Increasingly I realise that on a rainy, lazy Saturday, it’s good to live in Stockbridge. Even excluding the chain coffee shops, you are still spoilt for choice in terms of late breakfast providers. We wandered into a nice looking deli just past the coop, and found it to make very nice coffee, and supreme almond croissants with a marzipan heart.
The promising but disappointing Stockbridge deli. Still, good croissants!
Skinnytoes was contentedly leafing through the newspapers the deli provides while I explored the contents of the shelves. Unfortunately, the products on offer were more show than substance, and on closer examination the deli resembled an ‘ethical isle’ of any supermarket, with a lot of pre-packaged ethically stamped pastas and muslies, soft drinks (including Coke) in old fashioned glass bottles, white organic loaves… The wine section was the biggest disappointment, its selection dominated by New World corporations, and no organic wine to be seen. What saves this place is the meet and cheese counter, but all in all I was left wondering how it managed to compete with the supermarket next door when offering practically identical products at much higher prices.
Bread was the first thing on the mental shopping list, and the baker’a wagon just pulled in as we approached a shop I spotted some time ago, boasting it provided ‘the best bread in Edinburgh’. Its boast seemed to have some purchase on reality, as the queue started half the way down the street, and making the bread delivery a logistical puzzle and resulting with crates of baked goods being stacked all around the waiting customers.
The bread queue (the irony!).
I picked up a French-style loaf, which proved heavenly although a bit too sweet, and a dark, dark brown loaf of organic rye. Now that was a Loaf, so heavy and dense I felt like I was carrying a sack of flour around. One slice of this is as filling as three slices of white bread, but it does require a good bread knife and strong teeth!
I could not help myself and I nipped to the cheesemongers as well, and spent nearly twenty pounds on two pieces of cheese, and a chorizo sausage. It is scary how quickly I can ruin my weekly budget when faced with a piece of Manchego!
The place of financial temptation.
For my birthday treat, Skinnytoes booked a table in a tiny restaurant just a few steps from my house, called, appropriately, the Stockbridge Restaurant. Down a flight of steps and overlooking a tiny basement garden, the restaurant is just one, nicely decorated room, and it was full to the brim. We sat in a cosy nook to enjoy a very reasonably priced set lunch menu , and a less reasonable bottle of white (priceless). I loved the beetroot and pigeon starter which, as Skinnytoes pointed out, would not have been out of place on a Polish menu.
My perspective on prospective restaurant visitors.
To end this gastronomic day, in the evening we headed out for some beers. Stupidly I agreed to meet some friends in a town centre pub, and it was all the horribleness you could expect, from mediocre beer to smelly bathrooms to shouting, sweating, swaying crowds of unpleasant people. After a while we made up an excuse and finished the evening in a pub I’ve read about in one of my guidebooks. Two steps from my house, Kay’s Bar is in an old tiny corner house on Jamaica Street, and it is everything town centre pubs are not. It has discreet lighting, good beer and very nice whisky, and professional staff. Two elderly dogs roam the grounds, and old barrels decorate the walls. The small room at the back is lined with books, and we settled on a comfy window sill with contented sighs.
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