That got my attention. I was looking for some respite after my stroll through the park, fishmonger bound, turned into a bit of an obstacle course. The West End Festival was underway and, after narrowly avoiding being hugged by a smelly looking Buddhist Monk, I was subjected to the hilarious 'banter' of two DJs. They were the 'entertainment' for that most oxymoron of oxymorons... the Fun Run. They wouldn't shut up, I nearly started running just to get away. Unfortunately, it turned out the lobster rolls had been heading in the opposite direction just as fast. No wonder, so I got chatting to Lisa, who runs Coffee, Chocolate and Tea. She'd been reading about a new way with coffee...

Sparkling mineral water topped with a shot of espresso! "Shall we try it out?" She asked mischievously. How could I possibly refuse.

Well, how to describe this? It is totally, utterly.... erm... different. You get the full on flavour of the coffee then suddenly this fizzy, foamy coldness. As we decided these ones were too big and smaller might work better... WOOSH... the caffeine hit us. Must have been the bubbles. Wow, after gibbering on for quite some time I headed off to MacCallums fishmonger. All buoyed up I got a bit excited and bought...

A turbot. King of fish. This one cost £12 and weighed a kilo.

Made a stock from the bones, then used it as a base for a shellfish saffron risotto with some new season broad beans and chervil... my new favourite herb.

It was seriously good, honest, and what was left was even better a few hours later after coming back from The Halt Bar's mini festival.

Drank a bottle of rose from Provence, via Waitrose, for £6.49. It went exceptionally well... so well, most of it got drunk before I remembered to take a picture. Lovely wine for the money. Proper French dry stuff.

Roll out the Barrel

2010-06-04T13:20:00.005+01:00

Considering the importance of tourism to Scotland's economy you'd think it would be less of a hit and miss affair. Sadly, the industry often promises far more than it can ever deliver and anyone venturing into the benighted boondocks is likely to return laden with tales of hospitality horrors.

Friends were staying last weekend, so I got to play 'tourist at home'. At Babbity Bowster in Glasgow we ordered grilled langoustine. After a considerable wait they came out... ice cold. The waitress took them back. Twenty minutes later they returned... luke warm. We gave up and ordered pies, only to be told, a little while later, that there were only two steak pies left, but, if we were willing to wait even longer, 'chef' was about to make up a batch of sausage pies. Err, no thanks. We fared much better by Dumgoyne.

Glengoyne Distillery is tucked into a magical dent in a rather attractive hill just 40 minutes drive from the city centre. The water used for the whisky was once drawn straight from the waterfall.

Increased production means they now have to take it from further up the hill, same source though. They get through a 100 litres of the stuff making just one bottle of whisky. Much of it in the cooling process.

Glengoyne's one of the few Scottish owned distilleries left. It's production is relatively small. The road past it marks the boundary between the Highlands and Lowlands. This stuff is distilled in the Highlands then matured in the Lowlands.

A 45 minute guided trip costs £6.50 with a tasting of the 10 year old single malt. £8.50 if you want to taste the 17 year old too. You also get £5 off any Glengoyne whisky purchase in the shop afterwards.

We got to taste a 21 year old too. Fabulous, unctuous stuff. Dark brown, from the barrels, caramel isn't used here. They don't use peat either. Our friend bought a bottle... £87... but they throw in a bottle of the 10 year old for 'free'. Mind, it seemed cheap as chips compared to the recently released 40 year old.

I must have driven past this place a hundred times and always thought it looked pleasant. Well, it's better than that. An informative and engaging tour without too much of the bullshit that normally accompanies Scotland's whisky industry. Our guide seemed genuinely embarrassed at having to play the marketing video... all misty glens filled with badly acted monks and Rob Roy running through the heather. Luckily the product speaks for itself. Don't overlook the 10 year old, it's pretty damn delicious. All were better with a good splosh of water.

Click here for details of the various offerings available at the distillery.

Bloggers Block

2010-05-27T21:42:00.003+01:00

I've been trying to write a post for about a week now, there's an unfinished dozen, all starting off with some half arsed whimsy that trails off into no-where. Something's not there, it's missing, and my thoughts just won't gel.

So, here's a wine. A very nice wine. Recommended by Ross at the Woodlands Road Oddbins. Full of spring flowers and smelling of almonds.

It's organic, has a gentle spritz and... I've discovered that it's much better after opening, drinking a glass, then finishing it off three days later. Such parsimony hardly ever happens Chez Splodge. Strewth, I really am out of sorts. Maybe this will help...

