Staying in a Castle

So far on this trip we have been very lucky in the places we have stayed. So we were looking forward to our stop at the Pittodrie House Hotel, as we would for the first time be spending a night in a castle. Not just a castle, but a castle that looks like a castle.

Pittodrie House, though now modernised and extended, is a castle originally built in 1460 by a member of the Erskine Clan, the Erskine's had held land here since the 1300s when it was awarded to them for their support for Robert the Bruce during his war of independence. One of the family, Helen, married Robert's brother Thomas creating long links with the Scottish throne. 

The area around the Hotel has wonderful views as the grounds reach up to the Bennachie Mountain with its Pictish fort. History is also evident lower down the mountain where the Maiden Stone an ancient Pict monument is just half a mile from the hotel.

We checked into our room, which is called 'The Erskine' and is in the old part of the castle as part of the turret. The room is amazing with a separate sitting room and a bathroom longer than our hallway and sitting room back home with a lovely shower and a bath you could easily drown in. 

We settled in to the room, Drew enjoyed the strawberries dipped in chocolate, remembering to take the stem off <<Co-Pilots note: Oi, I made that mistake only once!!>> and then went for a walk through the lovely grounds including a picturesque walled garden.  

Dinner 

The restaurant at Pittordie House is called the Mither Tap, named for one of the outcrops of the mountain range above. The dining room is small and somewhat dark and even in August has a fire burning in the grate. 

We wait to be seated and a member of staff says she will get the manager to do this, she obviously forgot as the manager was surprised to see us about five minutes later. This sense of unexpectedness and surprise seemed to be the theme of the service for the rest of the meal. It was perfectly pleasant, but somewhat haphazard and unprofessional.

For starters I opted for pan seared king scallops, chorizo, butternut squash, pumpkin seeds with a lemon vinaigrette. This sounded delicious, but when it arrived it was so prissy that I wondered if the chef had been on a painting course rather than a cooking course. Now I don't mind food served in a pretty manner, but for me this was food that scored on being fussed with and not on the basics of taste and eatability. The black pudding is a great example of this, the rich earthiness of this lovely ingredient (with apologies to vegetarian friends) could have set the scallop sweetness off so well. But the tiny amounts scatter around the table weren't enough to start the tastebuds going, let alone work with the scallops. Don't get me wrong, none of the food was bad, but it had been fussed with to much between production and plate. I guess I didn't really know how much of a fan of Nigel Howarth and Tom Kitchen I was, but there food always emphasises the quality of the ingredients. Here it seem to emphasise the artistic skills of the chef.

Drew went for the Smoked Salmon, capers, shallots, quail egg and pickled cucumber. Again the plate says it all. As a course on a seven plate tasting menu it would have been perfectly proportioned, but as one of three courses for dinner it seemed mean. Each of the individual items were lovely, but the overall experience left a gap. The quails egg, so lovely when broken open and filled with yolk were hard-boiled and seemed to offer no purpose but decoration. 

For mains I had the loin of Scottish lamb, an ingredient for which this country is famed. This was served with aubergine, beets, celeriac, fondant potato and jus. Again one look at the pucture will tell you the food was overworked and over decorated. A real pity that such lovely ingrediants could be treated with so little respect. The lamb was dry and overcooked. All of the lovely juciness had been scorched out of it. The fact that the plate was so hot that the waitress had to apologise for it implies that it had been sitting on a hot plate for to long. So the lamb might have been cooked well, but had then be recooked on the plate. This also had the effect of drying out all the sauces and smears on the plate making them gloppy and unattractive. The game of hunting the broccoli (two tiny spears, enough for colour and decoration, but not enough for my five a day) and the dried harshness of the fondant potato meant I only eat the food because I was hungry, not because it gave any pleasure. I like it when both work together.  

Drew opted for the pork fillet, slow cooked belly pork, black pudding, roast sweetcorn, sweetcorn puree and savoy cabbage. As you can see from the photo this looked like a young child had laid out random items in a row. The effect, rather than being appetising was to be puzzling. Why mess with food this much, why when the menu reads so well and highlights the provenance of the food and who has provided it, does the chef spend so much time on looks, and so little on good cooking. 

For dessert Drew opted for the lemon curd parfait, meringue, mango sorbet and Pistachio (or as the menu had it Ppistachio!) Crumb. Drew loved the flavours of this, he again felt the portion size was small compared to other restaurants of a similar quality, but for the little he had he was grateful as it was the first item on the menu which felt it had been created with love of the food, rather than love of how the food looked, though in this case it looked good too. 

I opted for the selection of Scottish Cheese course. The balance between cheese and add-ons on the plate was a little strange. I wondered if I had ordered a plate of oat crackers with cheese on the side. It was amusing then when I asked the waitress what cheese was included in the selection (the selection on this occasion being the chef's selection not the customers) and she seemed surprised to be asked. She did however manage to remember that it was cheddar, brie and blue and which part of Scotland they came from. Each of the cheeses were pleasant, but again the overall balance of the dish emphasised the non-cheese elements over the core ingredient.

We went into the lovely drawing room with its fascinating furniture and pictures of the original Eskine family members and enjoyed our coffee in there while laughing about the various incidents of the service of the meal.

Still we have eaten well on this holiday so one misstep, while unfortunate, isn't the end of the world. It was an unusual experience to be going to bed hungry, sometimes we are more likely to be going a little overfull! <<Co-Pilots note: Just sometimes??>>

Sunday Breakfast

Like lots of places the hotel has a late start for breakfast on Sunday, but that suited us as Mass wasn't until 10.30 am in the neighbouring town of Inerurie.

Drew likes to describe breakfast here as 'The Toast Incident'. I asked for wholemeal toast, Drew for white. So the toast came with four white toast and two wholemeal, having eaten the wholemeal while ordering our cooked breakfast I asked if I could order more wholemeal. Apparently this was possible, but on this request the waiter tried to take Drew's white toast away. He grabbed it firmly, so when my wholemeal came it was served not in toast racks, of which there were plenty, but on a saucer, so I could place it in my own toast rack if I wanted!! It wasn't just us, a Dutch family staying at the hotel had eaten cereal and wanted to try another type. They requested a second cereal bowl only to be told that they bowls were counted and they had already had their one. We didn't offer them ours, but wondered how bizarre incidents like this could occur in a hotel of this standard.

Today's full Scottish Breakfast included sausage, bacon, mushrooms, fried egg, black pudding, half a tomato and potato scone and was fine. Again you will note a lot of effort went into the lock of the plate, but in this case the taste was there too.

Mass

After breakfast we packed the car and checked out at 9.45 for the short 6.5 mile drive to Inverurie Catholic Church. The church here is old by the standards of Catholic Churches, having been built in 1852 and dedicated to the Immaculate Conception two years before the solemn proclamation of this dogma took place in 1854. 

The parish community is, however, to large for the Church, so Sunday Mass takes place in the Parish Hall behind the Church. I was going to say sadly, because it would have been nice to be in this ancient church, but from the parishes perspective a larger community is obviously better. So perhaps thankfully would be better. 

Mass was the Mass for the Twentieth Sunday of the Year, Scotland, like the US last year, unlike England and Wales does not move the Solemnity of the Assumption of Our Lady if the 15th of August falls on the Saturday or Monday. While the obligation is removed the feast is still celebrated on its original day. This gave the priest the opportunity of preaching about the Olympic Games, as the second reading was Hebrews 12:1-4: "throw off everything that hinders us...and keep on running steadily the race we have started." 

While I was at Mass Drew walked through Inverurie and met me at 11.30 as we left the town and headed on for the rest of our Sunday. More about that in the next post.