Oh no I’m so sorry I entirely missed your question!! 
I hope you had a good time? Would love to hear!
We are back! Generally an excellent trip, lots of good food (and some not good food), beautiful scenery, and crazy crowds. Did you know that the Isle of Skye is very popular? and so is the Fringe Festival? and the Film Festival? and that Oasis and the International Book Festival were in Edinburgh the same time as us? Whee!
First stop, Edinburgh! We had time to kill before checking into our Airbnb, which was just off High Street on Jeffrey Street. Despite the nonstop action a few blocks away, it was surprisingly quiet. We went to The World’s End, pretty much right across the street, and I had a half pint of their very nice cask ale, and some potted crab. The crab was a little weird to me, as I’m not used to eating pieces of butter. The richness of the food, generally, was a theme.
I had ambitiously booked dinner that night at Cafe Royal, about a 15:00 walk from our apartment. We were practically comatose from jetlag, but we rallied. And had a beautiful seafood tower and my first martini of the trip, before I figured out that ordering martinis is not something one does in Scotland, for reasons I will lay out soon. The standouts in the tower were the oysters (consistently excellent everywhere we tried them, and usually prohibitively expensive), the salmon, and the prawns (not pictured, they are on a separate plate, because they are monsters). The deviled crab was a bit dry, and the mussels were kind of jarring as they were hot and everything else was cold.
At the Grassmarket the next day, I chanced on an ice cream stand serving whisky and raspberry ice cream. Unfortunately, the raspberry flavor beat out the whisky flavor by a wide margin. Breakfast that morning was at Bobby’s Sandwich Bar, where I had a cheese omelet sandwich with sriracha, and we were menaced by wasps (also a theme).
That night we went to The Scran and Scallie, the cheaper sister restaurant to @Harters fave The Kitchin. The food here was lovely, and beautifully presented. Here is the beetroot salad with crowdie cheese, which we need to start making in the States post haste. The beets were presented two ways - chunked and pickled / thinly sliced - a good idea.
For my main, I had the sea trout. Here, a heavy hand with the salt marred the otherwise faultless fish; the skin was much too intense as a result. But stellar produce, as you can see, in both dishes.
And sticky toffee pudding for dessert. Not as good as Dame’s in the West Village, to be honest, but sticky toffee pudding is always a solid choice, in my experience.
Our next lunch was chosen for proximity more than anything else, at Deacon Brodie’s Tavern after visiting The Writers Museum and watching some buskers on the Royal Mile. One group played The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond, which I think is required by law. I had cullen skink. I expected to love cullen skink, and I did love cullen skink. Smoky and thick. I also had a half pint of one of the featured cask ales, the name of which I have tragically forgotten. It was hoppy and light.
And then we went to a very nice restaurant, Noto, and ordered wrong. The most exciting-looking dishes were also the heaviest, and small plates in Scotland are bigger than you think they’re going to be. First, their signature dish, crab butter, similar to what I had the first day only hot. And if possible, even buttery-er.
Next, shiitake donuts. I don’t know why I didn’t predict that donuts would be very fried. They were very fried. The shiitake flavor got kind of lost in the fry of it all.
We also, god help us, got prawn toast, which I only have video of, because I was transfixed by the undulation of the katsuobushi. Unsurprisingly, this was also fried, because prawn toast is fried. By this point I was ready to tap out. H had ordered the flank steak, which can only be prepared medium rare or well done (something to do with the sous vide, and yeah, I don’t get it either). He got medium rare and didn’t much care for it, as it was too cool and quite tough. Here is the dessert yogurt parfait, something of a corrective. Also oddly tough! But refreshing.
My last meal for this part of the journey was afternoon tea on the Royal Yacht Britannia. Obviously, it was very elegant, as the yacht itself is very elegant. There are stuffed corgis in every display; this began to seem oddly sinister, as if they were planted there by some tween girls. Yes, the queen loved corgis, but come on, now. Here is my scone and my view.
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Love the foreshadowing on the martinis, can’t wait to hear the tale!
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Then we were off to Inverness and Loch Ness, and H did his best to remember which side of the road to drive on so as to not kill us. (He succeeded, obviously.) In the interest of saving time, we did not stop for lunch, and I ate this cheese and pickle sandwich in the car. UK sandwiches need more stuff in them, according to me. This is a very austere sandwich.
In Inverness we had both our best dinner and our worst, keeping things interesting. The best was at River House, and we had been married 364 days by this time. I really wanted this to be our anniversary dinner, but River House 1) was not open on Sundays and 2) could not seat us 'til after their oyster happy hour had ended. I sent a breezy / whiny email about this, and the chef, Alfie, who is awesome, offered to honor the happy hour prices “if we behaved.” I will behave, for L1 oysters, yes I will. Here they are:
They are from Cape Wrath, very far north, very cold water, said Alfie, and they are very gently handled by the oyster farmers. It’s all worth it. They are glorious. We shared the smoked salmon, wonderful flavor, but a trifle tough and a little too thickly sliced (I live near Russ and Daughters, so I am VERY SPOILED with regard to smoked salmon). And the seafood stew, no complaints there! Perfectly cooked and flavored.
Finished up with the pineapple creme brulee. Here, I stopped behaving and snatched the lone piece of pineapple for myself.
We spent the next day, our actual anniversary, driving around Loch Ness, paying to pet hairy coos, looking for monsters, shopping for souvenirs, the usual stuff. So that was very nice, but we did not do well, food-wise. The day started inauspiciously at Grain and Grind, near where we stayed. I will say the coffee was quite good. But the breakfast sandwiches are prepared in advance and heated to order, which, in my opinion, is not ideal. Also not ideal, whatever this bagel-shaped, greased-up thing is, with a dried-out fried egg inside, and cheese, and chutney, I think. Unsuccessful. Also, wasps! Again!
I honestly don’t know why I chose The Waterside. In retrospect, there are at least five or six places we would have liked much better. But the menu looked okay, it was open, we could walk to it. When we arrived, we were presented with their very abbreviated Sunday fixed menu, although according to the website, the a la carte menu is served every day. Okay, fine, I’ll have onion soup (fine) and fish and chips (one piece was fine, one smelled like ammonia, I did not take a picture, you know what fish and chips looks like).
This was where The Martini Problem really began to coalesce (and I still refused to get the hint). At Cafe Royal in Edinburgh, they were willing enough to make me one, although they “don’t do olives.” Liquor is carefully measured - 25ml, 50ml, and if one has the temerity to order a martini instead of the gin and tonic you’re SUPPOSED to order, one is slapped with an upcharge to…cover the vermouth and the lemon slice, I guess. (No one “does twists” either.) And the labor, maybe. There is stirring involved. At Cafe Royal, the upcharge was L2.50, not that big a deal. It was made properly; it arrived promptly. At The Waterside, our young and seemingly inexperienced server took the martini order without comment, and then disappeared for 15:00. She came back with our first course but no martini. I asked about this, and she said she “had to find someone” to make it, because I guess the gin & tonic guy was only trained in gin & tonic. Eventually, she must have found someone, because I got it, and then she cleared the first course and disappeared for 30:00. We took turns trying to find her. At the 40:00 mark, I saw she was at the host stand doing not much of anything, so I told her to just cancel the mains, which got her very flustered and babbling about backlogs and being very busy (the place was 2/3 full). And then I looked over my shoulder and the mains had arrived. She was obviously not going to deal with me anymore, so we got a new server, much better and faster and more communicative.
We found a piano bar after that to have some whisky and chat with a toothless old drunk who thought we were Australian and urged us to go to The Harbor Bar on Skye, the best bar, he said. I made a mental note.
Our last meal before we headed north was a terrific breakfast at Charlie’s near the bus station, open since 1952 and home to the first jukebox in Inverness. I had a “build your own” breakfast of egg, potato scone, mushrooms and vegan haggis. Perfect.
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At the airport hotel before our departure from Berlin, the bartender (from Nigeria) told us that a sure way to recognize American tourists was by their ordering of a martini.
As a German and an avid martini lover I was baffled to hear this. Gin has had a massive renaissance all over Europe for at least a decade now — although G&Ts do seem to be the drink of choice for most, come to think of it, and as evidenced by your report.
I should’ve taken my cue from my experience at another Berlin hotel bar where I ordered a Nolet’s martini (dry AF as usual), and the kid behind the car starts pulling out a bottle of Hendrick’s and a bottle of Martini Bianco. I almost jumped over the bar to stop him 
Sounds like Scotland is similar, even though they make one of my favorite gins, The Botanist.
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How interesting about the martini. I guess I never ordered one when I was there. They do make good gin.
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You’re funny. Delightful trip report!!
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Botanist is my favorite.
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Absolutely. I don’t know if its the same in Germany but here there’s been a massive growth in micro-distilleries. So, we can go to a restaurant in the neighbouring suburb of Didsbury and be offered Didsbury gin.
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It is. Any major (and some minor) town has its own gin. Siegfried gin from my hometown, Skin gin, Elephant gin & Gin Sul from Hamburg, the worldwide famous Monkey 47 from the Black Forest, The Duke from Munich etc. etc.
I love trying different gins wherever I go. And hope folks know how to make a proper martini 
Our next destination was what made us decide on Scotland in the first place: the Flow Country, recently designated a UNESCO heritage site. I love bogs, so I could not pass that up. The town of Helmsdale is just a 40:00 drive from the Forsinard Flows observation tower, so that’s where we stayed. There weren’t many options for dinner that didn’t involve a long-ish drive (we were really trying to stay off the roads at night, for everyone’s safety), but La Mirage was close to our Airbnb, and though its appearance was a bit curious, we rolled the dice and ate there.
