The Sacred Art of Eating

Would you find Dougal and I eating Cream Tea (well, that was Dougal) whilst huddling under an umbrella in the lashing Edinburgh rain. Hey, it was nice when we sat down! The location was Eteaket, one of a number of trendy new ‘tea boutiques’ (tea is the new coffee you know! or is it the new cocktail?) to have sprung up in Edinburgh in the last year.

We’ve never managed to get a table before but then we’ve never accepted one outside before either. The experience was a bit hit and miss though, so I don’t know how much of a hurry I’ll be in to go back. Both our sandwiches (Dougal’s mature cheddar with smoked ham as part of his cream tea, mine a New York Deli Pastrami & Swiss) were on slightly dry bread- like it had been sliced for a while. And we had to wait an absolute age for our teas (a lapsang souchon for Dougal, Ceylon Lovers Leap for me- both delicious!) because of a broken down dishwasher. I realise this is the Fringe, as busy as they’ll ever be, but if your dishwasher breaks down you call in all your off staff and pull out all the stops. A Tea Place that can’t bring tea with food? I wonder if the dry bread related to the dishwasher problem- all sliced in advanced to get staff onto dish washing duty rather than made up at the time.

So the wait for the tea rather took away from the joy at the dainty cups or Dougal’s very pretty afternoon cream tea. There were also tray bakes, a (admiteddly very nice!) scone with thick cream and what tasted like home-made strawberry jam, and a mini cupcake. I got the mini cupcake cos Dougal only as a wee appetite. And the salad with my sandwich had been a bit wee for my liking. More like a rocket and tomato garnish, boo.

And yeah, after a while the rains came on. But it was largely vertical rain and it wasn’t cold out, so we hid under our brollies whilst the girls next to us through the window lol’d. Good Stuff.

Video below, shot by Ednbrg, illustrates some more ‘only in the Fringe’ behaviour….tourists being practically blown away on the Royal Mile whilst watching entertainers that they can barely hear for the howling gales. Still, I love it.

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