A steaming Vesuvius of haggis, neeps and tatties? It can only be Edinburgh and Monster Mash, one of top five restaurants of all time anywhere. Cafe Soya and The Plaza in Birmingham along with Lombardies in New York and a fish and chip shack near Granville Island, Vancouver complete the top five. My criteria don’t absolutely align with those of the Michelin man, though if I lived much closer to any of these restaurants my physique would.
Lunch was a fortuitous side-effect of a site visit to Edinburgh scouting venues for Dance Steps and Home of the Wriggler this August.
It has been well worthwhile. I’ve photographed and sketched the possible Dance Steps venue in some detail and managed to clarify with the venue what the piece is, which sometimes takes some doing.
I’m currently in the potential Wriggler venue. The vibe is very, very good. We’d be pushed for space, but it would probably be worth that compromise for the benefits of this vibe, especially in the meltdown commercialism of so much Edinburgh Fringe action.
Now for the return journey; to be fair the train is one of those leaning ones and goes like a rocket, which is just as well as spacetravel would be cheaper.
James
Since posting this I have attempted to revisit Monster Mash and learned of a hair raising story of alleged dark dealings in the restaurant ownership world. The place is now a few units further down the street under the name Mum’s Great Comfort Food.
If you go there look carefully at the bottom of the menu, in small type there is a note about the Trademark of Mum’s Great Comfort Food and it talks about that being watertight. Only those in on the story of dark dealings would appreciate the bleakness of this joke.
I do my bit to support them – I visit every Edinburgh trip.