Posts by Tom Johnston
The Fat Pheasant Country Pub, Newton, by Edinburgh
The Fat Pheasant Country Pub 13 -15 Main Street, Newton, EH52 6QE West Lothian 0131 629 8671 www.fatpheasantnewton.co.uk The Bill A la carte Starters £5.95- £12.95 | Mains £15.95 – £29.95 Desserts £7.50 The Score Team L Cooking 3/10 | Service 4/5 Flavour 2/5 | Value 2/5 TOTAL 11/25 Team T Cooking 8.5/10 |…
Read MoreBraised Beef Short Ribs Asian Style
While the nights may be getting longer, the miserable weather which fills them calls for slow cooking. Now with a recipe which is best done over two days, the climate may have improved by day two, but it’s a risk worth taking. While in St Andrews recently I popped into Balgove farm shop. Their prices…
Read MoreWant To Be A Restaurant Reviewer? Enter And Win A Prize
Or maybe you like the idea of a free meal for 2 with wine and cocktails at Tapa in Leith, the Tom Eats! Restaurant of the Year in 2023? Yes, for once we are offering a real prize, not just a year’s free subscription. All you have to do is to pen a review of a…
Read MoreSea Bass with Ginger and Spring Onions
I’d rather be a horse than a rat. But deep down I secretly envy my as yet unborn grandchild. If all goes well in April, he or she will be a dragon. Now who wouldn’t want that? As you may know, tomorrow (Saturday) marks the Chinese New Year. I discover I was born in the…
Read MoreDine Craiglockhart, Edinburgh
Dine Craiglockhart 101B Colinton Road, Edinburgh EH14 1AL 0131 229 2929 www.craiglockhart.scot The Bill Set Menu 2 courses £21.50 | 3 courses £28.50 A la carte Starters £7.00 – £10.50 | Mains £16.00 – £27.50 Desserts £6.50 – £7.50 The Score Cooking 7.5/10 | Service 4/5 Flavour 5/5 | Value 5/5 TOTAL 21.5/25…
Read MoreFood in Phrase and Fable
After my recent article R is for Rum, my friend Ian I and I exchanged a few emails about phrases in the English language which are food related. My dealings with Ian go back to when he was Clerk to one of Scotland’s major licensing boards. Many of you will know that I was once…
Read MoreChicken, Pheasant & Black Pudding Stew
This has to be the ultimate example of a what do I have in the fridge dish. I had made a sweet and sour chicken a few days earlier and had a batch of chicken thighs. The plan was to make a sort of chicken chasseur, with red wine, beef stock and mushrooms. There were a…
Read MoreCelentano’s, Glasgow
28 – 32 Cathedral Square Glasgow G4 0XA 0131 552 3519 www.celentanosglasgow.com The Bill A la carte Snacks £3.00 – £8.00 | Antipasti £11.50 – £12.50 Primi £12.00 – £14.00 | Secondi £17.50 – £27.00 Desserts £6.00 – £7.00 Feasting Menu £49.00 The Score Cooking 8.5/10 | Service 2/5 Flavour 5/5 | Value 5/5 TOTAL…
Read MoreChef Watch featuring Paco Martin Romano of Tapa, Edinburgh
Chef Watch Featuring Paco Martin Romano, Head Chef at Tapa, Edinburgh How long have you been a chef? I’ve been a chef too long to remember, but I moved to Edinburgh (from my native Sevilla) to join my sister here in late 2010 and began working in Tapa in early 2011. I had…
Read MoreBaia, Speightstown, Barbados
Baia Sand Street, Speightstown, Barbados +1 246 432 2242 www.baiabarbados.com The Bill* A la carte Ceviche/Raw £14.00 – £22.00 | Small Plates £14.00 – £23.00 Mains £24 – £52 | Desserts £8.00 – £16.00 The Score Cooking 8/10 | Service 5/5 Flavour 5/5 | Value 3.5/5 TOTAL 21.5/25 After a car crash of a…
Read MoreBarbados Rum Punch
What do you mean, this isn’t cooking? Who said that? Hands up. Listen, matey, in this house cooking is any combination of foods to produce a routine masterpiece. Ice is food; rum is food; so are the other ingredients. So that’s you told. I have to say that as so many rum based cocktails are…
Read MoreR is for … Rum
Given the Caribbean theme, today’s subject for the Food Alphabetical shouldn’t have been too hard to guess. In Barbados, where we visited before Christmas, rum is still a very important part of the Bajan economy. Although rum is now made world wide, many connoisseurs still believe that the finest stuff comes from the West Indies.…
Read MoreCobbler’s Cove, Speightstown, Barbados
