Saturday lunchtime is the most convenient time for us to forage in
Edinburgh, and this time with a ... ahem.. busy week ahead for our
stomachs we fancied something light yet tempting and rewarding - well,
we are in Scotland, blessed with fantastic seafood, so that had to be
the answer. Ondine was a no-brainer. Our excuse this time was to
compare their seafood platter with the one at the Seafood Restaurant.
The operating table is ready with all the necessary implements nicely lined up.
First however we needed to get in the mood, so we started with some oysters and
tempura squid with Vietnamese sauce.
In hindsight, we should have gone
for oysters "nature" instead of the fried version: at the first bite we
realised that the plump, juicy beauties (six of them in a portion) would have been happier if
showcased on their own, especially as both the batter and the
accompanying sweet and spicy sauce were basically the same as for the
excellent calamari.
Still, pretty good, though unexpectedly the calamari stole the show at this initial stage. Then, in comes the Roast Shellfish Platter - it is choke full with
seafood, from lobster to crab, mussels, langoustines, cockles, razor
clams, you name it, it's there. The picture don't do justice to the
generosity of the platter, below you have our two views:
We should not compare this with the seafood platter at the Seafood Restaurant, which is served cold, and is equally sumptuous and generous - yet the hot
version ticks all the boxes for us. A perfectly decent treacle tart with clotted cream and a summery fruit
salad with "rock" honeycomb closed proceedings.
A real a pity that this place is closed on
Sundays, which would make it easier for us to come more often - you lucky Edinburgh dwellers should not miss the
opportunity for a beautiful, and yes, light-ish lunch.
The place: Rue de Rollebeek 31 (Sablon) – 10000 Bruxelles
The venue: La Tortue du Sablon
The food: ‘Our cook proposes you refined cooking using lobsters, fishes, grilled meats and game (during the season) but also the most famous Belgian dishes.’
Airport: From London use the Eurostar.
The drinks: Simple, well-priced wine list, and some beers.
2.30 p.m. in Bruxelles, hunger biting and veering toward desperation, we spot in this most touristy, boutique and restaurant littered, Rue de Rollebeek a restaurant that has one reassuring quality: it does not display on its window any endorsement by any guide, none whatsoever, and yet it has an enticing menu. One worrying sign is that it is open all day – but Rules is too, and we’d be very content to find food of Rules quality here. We go in to find the room completely empty, and the only waiter/manager obviously make us seat near the window in the hope of triggering a chain reaction when the passers-by note these two celebrities in the dining room…(it won’t happen, but there’ll be a couple of more tables occupied – oh my, dothese Belgians eat late!).
The room is prettily set up,
with a bar area, shells and nautical mementoes all over,and some promisingly alive shellfish in a vat keeping us company while we wait. A large mirror allows the waiter to spy these two strange fellows who keep taking notes.
On the menu, lots of seafood, e.g. among the suggestions Coquilles St. Jacques fraiches a l’huil d’ Argan (€24.50), Langoustines grille a la paprika doix et tagliatelles noire (€29), and many types of moules (in the mid-twenties). On the regular menu, the entrees features a sumptuous sounding Carpaccio de homard (lobster), St. Jacques et crabes aux essences balsamiques truffee (€29) and ‘les plats’ propose a Maigret de canard aux 6 epices, sauce gingembre, citron vert confit at €25.50. To us this is all very enticing. There are also some reasonably price menus, from long tasting ones to quicker lunch ones).
While mulling, the bread appears:
Well, no variety but it’s a bread basket at least, as we like, and it’s not bad. A nice looking butter accompanies it, but we confess we do not eat butter and therefore we could not tell its quality.
Oooh, an amuse bouche:
A scallop with oregano olive oil: it’s marinated, with (half of) the scallop still attached to the shell. It’s very fresh, and in very good olive oil: we begin to be happy.
For starters we have:
- Tartare de thon a la coriander et aux aromates (€15.50)
- Ravioli de Homard Cressoniere (€17.00)
The tuna is excellent. Cut coarsely, with coarse salt grains and honey, it is a delicious interplay of flavours, and most light, too. And as usual, Man falls for the nice presentation.
The ravioli themselves are very fine, and generously filled, expressing the lobster intensely. The accompanying sauce, with finely chopped tomatoes and herbs, is accomplished, very balanced and it truly elevates the dish. Once again, we (well, Man you know) find the presentation a gentle treat for the eye. We are not easy to please with ravioli, and certainly these are not Italian style ravioli, but how good!
And the mains:
- Trilogie de poissons du marche’ aux pistils du saffron (€22.50)
- Thon Grille’, taglaitelles de celeri, essence balsamique (€24.50).
The tuna is a very, very thick chunk. The waiter cannot tell where it comes from, it only says ‘it’s of sushi quality’ (for godsake, how can a waiter, possibly the manager, in restaurant of this level not know such basic information, nor offer to find out?). It’s just slightly less succulent and moist than we’d like. There is a discussion (to which the waiter/manager does not participate) whether this is due to the quality of the tuna (Woman) or the ability of the cook (Man). The vegetable ‘tagliatelle’ are delightful, and the sauce is pleasant, too (there is tomato but also much acidity, vinegar perhaps?).