Good decision! Langostines were available that day, and they were terrific, and enormous, and served in an extremely generous portion. There was a party of 16 boisterous Italian tourists in the dining room during our visit, and it was hilarious to watch the beleaguered servers try to get them to settle down enough to order food.
The next night we drove south to the pretty coastal town of Brora to eat at a fancy restaurant, The Curing Yard, and here’s where the whole martini thing reached its nadir. But let’s start with the positives - the food was very good, if not quite at the level of the Scran and Scallie and River House. Beet salad, again. Scotland hearts beetroot.
It was around this time that I noticed how often my food was strewn with pea shoots. Scotland also hearts pea shoots (and wasps heart Scotland). Also, more crowdie cheese! Huzzah! A delicious seafood cocktail.
Sea bass with potatoes and broccolini.
And an Eton mess, which H absolutely bogarted, probably as revenge for my pineapple theft.
I also ordered a martini. I was emboldened by the pornstar martini on the cocktail menu (not that I would ever order one, but it implied that the concept of a martini might not be unknown to the restaurant). And I got one! It was very nice.
HOWEVER. The upcharge on it was L7. Other cocktails (including the execrable pornstar martini) were L10.50. I paid L22 for mine. I think this is wrong. So from then on, I just drank gin on the rocks with a lemon slice. To me, gin and tonic just tastes like tonic, and I wanted to find myself some new favorite gins.
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Lovely. Pea shoots & Eton Mess - two joys of the British summer, IMO.
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Attagirl!
I can adapt! I can change!
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Are you tired of this novel yet? Probably! Nevertheless, she persisted.
From the Flow Country we headed to Skye. I booked us a place in Bernisdale, about a 10:00 drive from the main town of Portree, where we were strongly advised to make restaurant reservations early, as it is quite overrun in August.
But on our first night, we stayed closer to home, at the Skeabost Hotel, a gem. We ate in the conservatory, with a view of the water, and had (yet another) beetroot salad.
And another sea trout! This one not over-salted. And with samphire! The US needs to throw this sea vegetable on more plates.
H got the fish & chips, which reminds me that I did not recount a scene we witnessed just before the Great Overcharging at The Curing Yard. A couple near us was very anti well-done chips and called their server over to admonish him about how dark they were (they looked fine to me). They received a substitute of skinny fries, which they also deemed too dark, and make of that what you will. Anyway, these chips are kinda dark, which is good, actually.
The next day we knocked a visit to The Oyster Shed off my bucket list, which I had very recently put it on. You can make a day of this and a tour of the Talisker distillery, if you are smart enough to book your tour in advance, which we were not. But who wouldn’t want to eat at this place? It is awesome. In addition to a dozen rock oysters, we had three small deep-fried softshells, a crab bisque, and some fries. Strong recommend!
By now we were pretty well exhausted with planning, so we did as the locals do and grabbed a pie from Pizza in the Skye and ate it in the car. The crust was underdone, but otherwise, not bad, not bad at all.
The Stein Inn - the oldest restaurant on Skye - was also on our radar. It’s slightly raffish, and I was keenly aware that we were not known there and everyone else was, but the food was good, and the service reasonably friendly. I had an artichoke, and some mackerel. I enjoyed the frequency with which I was provided grilled lemon throughout our trip.
And here we come to our last night on Skye, at a restaurant our Airbnb host helped us with, Sea Breezes. We were very lucky, as everywhere we went in our little crawl that night, exhausted tourists would stagger in, trying to get a table, only to be told there was nothing available. If you’re thinking of starting a sure-fire business, open a restaurant in Portree. It’ll be mobbed.
It was here I learned that “scampi” in Scotland does not mean sauteed with lemon, wine and garlic. It means fried. Here is my monkfish scampi.
And here is some gin with blueberries, which worked surprisingly well!
Alas, we ended with a disappointing cheese plate. The cheddar was of course good, but the crowdie brie was served too cold (also, crowdie brie? no) and while Blue Murder is an excellent name, it is only a B- cheese.
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Nae, I love Scotland. I am enjoying every word, and I am green with envy.
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I remain riveted so please continue to persist!
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I got those 2 dishes at Noto dining solo. I polished off the butter with crab and managed to eat 2 of the donuts. I was meeting friends in London, so I took the leftovers on the train. They, too, were caught off guard by their savory mushroomness. Earthy donut did not compute until it was too late. The prawn toast is on my wish list for another day. I loved the photos and reading about all your experiences. I’ll follow your suggestions when I return.
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I would eat those chips, without complaint. But they deffo look overly fried and dark
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Glad it was helpful! My tolerance for fry is lower than average.
