Eat Like Ushi

For our one evening in Portree, after scouring lots and lots of menus and searching for somewhere on Skye that is actually open in January, I settled upon Dulse & Brose. The menu had some local ingredients that I was looking forward to. Unfortunately they had other ideas, telling us at 7.15pm that they had closed their kitchen for the night.

And so the only place open and willing to serve was Cuchullin. Not a problem, it was warm and friendly and served by 2 lovely local lasses and their smiles.

- Steamed mussels (shallots, garlic, white wine broth) £13.5 for large - mild flavour;
- Battered haddock with Rooster chips £13.5 - very good fish although the batter was a bit soft. The Rooster chips (whatever they are) were outstanding skin on versions. The best I had in all the Scotland meals;
- 8oz sirloin steak (tomato, portobello mushroom, rooster chips, pepper sauce) £21 - after driving around and seeing local cattle I thought it was worth trying steak. One lass could tell me it was local (Scotland) but not if it was local (Skye). Hmmm. The meat was cooked to a nice rare for me as requested and although it wasn't very tender, the flavour was excellent with assumably just a bit of salt and pepper.

It was a good meal in cosy surroundings in a place that was willing to serve the winter visitors. Thank you.

In the small town of Carbost, there is a seafood place (this one), a brewery for whiskey, and a coffee shop that is closed for winter. Otherwise there's also the special views of the water, particularly enjoyable when eating fresh seafood at The Oyster Shed.

The shed itself has a variety of things to order from oysters in their farm shucked, to lots of different types of terrines made from each seafood type, and some other bits and pieces including frozen local meats.

- Oysters £8.5 for 6 - really good flavour, salinity and hint of metallic. The texture has a touch of bite and the size is medium;
- Scallops £10 for 7 - very large scallops, cooked perfectly with salt and butter. Tender, juicy and the best of the lot;
- Lobster tail £13 - a small tail that must shrivel a lot when cooked in the garlic butter (or they gave us a very small one) that tasted ok but wasn't as good as the scallops;
- Crab claws £6 for 6 - very cheap for these boiled and served cold bits. The meat was unexpectedly firm and quite dense. Not my taste.

The oysters and scallops are worth going back for. I'd probably try the langoustines next time too, since they are a local Skye specialty.