Ticket price back with any purchase over £75. 20% discount on 12 bottles. Feel the deal. Okay, it's a mildly complicated deal. Here's a summary: If you're planning to buy some wine why not get pleasantly pished for free and save lots of pounds? You know it makes sense.

Without any wheeling and dealing, this Falerio will cost you £7.49. It's well worth it.

Ultimate Bargain

2010-05-16T22:47:00.002+01:00

God damn the internet. Without it's increasing accessibility, this wine has such a bizarre price, you could run sweepstakes trying to guess it.

In Asda, or Asdas as we used to call it in Wales, just now, this utterly delicious glass of springtime will set you back £4.83. Weirdly, as Jamie Goode pointed out on his blog, in the same supermarket, on the same shelf, the 'standard' Montana Sauvignon Blanc will cost you twice as much. The 'standard' is nice enough, the 'reserve' is a notch up.

So get down to Asdas before this pricing weirdness gets sorted. Because if you like New Zealand Sauvignons, you should fill the boot and spend the summer chuckling.

Glasgow International Festival of the Visual Arts

2010-05-16T13:57:00.002+01:00

It's a funny title 'Festival of the Visual Arts', I mean, who'd visit a festival of the non-visual arts? A festival of the Dark Arts perhaps? There could be something in that, but it's probably not a grant.

Two of my favourites at this years G.I. Festival utilised abandoned industrial spaces.

At Vestiges Park you could have been forgiven for thinking you'd stumbled across an old props dump for Dr Who.

A motley but engaging collection of stuff saved from any temptation to ridicule by it's own sense of fun.

You had to be daring to reach the Glue Factory on foot...

Up St Georges Road till you're nearly in Possil and Possil's not the sort of place to be nearly in.

What wasn't 'works' really was the works... or what's left of them.

Boundaries were blurred.

There was something touching in the fatality of this exhibition. Referencing it's impending demise with a nod to the defunct utility of the surroundings.

As a person with too little patience, I'm always moved by perseverance in the face of futility.

Like the beautiful Mayfly, the G.I. appears fleetingly, only to those looking for it and all too soon it's gone. This was the best so far, hopefully that's the direction of travel, unfortunately we'll have to wait two years to find out.

After a hard days art I screwed the top on a bottle of this. Lovely. Off dry with flavours of tinned pear, mandarin and pineapple. On the nose, was I imagining it? A whiff of glue. £9.99 in Waitrose.

Click here for the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art website.

Coffee, Chocolate and Tea

2010-05-09T16:15:00.018+01:00

I'd spotted this place when the refurbishments started over a year ago. Glasgow gets there, eventually, but it's the best part of a century since it led the way.

Actually, the problem is not so much the proliferation of coffee shops, but the quality of the coffee. Fortunately this place was well worth the wait. It's the brainchild of Macallums Fishmongers and occupies the site of their old shop. They roast coffee beans on the premises using a fabulous looking machine brought over from France.

Lisa said she used to work in the wine trade, before that she'd spent 3 years in Australia roasting coffee. Why did my careers lessons fail to mention such jobs?

This is a new version of the espresso machine that in 1961 pioneered the design now copied by most other manufacturers. It's a beautiful bit of kit.

My Americano was made using their House Blend 'Cranston Hill'. Wonderful fruity, smokey aroma and a delicious, rounded, chocolaty taste.

Went for a bag of El Salvador 'Las Delicias Bourbon' beans to take home. They were roasted the day before and I was instructed, "Best leave them a day first". Now this sounded interesting. After reading the great Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking I'd always presumed that the sooner you use your beans after roasting the better. Harold explains that coffee beans have more different aroma compounds than almost any other edible thing. Hundreds are released by roasting but they start oxidising almost immediately.

Lisa explained that because the beans are roasted at 220c they need time to 'settle' and release gasses for a day or two afterwards. Otherwise the cup could turn out a bit 'lively'. Fascinating. I decided mine were sufficiently rested this morning. Fabulous coffee. Smokey, nutty aromas and a lovely almost refreshing taste. Think it was £4.80 for 250g of beans. Well worth it and I even got a discreet nod of approval when I said I'd be grinding them myself.

The teas also look good, especially the flower teas which unfurl in beautiful glass teapots before you pour. And, apparently, they're in talks with a Chocolatier... whatever that means.

