Sunday 1 January 2006

Great small retreat

If you ever go across the sea to Ireland .......... no, that's not right. If you ever drive across the Atlantic over on the West Coast just below Oban, you will come to what I think is one of the nicest little communities I have seen.
Whilst there are shops and a ferry point together with a RIB ride that is very white-knuckle, it has always looked to me as if it were some cast-ashore Marie Celeste. Hussle and bussel is there none. What is there is a very fine oyster bar. Not just oysters as they do some very serious cooking of fish - including a free meal if you can eat all of the 1 metre-long fish that it consists of. Just measure that out on the desk now and imagine! It is wide in proportion; nothing like a metre long eel which would be a cheat.
Having mentioned the Seil oyster bar, I have to acknowledge that there is a (only slightly) better bar over on Loch Fyne.
This is the one that gets all the publicity. Prescott or some other politico stopped there and, if 'twere he, doubtless cleared the kitchen and stock room of food. That does not spoil it for us. Whilst menu and cooking are to die for, I go just for the service. Nearest thing I'll ever get to living like a King. I do not think we have ever been there and not ended up in conversation with other patients at tables nearby. I say patients as it is just that - a place for looking after people.
Enough - Tourist Board can do their own work. Just add - my idea of a Big Boys Birthday would be lunch at Seil and dinner at Loch Fyne with a very snorty Porsche so as to be able to get from one to the other with some detours. But then - that opens up the fish place in Oban and the steak place there and, and, and. Well, maybe two Big Boys Birthday days.

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