Cobblers Cove, Road View, Speightstown BB26025 Barbados, West Indies +1 246 422 2291 www.cobblerscove.com The Bill A la carte Starters £18.00 – £20.00 | Mains £30.00 – £50.00 Desserts £14.00 The Score Cooking 5.5/10 | Service 3.5/5 Flavour 3.5/5 | Value 2.5/5 TOTAL 15/25 How many places do you know which provide diners…
Read MoreBajan Macaroni Pie
When arriving in another country, it’s never too early to get started on food. So in the taxi from the airport I had two early and important questions for the driver. Where is good to eat, and what are the national foods? I can reveal that in Barbados there are two or three dishes with…
Read MoreTom and Lesley Eat a Lot in Barbados
Ravi Shankar Melting pot. It’s a lazy phrase, one used far too easily by people from a predominantly white skinned country. Want a melting pot? Consider our own history. Picts, Scots (from Ireland), Angles, Saxons, Danes and Vikings. And that’s before you get to the Norman Conquest over 1000 years ago, and everything that’s followed…
Read MoreReview of the 2023 Part 2: 1 – 14=
Well here we are, featuring the crème de la crème of 2023. It’s fair to say that it hasn’t been a vintage year. Having said that, let’s not take anything away from the top three, number one, Tapa and Tipo. It would be hard to find three more disparate places. Number one is a grand…
Read MoreReview of the 2023 Part 1: 16 – 36
As ever, we finish with our end of year review. 36 places sampled for your delight in 2023. While this is the lower half, bear in mind that a mark of 17.5 or over is 70%, no mean score in anyone’s system. It’s been odd year overall. At the top end the scores have been…
Read MoreParadise Pudding with Isabella Beeton
For this, the last Tom Cooks! this side of Christmas, I felt something festive was in order. And following on from Annie Gray on Wednesday I thought something with a bit of history would be appropriate. While Annie did get in touch with me to say that this Christmas she would be having ramen, not…
Read MoreThe Voyage of Buck, Edinburgh
The Voyage of Buck 29 – 31 William Street, Edinburgh EH3 7NF 0131 225 5748 www.thevoyageofbuckedinburgh.co.uk The Bill A la carte Starters £7.00 – £11.00 | Mains £17.00 – £22.00 Desserts £6.00 – £7.00 The Score Cooking 5.5/10 | Service 4.5/5 Flavour 4/5 | Value 4/5 TOTAL 18/25 Arriving here for lunch I…
Read MoreAt Christmas We Feast by Annie Gray
Christmas. Less than three weeks to go. In which camp would you place yourself? The come all ye faithful, let’s get carolling, gingerbread and spice, let it snow brigade? Or the not again, ridiculously over commercialised, well really it’s only for the kids, bah humbug camp? Either way I suspect that come the big day,…
Read MoreWhen is a Coulibiac not a Coulibiac?
Despite Wednesday’s column, I’m not advocating a boycott of farmed salmon, just urging everyone to be careful about what they buy. It must be said that many chefs are now in the former category, as reported in a fairly recent edition of The National. Campbell Mickel Just after I went to press, I heard from my…
Read MoreEverest Inn, Perth
Everest Inn 36 South Methven Street, Perth PH1 5NU 01738 622563 www.everestinnscotland.co.uk The Bill Set Lunch (drink included) Curry £10.95 | Thali £15.95 A la carte Starters £5.00 – £8.45 | Mains £10.95 – £17.95 Desserts £6.00 The Score Cooking 6.5/10 | Service 4/5 Flavour 4.5/5 | Value 5/5 TOTAL 19.5/25 Fine food can…
Read MoreSalmon – Are You Sure?
In Britain, we eat a million portions of salmon every day. It is the second biggest Scottish export after whisky. And virtually all of these million portions will be farmed salmon. Wild salmon is no longer fished commercially anywhere in the UK. Most salmon rivers now require anglers to return fish to the water after…
Read MoreCotechino with Braised Lentils
E, my Italian teacher, and I were having a laugh the other week. The subject of our hilarity concerned Italian salami. Not, I hasten to add, one of those smutty jokes about the size or firmness of sausages. Quite the reverse. We were talking about the lesser known soft, not to say floppy one, the…
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