IF THERE’S one thing to snap you out of the holiday spirit it’s stepping on to a plane in glorious sunshine and stepping off in a snow storm.
But after the obligatory weep next to the baggage carousel, you’re supposed to get over it.
Two weeks of eating out are hard to let go of, especially faced with an empty fridge back home and a fiancee who is already scanning the internet for fresh holiday deals.
So we said “to heck” with the credit crunch and extended our holiday for one more night.
I started off with the intriguing-sounding chai tizo tea-smoked Barbary duck with Thai spiced panna cotta (£7.50).
The duck itself was beautifully tender but the Thai-spiced panna cotta was a disappointment. The creamy, rather bland taste did little for the duck except turn it into a quasi-dessert.
My fiancee’s scallops with black pudding (£7.95) and chive hollandaise was another dish that was delicious until she came to the unlikely addition on her plate – in this case a mound of minted petis pois and dill mousse. But even though the mint and pea flavour just couldn’t break free from the creamy mousse, at least the dish was saved by the gutsy black pudding, which evened things up on the flavour front.
For main, I chose roast belly of pork (£15.95), served with fondant potato, and cider and mustard sauce.
This was an almost perfect winter dish to get my body used to the freezing Aberdeen weather – hearty, fatty and rich. The sticky-sweet sauce cut through the unctuous, tender pork while the little balls of candied apple were like bullets of flavour.
My only gripe was that the crackling – a crucial ingredient in pork belly – was crack-less.
Across the table my fiancee had also forgotten about the disappointing starter and was loving her chicken breast with Madras-spiced haggis risotto (£14.95).
Not at all as overpowering as it sounded, the Indian spicing was restrained and, when combined with the Drambuie and rosemary cream sauce, created a true winter warmer.
We would both go back for that dish alone.
To finish we shared a bitter chocolate fondant with white chocolate ice cream (£4.75) which was a nigh-on perfect example of the pudding.
As we left the restaurant and gingerly negotiated the icy pavements, we realised our holiday was truly over.
Still, at least this meal eased the burden.