> TASTE TEST Instant porridge
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SIDE DISHES News to nibble on
Ready Brek Original Various stockists including Tesco, Morrisons and Asda. £1.89 for 750g. Tasting like mushy Weetabix and looking a lot like Polyfilla, this soggy and bland excuse for porridge is awful. Its one redeeming feature, a smooth and delicate texture, scores points for masking that sinking suspicion that you’re actually eating a piece of cardboard. Not what you’d expect. ●●●●●
Oats So Simple - Golden Syrup Various stockists including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Asda. £1.99 for 360g. A little awkward to prepare (pouring milk into a sachet!), this makes up for it with its soft taste. Sweetly moreish, it resembles a rice pudding dessert – with a silky smooth consistency. Although it feels slightly artificial on the tongue, if you like your breakfast on the sugary side, it serves as a good introduction to porridge. ●●●●● Rude Health Fruity Date Organic Porridge Available from Waitrose and GreenCity Wholefoods, Glasgow, £3.29 for 550g. Creamy and comforting, this gets the balance exactly right – a subtle hint of cinnamon and apple adds natural sweetness, whilst the jumbo oats give a wonderful, home cooked taste. Healthy, but not like a penance, with some surprise organic twists (the dates are good). ●●●●●
Scotts Old Fashioned Porage Oats Various stockists, including Tesco and Sainsbury’s. £1.50 for 1kg. A good, strong taste of oats was the only saving grace here. With a horrible, spongy texture, the horrendous consistency spoiled what could have been a wonderful dish. A reminder that some porridge just doesn’t work in the microwave. Far better to heat it on the stove – even if takes an extra minute. ●●●●● Stoats Berryfeast Porridge Premix Stoats Porridge, Edinburgh. www.stoatsporridgebars.co.uk, £2.50 for 400g tub. An exotic twist on the traditional. Goji berries provide sharply sweet bursts, and the added bonus of being considered a ‘superfood’. Though lacking a well-rounded overall flavour, the oat blend is smooth and survives a good blast in the microwave. The pot provides a perfect portion. ●●●●●
Marks and Spencer – Apple, Sultana, and Cinnamon Porridge See www.marksandspencer.com for your nearest branch, 320g box. Despite a fairly gruesome and gloopy presentation, this porridge offers a refreshing change in terms of taste. The cinnamon is slightly overpowering, but well complemented by a delicate apple flavour. Eat too much and it starts to feel a little stodgy, but generally a good twist on an old favourite. ●●●●●
■ GLENGOYNE DISTILLERY by Killearn is hosting a free Christmas Food and Drink event from 10.30am on Saturday 6 December, featuring Edenmill farm shop’s barrel smokers, beer from WEST and Brewdog, cooking demos from Monachyle Mhor’s Tom Lewis and lots of family-oriented entertainment. ■ ANOTHER PIECE of gourmet Edinburgh appearing on the bonny banks is Valvona & Crolla, who thanks to their tie-up with Jenners/House of Fraser now have food halls and cafès both in the main Jenners on Princes Street and at the outpost of Jenners located in the the Loch Lomond Shores. The partnership has also resulted in an expansion for V&C south of the border, with a cafè opening in the House of Fraser store at Westfield Shopping Centre in London.
FOODFORTHOUGHT
Mr Scruff DJ, producer, cartoonist & tea drinker
I am on tour at the moment, and with all the travelling and late nights, we have to look after ourselves. There are eight of us on the bus, and after several years, we have fine tuned the rider so that it is a good balance of healthy food that you actually want to eat. On a typical touring day, we stumble into the dressing room for breakfast at about noon, and I have muesli, a cup of tea and some fruit juice. Being a tea addict, I have three or four cups throughout the day while loading in, setting up and soundchecking. I have roughly 50 per cent English breakfast tea, and the rest are herbals such as chilli and mint or yerba mate. Mid-afternoon, I will have a salad, maybe vine leaves, houmous, couscous and occasionally a veggie pie, if they are from a good local bakery. Around 7pm we will go for dinner. We vary the type of restaurant each night,
though it is mostly Italian (fish, then tiramisu), Japanese (sushi and ramen) or Thai (seafood red curry). I always go for an espresso after the meal, to set me up for a late night. During the gig I have a couple of herbal teas and a couple of bottles of ale. We get to bed at about 4.30am, then do it all again the next day! ■ Mr Scruff’s new album Ninja Tuna is out now on Ninja Tune Records, you can also buy his own brand teas at www.makeusabrew.com
■ THE FORMER Hallion Club at Picardy Place in Edinburgh has become Hawke + Hunter. It’s the latest from Brown Taylor, operators of 99 Hanover Street, and will feature a 40-cover restaurant under head chef Suzanne O’Connor, private dining rooms, a first floor bar, billiard room, and four bedrooms. 0131 557 0952, hawkeandhunter.com ■ A NEW FARMERS’ market for Edinburgh will take place at Ocean Terminal on Fridays 12 and 19 December, with many of the stalls from the regular weekly Saturday morning farmers’ market on Castle Terrace in attendance. It runs from 10am to 4pm, and has the advantage of free parking nearby as well as some shelter from the canopy in front of the shopping centre. There are plans to run it as a monthly Friday market next year.
27 Nov–11 Dec 2008 THE LIST 11