So I'd seriously suggest popping in to try some of the best coffee in this city and say hello to the knowledgeable and charming Rosie, Rachel and Lisa.

Coffee, Chocolate and Tea
944 Argyle Street,
Glasgow
G3 8YJ
0141 204 3161

Taboo

2010-05-05T21:38:00.009+01:00

It was a landmark Bank Holiday Weekend. Something inside me changed forever. Finally it's over...

Now, at last, I can do it, I too can buy second hand... ahem, I mean 'vintage' shoes. And what a pair. Brogue boots? Didn't even know they existed. They appear to have been polished black.

My phobia stemmed from the thought of the previous incumbents. Feet can be pretty minging and I didn't fancy catching something. Anyway, these passed the sniff challenge.

This is going to result in a considerable saving over the years, so to celebrate shoes that only cost £18, I thought something nice and leathery smelling should do the trick.

There's plenty of old leather in this wine and a fair whiff of feral animal too. I've never drunk wine from an old boot... can't imagine many people have... but this is what it would probably taste like. Especially if the boot belonged to a werewolf. Don't get me wrong, there's also loads of delicious raspberry fruit too, a great texture, a lovely long lasting finish and a refreshingly light 12.5% alcohol. It's real beauty and the beast stuff. I love it.

Someone tweeted the other day that they were out with a friend who was wearing an old tweed jacket when a bunch of neds shouted across the street, "Vintage Cunts". Genius.

The wine is new to Yapp. Came as part of a mixed case for £85 including delivery.

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS.

The shoes came from the Glasgow Vintage Company by Kelvinbridge.

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS.

Soupe de Passion

2010-04-28T23:21:00.004+01:00

It arrived with a flourish. A steaming tureen with a ladle poking out from a slit in the lid, little bowls of cheese, croutons, a red coloured mayonnaise and bread... but what really caught our eye was that all this was for one man. Then, after filling a bowl, the waiter just left the tureen. My brother and I were young, pre teen, we just stared, unable to imagine anything more perfect. We continued to watch, mesmerised as a very French looking man spread mayonnaise on the croutons, popped them in the soup, then sprinkled the lot with cheese. We ordered it on the spot and at every other spot we found it for the rest of the holiday.

Today was pleasantly warm, first time really this year. Always a good excuse to play 'being on holiday'. It's a relatively easy game for me involving a jar of soupe de poissons plus accompaniments and a bottle of rose. There are a thousand recipes for rouille. My recipe is: 2 crushed cloves of garlic, a tablespoon of harissa, 2 egg yolks- mash it all together in a mortar and pestle then add olive oil a drop at a time, stirring, as for mayonnaise. When it's very thick thin it down with the juice of half a lemon. Season.

The rose came from the Co-op for the remarkably reasonable price of £4.79. It's pretty good too, very much a food wine, but I'd definitely buy it again.

For a few glinting moments I'm transported back... to the Quayside in Sete, chuckling into our glasses as Parisian gangsters drive by playing hip hop. Or, in Marseille, flicking a finger to the guys on scooters who smile to reveal cellophane wrapped crack between their teeth. Ahh, the glories of the Med. Unfortunately the view tonight wasn't quite so colourful.

Vive Le Difference

2010-04-27T22:42:00.002+01:00

We got it bad, you don't know how bad we got it. You got it easy, you don't know when you got it good...

Wouldn't it be good to be on your side, even if it was for just one day...

Actually the French know they've got it good, even to the point of smugness, but why not? They're living in a country boasting every desirable form of terrain and have mastered the art of getting the best out of it.

There are however, a few achilles 'eels... the French get a bit embarrasing when drunk, they're crap at pop music and most of them can't dance.

French people tend to drink a lot without getting drunk. In fact they're so good at it, if you're a cirrhosis doctor you'd be daft working anywhere else. It's a long term soaky sort of boozing, not the binging variety at which we excel. When the French binge, the rest of the world cringe... you can almost guarantee they'll start trying, and failing, to pull each others pants down just before flinging themselves into the nearest fountain.

Now it's not like other countries don't behave abominably when drunk, it's just that normally the French are so bloody schwet, seeing them drunk, or dancing, or best of all, both, is to realise that there IS much justice in the world.

Anyway, I'd better stop now, before an angry mob from the Larzac turns up to blockade my street and set fire to cheese outside the window.