The three fishes are advertised by the nice hapless waiter as salmon, mullet and cod, but there is in fact no salmon. It looks like hake. We are ravished by the pungent celeriac mash with mustard seeds, which complements the many vegetables (green beans, broccoli, carrots, mangetout) very well. And a different layer of flavour is provided by the remarkably intense saffron sauce (certainly they did not skimp on saffron here). Ah, we were forgetting the fish: fresh, good, with the mullet in the outstanding category. A very good dish, which would be even better with a different selection of fish.
We have no dessert (we were coming from an excellent dinner in Rotterdam – of all places-, and were beginning to get anxious about our waistlines). So, with a bottle of half a litre white wine on offer at €20.50 (an excellent Montravel Chateau Fyol-Luzac 2007), and Vittel water, the total is a reasonable €106,. to which we add a generous tip which we hope will be spent on a course on tuna provenance.
We have been teasing the waiter (he really could not possibly have been the front room manager), but in the end he was a quite sweet, polite and charming fellow. He just wasn’t briefed. We also had to take him out of the restaurant to persuade him that the menu displayed outside was not the same as the menu he had given us. Although La Tortue does not boast about any named chef, we thought there was some extremely accomplished cooking going on here, far superior to that of many a named chef we have been sampling of late (right, Mr. Pomata?). They may have not been the greatest culinary inventions in the world, but whoever conceived them certainly knows a thing or two about assembling flavours and presenting them in an appealing way. This was very sound French cuisine using fresh, good raw materials: a combination that made for a very satisfying lunch.
The drinks: Simple, well-priced wine list, and some beers.
After Sardinia, our insatiable hunger for all things fishy is not exhausted. So we go to Scotland, and among other culinary adventures that we’ll keep for ourselves, in Edinburgh, enticed after reading this, we decide to plump for this family owned restaurant. The family has a fishing background: they operate around the Isle of Arran, where they have another restaurant (in fact the original one). Located just off the touristy Square Mile, we can see that opening a branch in the thriving capital makes acute commercial sense. We hope the big city has not corrupted their Arran integrity…
The interior is warm and vivaciously decorated, with rustic tiled and wooden floors, paintings and mirrors on the walls, primary colours, no tablecloths.
The menu, as promised, caters for the fish-lover, but it also offers a few fine bits for the others. All dishes look simple but with some non-trivial culinary enticements. Starters are around the £7 mark, offering for example mussels steamed in white wine, shallots and parsley, or Tuna carpaccio with Wasabi mayo and herb salad (both £7.50). Mains tempt you with the Creelers seafood platter for 2, at £40, featuring an array of home cured and smoked fish and shellfish, but also, among the non-fish dishes, fillet of Aberdeen Angus beef with horseradish mash, baby carrots, and a red wine jus (£27.50, ouch). We are a little disappointed that the special of the day is farmed seabass.
The three salmons are nicely presented for a ‘trattoria’. The smoked one is quite rustic in style, a little harder than we are used to, but good. The other one, marinated, is exceptional. The one prepared in chunks offers very concentrated flavour. A lovely simple little dish.
Next, our mains:
- Panfried Hake with Stornoway black pudding and a tomato and smoked paprika sauce (£16.50)
- Seared West Coast King Scallops with creamed smoked haddock and leek (£18.50).
In the hake dish we encounter bold and gutsy flavours. The black pudding is ravishing for us, melting in the mouth, and the cooking of the hake is admirable. Woman thinks the paprika is a little too much, while Man, maybe fuelled by the paprika, violently disagrees, finding that the piquant hit perfectly suited to the character of the dish. They finally settle to agree that the chef has had overall a very good hand in this rustic dish.
And the scallops, once again, are cooked really well, with the smoked haddock chowder a great match, repeating the style of rich and strong but balanced flavours. We are very happy with the portion size, too.
(We accompanied all this with two portions of green veggies, cooked properly crispy, at £5.50).
Let’s go for desserts:
- Rice pudding (£5.25)
- Crème brulee (£6.25)
The pudding is well prepared, creamy and not stodgy: well, so Man says, fuelled by the almonds Woman violently disagrees, she does find it quite a tad too stodgy. The preserved cherries hidden inside are good but feel a little cloying, maybe some contrasting flavour would have be appropriate.
The crème brulee is excellent: here the fat cream is well contrasted by the passion fruit. And those crumbly shortbreads, and that chocolate-covered orange: how yummy and how much more interesting do they make this dish!
We didn’t drink wine but Arran Ale this time (2 pints at £7.50). Tap water is happily brought to your table, and only a 10% service charge is added. So we end up with a reasonable £80.85.
The service is young, friendly, cheerful. The only snag in the atmosphere were some very rowdy customers (who ended their dinner by removing a pole from somewhere and – kindergarten style - pretending to enhance their masculine attributes with them), and which underlines conclusively that this is not a ‘fine dining’ place. But at the same time it is very clear that in the Creeler’s kitchen there isn’t a McDonald hamburger flipper but a very respectable professional indeed, who is in full control of the strong flavours he wraps his dishes in, and who can cook the fish itself very sympathetically. So it happens that the good raw material is not simply put on the plate, but is prepared here even with some interesting culinary ideas, while still maintaining the character of rusticity and simplicity. We were happy that night at Creeler’s, and we suggest you take a try yourselves if you happen to be in the vicinities and are in a fishy mood.
Then, in comes the Roast Shellfish Platter - it is choke full with
seafood, from lobster to crab, mussels, langoustines, cockles, razor
clams, you name it, it's there. The picture don't do justice to the
generosity of the platter, below you have our two views:
