La Passione, St Clair Street, Kirkcaldy

The 'lang Toun' isn't particularly well known as an exquiste culinary destination.  Sadly I have to say it did live up to it's reputation, a solid but unspectacular performer.

La Passione is an Italian restaurant, if you hadn't guessed located in an out of centre location in Kirkcaldy.  It is a converted pub, with its origins easily identifiable from the outside.  On approach to the restaurant, the menu was located high up on the window, where I doubt John Majors bionic eye could have read the menu without the aid of a stepladder.

On entering the restaurant it was clean and surprisingly spacious but it was neither a traditional rustic italian nor was it an attempt to be an upmarket restaurant.  The tables were covered by a thin cheap wipeable tablecloth with a further white paper tablecloth on top.  The chairs were also hard and uncomfortable, more a posh caf than an Italian Restaurant.

Fortunately the food was much better. I opted to keep it simple, spicy deep fried whitebait, though the spice was more in the creamy tomato dipping sauce, not the described spicy coating on the whitebait. Jax had brushetta with parma ham which she enjoyed and was quite tasty.

For mains I opted to go  for the house special, a Calzone pizza.  Whilst it wasn't what I'd normally eat, I thought what the heck, lets have a cholesteral overload tonight. The Calzone certainly hit the mark, but I would say it just climbed above average.  Though I was eyeing up Jax's Tagatella with capers, black olives and anchovies.

The service was fairly good and not overbearing. Our attempts to order a side of fries were in vain  with our waitress insisting that we had ordered ample of food, until we caught the eye of a different waiter. Upselling was certainly not her strong point, where she also advised us not to have an extra shot of coffee in a latte.  Intersting, I'm sure the proprietor would be impressed with this wonderful service. 

What I did find unpalatable was the waiter who swooped down on the table to pick up the tip faster than a flock of ravenous pigions in Trafalger Square after a discarded bag of chips!

I can overlook the Caf style layout, the food was pretty good, a solid 6.5 out of 10, the tip vulture I certainly can't.  Would I go again?  Only if I lived in Kirkcaldy, thank the Gods, I don't.............

Celebrity Chefs - Friend or Foe?

Can you remember when the only tv chef on the box was good old Delia telling us how to poach an egg or bake the perfect pastry. The explosion of tv chefs and cooking programs over the last 10 years has catapulted peoples' taste buds and knowledge of food through the roof. 

Gordon Ramsey, Jamie Oliver, James Martin, Heston Belumenthal, Nigella Lawson, Raymond Blanc and Michel Roux Jnr are all household names with regular tv shows and a plethora of cook books in the shops. 

But what did we do before Jamie was telling us what chickens to eat or Heston was opening our eyes to snail porridge?  What millions of us had done for years, we cooked and ate the food of our parents, learned from our eating experiences and had fun trying.I remember starting college in Edinburgh back in the 1990's, I had never tried Thai, Mexican or Moroccan before then - but what I can remember of the time (they were generally BYOB places) was that I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

I suppose I am going slightly off on a tangent but I'm just trying to convey that I learned to cook through trial and error and from family and experiences, not from what I watched on the tv. Don't get me wrong I think the food programs have made a difference especially when it comes to sustanability, knowing your food sources and just generally being aware of food of the different seasons.

But what I suppose is trying to say is where do we draw the line.... when will the celeb chef fall out fashion and people will go back to the traditional ways of learning to cook? When will chefs just now be chefs rather than celebrities.......When Delia won't be remembered for her "lets be 'aving you", James Martin for Strictly come dancing, AWT for his rant in the jungle, Tania for dancing on ice?

Oh one last thing can we have bagpuss back on BBC1 on Saturday mornings.

Food Guides

On Tuesday, the Godfather of the food guide world published there 2011 Guide for the UK, the "Michelin Guide".  I won't go into what I think of this guide this year, other than to say I thought the guide was extremely disappointing and I do wonder what the relevance of this French skewed guide now has on the culinary landscape of this country.  A good judge of the UK's best restaurants? I think not.  It's close but they won't get a big fat cigar and a pat on the back from me.

I could quite easily rattle of a few names who should be in it and who shouldn't, in my opinion.

I thought now would be a good time to give our opinion about these good food guides.

When I first started taking food seriously about 6 years ago I wanted to know where were all the good restaurants?  This 'Masterchef' programme on TV kept going on about 'Michelin Star' restaurants, so I thought to myself, lets start with this guide and see what its all about.  Having purchased my first (and so far only one) I set about looking for my nearest restaurants with this exclusive star.  Off we went to 'The Kitchin' in Leith for a meal.  We were not disappointed.

I started reading more about these guides.  It became obvious that a food guide is very subjective, one persons delight can quite equally be one persons horror.

I was well aware of how the AA Rosettes were coveted by the hotels I worked in when they achieved 1 or even 4 in some cases.  The 'Good Food Guide' next appeared on my radar, a quick check on Amazon and this was winging to me in the post, my they were certainly getting there monies worth from me. Who said Scots were tight?  Then the London centric 'Hardens'.  You could read yourself into oblivion if you let them.

The amount of information and different opinions was quite mind boggling at times.

Confused, I was after reading all these reviews of the same restaurant, generally if they say there good they generally are, but if you really wanted to know how good they are, go and find out for yourself.

We certainly will be!

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So what are we about?

This is our first blog, as you can guess its about the mundane and delicious subject of food and particularly the establishments who make a living trying to satisfy our taste buds.

About Us

We enjoy visiting new and varied restaurants in our area and much further afield.  From Michelin Star restaurants to the corner pub at the bottom of the road, every establishment is as important as the other, each serving there own unique clientele.

Usually we post reviews on tripadvisor, but we thought that now was a good a time as any to post a blog ourselves, just for fun and you never know it may be useful to someone one day.

Jackie is a superb home cook (I would have to say that I'm married to her) with a palette next to none.  Give her a bag of ingredients and watch the marvels she can put together without to much effort.

James spent many years in management in the hospitality industry and has a particulary strong eye for service standards and what really is good service and what is poor service.  He can also cook abit too.

We also tweet.

We will post our observations about our visits, as with most people, our laptop is a trusted reliable friend, always on hand when were on holiday.

In the coming weeks we'll start blogging our observations here, from local meals out to our London trip in March.