Burns supper: haggis and deep-fried Mars bar

ondon is one veritable "travel dining without moving" destination. If you wait patiently enough dangling your feet in the flow, all cuisines of the world will come sailing by you. Just grab and enjoy.

It has been six years since I started thinking of going to Scotland. Besides the obvious tourist attractions, I was naturally curious about Scottish cuisine; so much the more that it did not seem likely to come across it anywhere outside its country of origin, even in London.

Well, turns out I was wrong. The time to enjoy Scottish food could not have come at a more appropriate time: the Robert Burns night, the celebration of the life and works of Scotland's dearest son, an 18th-century poet apparently responsible for, by crude estimate, half the Scottish poetry out there.

The centrepiece of what is known as the Burns supper, to which I was most kindly invited, was haggis. Contrary to the belief evidently widespread on the Stateside, it is not an animal but a sheep's stomach stuffed with chopped offal, oatmeal, onions and spices, boiled or baked in the oven. To many it may sound a very odd choice for a celebration meal, yet, just like the rumours of the rampancy of sheep-shagging in Wales, the many a negative review of haggis I had heard proved grossly exaggerated. Served with mashed potatoes and turnips ('tatties and neeps'), and traditionally washed down with copious amounts of whiskey, it is a straightforward, hearty and filling fare, a perfect match for the cold winter weather out there (the Robert Burns day falls on the 15th of January). 

Customarily, an eight-verse poem would be recited over the haggis before carving  it, we did with but the very first one, yet pronounced in an authentic Edinburgh accent (which made the meal ever more delicious):

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o' a grace
As lang's my arm.

By way of dessert, we partook in another Scottish tradition known as "deep frying ye ole bonnie Mars bar". It is very much what it says on the tin: dipping pieces of Mars bar into batter and deep frying them in hot oil. Whoever came up with this must have been a big fan of hot fat and sugar. Now I am the last one to oppose to sweet and high-calorie fat things, but some sacrifices are worth it and some are not. The hollandaise sauce is worth every whopping dollop of butter it is made from. Japanese tempura, feathery and crispy, is a highlight of one's meal as well as easy on the stomach. All the sugar you put into a rhubarb pie pays back manifold in terms of deep sense of satisfaction that hits you the second the pie hits your palate. Deep-fried Mars bars have none of those redeeming qualities. It is just as gooey, repulsively sweet and un-chocolatey as it is in its original form and shape. 

P.S. Apologies for the picture quality. I said it before and I will say it now: smartphones are shit as phones, shit as computers and shit as cameras. Good luck chasing your fave gadget's latest version.

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Madeira food and dining

adeira is not exactly your gastronomic destination. What you mostly get here is what guidebooks politely call "hearty fare": simply cooked peasant grub.Fried chicken or fish with a side of potatoes and veg - centuries of British involvement with the island's economy seem to have taken its toll!
For an island plopped whack in the middle of an ocean, Madeira lets down in the seafood department: there is fish and seafood galore in the markets but in the restaurants they end up cooked in the blandest and most forgettable way, oily and overdone.The fiery looking bunches of dried chillis I saw in the markets never seemed to find their way in any food that I tried. Could they just be used to ward off evil spirits in houses?Funchal's Mercado dos Lavradores may be named Workers' Market but it is mostly busloads of German cruise ship tourists that are unloaded into it with astounding frequency. Heaps of most exotic fruit make you wonder why it was the lowly apple that Eve had to be seduced with in Paradise.



Bacalao, the salted cod, as seamen's staple is probably what ensured Portuguese colonial expansion, but hello, refrigeration has been with us for over a century! I have heard so many times that it can be cooked in 365 ways but in each dish it tasted like bits of PVC soaked in stock from Knorr's fish cubes.The local specialty, espada (scabbard) filet with fried banana is of highly dubious culinary value: very good fish prepared in the most unimaginative way.

On the other hand, lapas grelhadas are a treat. Cooked very much like your escargots à la bourguignonne, grilled with garlic-parsley butter, they come together perfect with a sprinkle of lime juice and a sip of nicely chilled Portuguese white.

Madeira's finest seafood restaurant, Doca de Cavacas is definitely head above shoulders of other comparable establishments on the island, but then again, it's not such a hard feat. A platter of rather oily grilled fish, squid and prawns comes with the sides of boiled potatoes and vegetables. Meh.What is superlative in Madeira is bread and pastry. The local round bolo de caco is good enough to eat plain. With some garlic butter it makes for a scrumptious meal!Madeiran pastry is cheap, abundant and universally perfect, nothing to do with the utterly dull and boring British Madeira cake.Some varieties, particular those involving coconut flakes, apparently have been brought back by emigrant Madeirans workers returning from Venezuela, hence names like bolo Venezuelano.
Pastéis de nata, egg custard cakes that seem to have a universal currency from Macao and Dili to Lusaka and Manaus, are invariably delectable with a shot of punchy fragrant espresso.Bolo de mel, another Madeiran specialty, is a treacle sponge bun with nuts, delish dunked in port.

Organic vegan sushi: need I say more?

alking about why I quit veganism after 10 years of torturing myself and those around me with what essentially is an eating disorder. This will defend my case without any words: organic barley sushi with tofu and vegetables, that tasted remarkably like a slab of damp toilet paper.

view restaurant latakia syria review

Like I promised, to balance out my review of the worst restaurant in Syria, I'm sharing with you the news of the best one.

- Drive down the Corniche, take only right turns for next 10-15 kilometres, you will see it!

The instructions from our landlord, from whom we are renting a "chalet" on Latakia's lovely garbage-and-rubble coast, are approximate at best. Following their spirit, we do find the place he mentioned, in about 5 minutes from the Corniche, Latakia's main promenade overlooking the industrial terrain of Syria's largest port.

Turns out "The View" consists of four restaurants: Italian, Mexican, Syrian and seafood. We put off pasta and nachos until we hit Naples and Cancun, and as kebab and hommous-weary as we are, we make a beeline straight to the seafood "The View - Sultan".

The large hall reminded me of the interior of the better Soviet restaurants from the 70s. Syria and the USSRwere great friends for many decades, united mostly by their hate of Israel and the USA.