Mitchell, St Andrews - The Parentals are visiting!

My stepfather has never been to my flat before, and I've been in the same place for over a year now. They both drove up in the morning, had a cup of tea and then we jetted of for a walk around St Andrews.
I think overall St Andrews is a nicer place to stroll through compared to Dundee. It's a much more quaint town and it doesn't seem to be overrun with huge chain shops yet, which is a nice change to the city centre here.
We stopped for lunch at a place called Mitchell. This place just screams comfort from the outside. They had bags of fresh veg sitting outside and a deli up front with cheese, wine, meat, jams, chutneys, you name it! That's my personal idea of heaven. Inside had a rustic vibe with good basic food that was more about the produce than the complexity. Think anti pasti and big sandwiches.
I ordered a typical ploughman's with smoked ham, cheese and chutney. My mum had a classic breaded fish and chips and Steve pesto chicken. He had to avoid the gluten.
Afterwards we had a massive binge in the deli. I bought some pate, turkish delight, christmas coffee and stroopwaffels. My mum bought similar, but with a mulled cider spices for next weekend.

 I also had a hot chocolate as thats my go to drink when out for lunch. Mitchell luxury hot chocolate does not disappoint. I nearly died.

My 'haul' :

We headed back to the flat in the afternoon to watch the rugby, then went back out again for some dinner at Rishi's.
Rishi's is a new indian restaurant that has opened near me quite recently. They served the best pakora I've ever tried. Apart from that I spent the majority of the meal trying to work out what kind of fish was in my curry. Turns out it was kingfish so that was a new one for me!

Hope everyone else had a foodtastic weekend. I'm off to bake!

SYGN - thats not ketchup.

I went up to Edinburgh to see my friend Fiona for an afternoon of shopping and food. The latter being more important to us!

In the morning it was absolutely pouring down but it managed to clear up by mid afternoon, which was a nice surprise as we left the restaurant. 

Speaking of restaurants (not subtle), we went into a place called Sygn. This place was pretty ace, and was the highlight of the day. We had both never been before so it was a nice surprise inside. There was an american vibe with lots of vintage looking signs and awesome visual design on the menu's. The windows had this weird bottle display which I never got a good photo of, and inside they had an old school popcorn machine that made the place smell amazing.

In the end we were spoilt for choice so we ordered two burgers and had half of each. We chose chorizo & pork and the cajun chicken with a sharing side of halloumi. This was a good call. The place does mainly pizza, hotdogs, salads and nachos, but their portions and food are great. 

I think in the end the cocktail we chose was the 'Flying V', containing Tanqueray gin with cherry and violet liqueure, lemon and an absinthe rinse. It tasted a bit like liquorice. 

They also had a variety of sauces, one of which was definitely not ketchup but a rather spicy chilli sauce. I realised this too late, don't make my mistake!

The ranch was beautiful. 

Food talk over!

I would love to go back there actually and I know Fiona will be going back because she lives near. Lucky. 

After that we were pretty full and I decided to head back at around five so I was home in time for Doctor Who. I have my priorities!

I eventually got around to watching Submarine this evening. I remember reading a review of it in Total Film ages ago and making a mental note to give it a watch. The movie is set in Wales and directed by Richard Ayoade, who based it on the book 'Submarine' by Joe Dunthorne. I haven't read it yet but now plan too. 

Submarine is about a young boy called Oliver Tate who narrates the movie in his brilliant Welsh accent. I was going to give you a rundown of the story but I think I'm just going to post the book description from Amazon; 

'The dryly precocious, soon-to-be-fifteen-year-old hero of this engagingly offbeat debut novel, Oliver Tate lives in the seaside town of Swansea, Wales. At once a self-styled social scientist, a spy in the baffling adult world surrounding him, and a budding, hormone-driven emotional explorer, Oliver is stealthily (and perhaps a bit more nervously than he’d ever admit) nosing his way forward through the murky and uniquely perilous waters of adolescence. His objectives? Uncovering the secrets behind his parents’ teetering marriage, unraveling the mystery that is his alluring and equally quirky classmate Jordana Bevan, and understanding where he fits in among the pansexuals, Zoroastrians, and other mystifying, fascinating beings in his orbit.'

The movie wasn't what I expected it to be, but I must admit I loved it. What was the most fascinating to me was the way in which it was filmed. It had a very homemade, vintage feel too it. I particularly loved the scene where Jordana a takes pictures of them kissing for blackmail.

I recommend giving it a watch! 
I don't really do movie reviews on this blog but I wanted to mention this one because I loved it so much and thought it was quite a quirky and interesting film. 
If you watch it, I hope you enjoy it! 

(pictures are not mine obviously, I got them from google. ha.)