Here's a wine even the French recommend drinking to excess and after a few nights of experimentation, I can vouch for their advice. It came as part of a mixed case from Yapp.

Saint Pourcain 2009 is, to pinch a word they're fond of in the Yapp catalogue, a 'judicious' blend of Pinot Noir and Gamay. I'd say it's glugalicious and versatile. So far it's gone well with garlicy chicken, a nice tuna steak and it also goes down rather too easily on it's own. Oh well, if you can't beat them join them... but never mind the trousers, make sure it's the blinds you pull down before attempting the lastest refreshingly cool French dance craze Tecktonik...

New french dance craze - Watch more Funny Videos

Saint Pourcain comes as part of a mixed case from Yapp costing £85 including delivery. Well worth it.

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS

2010-04-27T00:14:00.001+01:00

Through Savage Europe

2010-04-18T21:25:00.001+01:00

Spotted this lurking in the travel section of a second hand bookshop. A quick flick through and I was transfixed.

Harry de Windt told it as he saw it... and he saw it as an Edwardian gentleman from the Garrick Club. It's absolutely riveting.

This made me chuckle. An early version of Ewan McGregor and his chum heading off to the middle of no-where with nothing but a throbbing engine between their legs. What must their wives have thought?

Amusingly, despite numerous photographs, none are actually attributed to the 'canny' Mr Mackenzie. Maybe they fell out before publication?

Harry's main obsessions on the journey were a very critical approach to the local women coupled with a continual quest for 'comforts'.

In another memorable paragraph he describes the women of Montenegro as "acceptably pretty in youth though inclined to portliness in later years". Caveat Emptor!

An early reference to Zinfandel.

Well, imagine my surprise, as they say, while hanging around Waitrose looking to pick up something in the wine section...

They're currently discounting a range of wines including a few from in and around the Balkans. One is now my new favourite town name...

Unfortunately it's definitely not my new favourite wine. Because the Pinot Grigio from Jeruzalem Ormoz is just ok, in a home made sort of way, tasting of unripe fruits: apple, grapefruit, pineapple... with a slight spritz. It's a refreshing aperitif for £6.66, but even at that reduced price, I wouldn't buy it again. As for the £6ish Zinfandel look-a-likey 'Plavac Mali' from the Croatian island of Hvar, well, it may have been prettier in youth. Now though, it's gone to seed, all fat and blowsy. You would, but only if there was nothing else left.

If only all Tuesdays could be like this...

2010-04-07T09:15:00.013+01:00

As locations go, it seems this one went. A flattened post industrial landscape just beyond Shields Road underground station. Fortunately, a bit more wandering revealed it was just a glitch with the internet map.

There were few clues on the outside as to what lurks within, just a hint in reception that this place may not be a purveyor of industrial widgets.

We were here to see the 'Shooting Gallery' exhibition and in particular the work of Kevin Hunter, artist brother of Adrian who manages Pete Doherty.

I spotted the bar. Well it was hard to miss and so disproportionately huge and 'proper' looking that I seriously thought it might be an installation.

Still, I had a punt anyway, "What's in it?" I asked the barman..."Mainly rum", and he laughed as I tried to pay. He wasn't kidding, after two pieces of fruit I was merry, half way down the drink I was anyones.

Soon after a man introducing himself as Scott stood up to say a few words. He explained about the art, the exhibition, forthcoming attractions and then, I began to start thinking there was more in my drink than just rum. Because Scott started saying this place was also a training college for 'mixologists', the creme de la creme of cocktail shakers... "P P P P Pardon??"... "Am I hallucinating?".. I was trying to take in this googly when he bowled another... there were in fact two bars that would be serving all manner of delicious drinks all night for free. Then he pointed upwards...

"Up there, behind the DJ, you'll find the Bourbon bar". Christ, and I nearly drove... result!!!

There was about quarter of a bottle of Makers Mark in this Old Fashioned. Wow, the olden days must have been some place. A bit of enjoyable chat was followed by two absolutely cracking whisky sours.

Then it really was time to go. Quite apart from the fact that I was seriously considering coming to live here permanently, there was 'We Have Band' to see at The Captains Rest...

They were bloody brilliant.

Click here for details of the Shooting Gallery artists.

The exhibition was run by the LA Group.
You can contact them and it's Managing Director Scott Gemmell at:
info@la-group.co.uk / 0141 429 8989. I'd recommend doing so.
Click here for their website.

Click here for the marvelous We Have Band.