Delicious meals from the deep

We have been away from the weekend. Down to Edinburgh. The plan was to do a lot of family things and then enjoy a nice meal in one of the best restaurants in Edinburgh - Chop Chop. It is so good that it made it onto the Gordon Ramsay F Word show as one of the best Chinese in the UK. It made it to the final two but lost out to a restaurant in Manchester. A real shame because Chop Chop is best known for it's dumplings - they are great, both boiled and fried. I tried the Crispy Northern Beef for the first time (I've been there 3 times in all) and it was delicious. I would highly recommend a visit to Chop Chop when you are in Edinburgh. Already planning our next trip as we have bought tickets for the Taste of Edinburgh Festival in May so are looking forward to more culinary delights when we return.

The A9 is the road which joins Inverness to Edinburgh and on the way there are many food stops (no I don't include McDonalds in Perth, the Little Chef or Motor Grill in these). One real mecca for Foodies on the A9 is House of Bruar which has become the favourite stop for everyone traveling during 9 - 5pm (if it stayed open later it would still rake it in!). The Food Hall is amazing. I've worked there many a Saturday when promoting the wonderful Smokehouse which is Summer Isles Foods but to finally be able to shop to my hearts content is fun. We had a good look round and I was impressed to see they have expanded since I was last there. They have a butcher section complete with a hanging area. It's good to see a business showing where meat comes from. I can imagine it's too much for the non-meat eaters among us but I believe butchery is a great skill, to do it humanely is good and we need to understand what it means to eat meat.

However, what really attracts me to House of Bruar is the seafood section - Arbroath Smokies, smoked mussels and what we finally purchased - white crab meat. Crab meat is lovely and light, delicately flavoured meat and deserves a simple meal so we tried this tonight and I'm adding it to my list of favourite dishes - simple and perfect:

Crab linguine with chilli, lemon, garlic and parsley recipe