Cookie Restaurant Review

Cookie http://www.cookiescotland.com/ is a newish restaurant in walking distance from my flat. I've been passed and it looked nice so I was keen to try it and suggested Kiki and myself go for breakfast when she was staying at mine last weekend.

Initially we thought it was closed as there was no one inside except staff but we checked the opening times on the door and it opens at 10am on a Sunday and this was now 11:30. Open an hour and a half and the waitress seemed surprised, nay, horrified when we entered and when we asked if we could sit anywhere she asked in a panicked way if we were just having coffee.We said we were hoping for breakfast and were duly seated and given a rather unclear menu. 'What is a stornoway stack?' Kiki asks 'Scrambled eggs' says the waitress 'no it's not' she then says 'what is it?' she asked the chef who tells us that it is french toast, stornoway black pudding and a poached egg.

Waitress: 'The black pudding is lovely'
Kiki: 'Well we're both vegetarian'
Waitress: 'oh, well it's really lovely'
Me: ' It doesn't matter how lovely it is, we are still not going to have it'
Waitress: 'Oh but it's really nice'

She brings us some water and we peruse the menu a bit more - highlights include 'Jams at £1.50 which I hope means a whole jar.

Then we are asked to move to another table in the entirely empty restaurant as the one we are sitting at is reserved from 12:30. ridiculous but we had already whispered to each other that we had been sat at the worst table in the place so we moved.

Then we decided that the menu was over priced and offered a poor choice for vegetarians so we decide to just have coffee and go to tapa http://www.tapabakehouse.com/ for  a full veggie breakkie instead.

We order our coffee (It was very nice btw) then a man comes over to remove our cutlery and grumbles that he thought we were eating what was wrong? Kiki says 'you don't have much choice for vegetarians'

Man- almost shouting: 'The risotto is vegetarian'    which frankly proves our point that there is not much for vegetarians.

I say 'we wanted breakfast though'  I mean who eats risotto at 11:30? why would we pay to go somewhere where we are told what we are to eat when tapa just round the corner has several choices? Why were we pretty much told it was coffee only and grudgingly allowed breakfast when risotto was almost forced upon us?

why why why?

Long Weekend

I had lots of exciting and wonderful plans for the Easter long weekend. Then I woke up with a headache on Friday morning - and then was sick - and the headache didn't go away until late Monday afternoon.

Friday I wanted to spend allotmenting then was going to dine at Pinxto on Dumbarton Road then go see Alice in wonderland in 3d at the IMAX with other ex-nightshift peoples - Nightshift in Imaxland or The Kofi-Club Convention we were calling it.

I had to cancel because of stupid speweyness.

Friday night late my cousin Kiki arrived from London so we could go to the Hinterland music festival - I'd been really looking forward to it but was most excited about DJs especially Coolly G. I couldn't stay awake that long but was still able to enjoy some bands and did have a nice day and it was cheap as I was alcohol free. Best bands for me were Panda Su and Jeffery Lewis. Top highlight being Jeffery Lewis's Gangster Mosquito killer rap. Fast talking more than rapping I suppose but it was rather impressive all the same.

Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEM4RsfKO5c


Sunday was supposed to be mine, Lynne and Claire's last ever Optimo as there are only four more to go. I met them at Stereo for Pecan pie and juice and got cds of the Berlin photos so I can write a Belated Berlin blog now that I can illustrate it.

The queue for Optimo was so long there was no way anyone was getting in - but it was nice to see the Macmillans regardless. Sad that we didn't get an official last Optimo though.

Monday I went to my allotment to plant my potatoes and lo and behold they were already planted by allotment fairies. It's really nice to have someone giving me a hand and much appreciated but when someone else is deciding what goes where it's difficult. I feel that I'm trespassing on my own plot now. I hope to see him next time I'm up so I can pay for the new path and also see what he's been doing. I don't want to be planting stuff and then have him dig it up because he thinks that he's being helpful.

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Glasgow Film festival

On Thursday, my very stylish friend Lynne and I went to a warehouse in deepest darkest Finnieston (SWG3) for a screening of the award winning documentary 'Comrade Couture' http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8037215.stm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYSuQktGgCc

The film was good but they had a problem with the subtitles and even when they got sorted the big haired girls in front of us meant we couldn't see them, fortunately Lynne and I understand enough German to have an idea of what was going on, I'm going to try to rent the dvd to watch again though mit subtitlen.

The location was perfect for a film documenting an underground culture and was sponsored by red bull so there was free rum and red bull cola.

the film screening was followed by a fashion show from Edinburgh based 'noir' the fashion the clothes were nice but the too skinny models were a bit distracting - so many teeth and bones. I have no problem with skinny people it's unhealthy looking that I don't like.

there was also a warehouse party but it was nearly 11 when the fashion show ended and it was freezing and there weren't enough people about to film the huge space.

Art and pretention

Ina and his Hag (that's me) went to an exhibition opening in the Tramway yesterday evening.

http://www.tramway.org/


We didn't dig the art too much, One was a woman you made collages that as Ina said children he'd worked with at the royal blind school had made more visually arresting pieces. There was one photo of a building which we both kinda liked and one that from far away we thought was a woman shouting through the wrong end of a megaphone to her partner, We thought that symbolised that she felt that he didn't listen to her. On closer inspection the megaphone was a random triangle randomly behind them - stupid.

Sometimes when you read the blurb, work that you didn't initially think was pretty can turn out to be really interesting, this blurb read like someone desperate to think up something to say about the work that, frankly I'd be embarrassed to put a frame round had I made it myself.


Exhibit two was a film about the guy who invented(?) Delorean cars, Mr Delorean, we watched a tiny bit of it, from the back so we couldn't hear properly and say Northern Irish men with porn taches boring us to tears.

Despite the poor quality of the art work on display the evening was not all at a loss four free glasses of cava, for a start and a montage of bad hair to slag off made for a very fun evening.

Also, when did ridiculously oversized glasses become a 'movement' one girl looked like the love interest from 'The Secret of my Success' seriously huge glasses, like Deirdre form Corrie.

Also everyone looked like they should be called Tarquin or Octavia, or at least wanted to be called that but were in fact sam, paul and elsie from the gorbals.

As we were by far the best looking people in the room, natch! we thought we play along and air kissing and darlings! spouted forth from betwixt our lips, as did choice comments (memorised from the artists blurbs) about the role of women in the preceding decades when people walked past.

This did backfire somewhat when a woman asked if she could record our comments for a radio show and we pretended to be too modest, this wasn't helped by Ina declaring that I would be fabulous at it as I have so many insightful and interesting things to say.

I don't think the comments they were looking for were "that guy looks like an ugly Rupert Everett with awful teeth"