Being charmed by Edinburgh, Land of Disappointment

So. . . uhhh, Edinburgh.
.

The view from the front of a double-decker will never disappoint me.

This is the point where I'm going to depart from the one-to-two-posts-per-day-about-specific-things format.  For a couple reasons:

1) I'm home now (Editor's note from an airport lounge: [bitter, psychotic laughter]), and writing these is time consuming.  Often in past trips the last few days have always languished in unwritten-purgatory.  It's quite sad.  So I'm trying to make this easy to finish up rather than just making it seem like I'm still in Scotland until whenever I travel next.

2) There was a theme throughout my time in Edinburgh with Rachel that became so consistent, it was almost funny, despite starting out pretty heartbreaking.

The theme was "You can't have that.  Sorry.  Here's something else you never would have found if not for the failure of your Plan A."

The "something else" was delightful and charming in its own way.

And this happened again.

And again.

And again.

These people intend to ask Edinburgh public servants to act as their pallbearers, so the city can let them down one last time.

Allow me to list the things we'd planned for Edinburgh.

- Dance! Go to a specific Scottish dance (a Ceilidh, pronounced "Kaylee") on Tuesday night that Rachel had been to in the before-times on her last trip and was very excited to revisit.

- Gin and Tonic Sommelier! Visit a specific bar Rachel remembers doing incredible things with Gin and Tonics by interviewing you and then making you custom drinks based on your answers.

- Gin! Buy a bottle of a particular Gin (Daffie's) for Rachel's sister, who had grown very fond of it while living in Scotland and who had not been able to find it in the states.

- Ice Cream! Visit Mary's Milk Bar, an Ice Cream restaurant my partner Karen had sung the praises of for its remarkable flavors.

Beyond these, we figured we'd wing it.

Every one of these proved impossible.  

- Dancing is full: The Ceilidh, it turns out, has become wildly popular since 2019, and is now SOLD OUT, weeks in advance, despite just being a weekly dance?  Absolutely wild. We'd never seen anything like it, and since it was a weekly it didn't occur to us at any point to buy tickets in advance.  I mean, who does that?

- Sommelier gone: The Hermitage bar's brilliant custom Gin and Tonic nerd has moved on, and their bartender now recommends Bombay Sapphire when asked for a gin recommendation.

It's still a very pretty bar though.

- Sorry Mario, your gin no longer exists: Daffie's is no longer being produced and it is suspected that there isn't a bottle for sale left in the city.

- Ice Cream has Melted. Mary's Milk Bar experienced a random Freezer failure in the past few weeks and was closed until literally the moment we left the country (This is not hyperbole -- they re-opened at 11AM Friday, our flight out for Heathrow was scheduled to begin boarding at 11:05).

In addition, we attempted to make a couple of plans of our own throughout the two days we were there.

- Japanese dinner!  We tried to make plans at "Aki", a restaurant that was supposed to have pretty good Udon soups.  When we arrived we found the restaurant in perfect condition but mysteriously closed,  without explanation.
- French Lunch. We tried to have lunch at "Chez Jules" a French restaurant with good reviews (comically packed at 13:20 on a Thursday, would have been an hour wait for a table).

It was as if Edinburgh had decided that if we made ANY plan, it was ordained that the plan must fail.

However--and this was truly wild-- everywhere we turned when plans went awry, we found another thing, different, remarkably pleasant, sometimes event better than what we'd planned.

So,

Dance: After having our Ceilidh hopes dashed, a bit of frantic sidewalk facebooking turned up a Blues Dance Edinburgh group, which had a post from mere hours earlier announcing a very last minute dance in a cellar bar just south of the Meadows, which proved to be warm and welcoming and we had some lovely dances there.  We would never have known it existed if we'd tried to plan it earlier because it was announced that very morning.

What's this?

 

 It's a tiny basement bar full of my people!

 

Gin Sommelier: The Hermitage had a Gin I had been hoping to try, and we felt no hesitation ordering it since we were on our own recognizance.

 

Glaswegin's bottle design is maybe my favorite bottle design I've seen in recent memory, gutsy and simple and aggressively pandering to a hipster design aesthetic I can't help but appreciate. It reminded me of this excellent XKCD.

Where has all the Gin gone? : Stopping by a local Gin store not only helped us find an alternative to Daffie's, it also meant I could find a small bottle of Glaswegin, as well as a bottle of the delicious Hills and Harbour, which I found very pleasant and brought home with me.

Ice Cream: Ok, here technically we struck out.  The alternative whiskey-infused ice cream we found also had raspberry in it, and the ripple they used was much, much too sweet.  Technically I can't chalk this up as a victory for Edinburgh.  But after a couple of weeks chock-full of indulgent food, it served as a good reminder that "More isn't always better, Linus, sometimes it's just more."

Aki closure: Aki being closed led us to discover that Edinburgh has an Izakaya restaurant that specializes in Omurisu ("Home rice")?!  Which is a bit like having a restaurant that specializes in easy comfort food exclusively.  In my family it would be like finding "Garbage Eggs" as a the house special on the menu.

The food was incredible.  We were pretty hungry by the time we got there, but . . . damn.

Best okra I've ever had in a restaurant.  Full stop.

(They also had a really good cocktail called an "Iwakura Accomplishment" with Gin, Plum Sake, Green Chartreuse, and Vanilla.  Definitely might spend some time trying to replicate it).

The house Specialty was delicious.

And Chez Jules having an hour-wait sent us wandering down the street, where we stumbled past a deafening jackhammer on Thistle Street directly into Cafe Marlayne, which seemed to have a total of three women working (one front of house, one sous chef, and the owner), they served us the best French meal I've had since Bistro De Voraces in Lyon in 2019.  Absolutely divine.

 Still open for business, and had (blessedly) thick walls and window glass.

Wild Garlic Soup

Sea Bream -- Incredible and on a perfect bed of greens

Almond Frangipane with Rhubarb.  So, so, good.

And along the way we had several lovely little unplanned moments as well -- I've posted pictures of some of them.

And on the last night, we had a lovely dinner of Mussels in a restaurant near our hotel, and decided that despite the million setbacks, Edinburgh had been a lovely experience, and we were glad to have had it.

We still clean up nice.