Taste Test

Taste Test - Take-away margherita pizzas

19 Jun 2008

The Italian Kitchen •••• 64 Ingram Street, Glasgow, 0141 572 1472, www.italian-kitchen.co.uk Takeaway only. Pizza Margherita £6.95 Pizza is a simple thing, so getting the basics right is important. This one has a nicely chewy but crusty thin base…

Taste Test - Edible flowers

10 Sep 2009

Nasturtium With their brilliant sunset colours and distinct peppery flavour, these are probably the most popular edible flower. They’re very easy to grow from seed and are common on the fringes of veg patches or hanging baskets. The flowers have a…

Taste Test - Meat Pies

17 Jul 2008

Gregg’s Scotch Pie Gregg’s, various outlets, Scotland wide 70p We couldn’t do a meat pie test without saying ‘aye’ tae a pie – a traditional Scottish mutton pie, that is. The hot water crust pastry is crunchier and more robust than the flakier…

Taste Test - Posh cheese and onion crisps

13 Mar 2008

Tyrells Mature Cheddar & Chives, 50g, 65p Kember & Jones, 134 Byres Road, Glasgow; Jenners, 48 Princes Street, Edinburgh The classy looking, see-through packaging looks promising, but these hand-cooked crisps are over fried and over flavoured. The…

Taste test: Vodka made in Scotland

It's not all whisky here

22 Oct 2009

Grafitti, Pincer, Glen's, Blackwood's, Straight Strawberry, Raspberry Vodka

Taste Test - Instant porridge

27 Nov 2008

Ready Brek Original • Various stockists including Tesco, Morrisons and Asda. £1.89 for 750g. Tasting like mushy Weetabix and looking a lot like Polyfilla, this soggy and bland excuse for porridge is awful. Its one redeeming feature, a smooth and…

Taste test - Halloween vegetables

16 Oct 2008

Pumpkin Maybe it’s the colour or maybe it’s the size but pumpkins are becoming demonised as the embodiment of America’s crass commercialisation of Halloween. It’s not even that they’re imported: most of those in the shops are British grown. Makes for…

Taste Test - Smoothies

5 Jun 2008

Innocent Mango and Passion Fruit Smoothie ••• RS McColl, St James Centre, Edinburgh, £1.89 for 250ml Mango overload! A tangy, tropical taste is left in your mouth which could be quite refreshing on a hot day. It may be pure but you should expect a…

Taste Test - Chicken sandwiches

22 May 2008

Fresssh 51–53 Cochrane Street, Glasgow, £2.80 •• Sweet chilli sauce gives this sandwich a bit of oomph – something it probably needed given the bland cubed chicken and plain bread. The fire in the chilli is under control, which is probably sensible…

Taste test: Mince pies

The best mince pies evaluated from Peckhams, Tesco, Marks And Spencer and more

13 Dec 2011

Peckhams Mince Pies ●●●● Fluffy pastry and a top-notch mincemeat filling make this a tasty treat from one of Scotland’s best deli staples. Sure, the pastry may seem heavy to some, but it is Christmas, so why not indulge yourself? Tesco Mince Pies…

Taste Test: Biscuits

23 Jul 2009

Duchy Original’s Sweet Oaten and Heather Honey • 12 biscuits (150g) for £1.99 With the Duchy crest stamp there’s an refined elegance to this one, though whether it’s more than an upmarket digestive is open to question. As with a number of Duchy…

Taste Test: Cider

9 Jul 2009

Thistly Cross Cider Belhaven Fruit Farm, from Edinburgh Farmers’ Market and Cornelius Beers and Wines, 18–20 Easter Road, Edinburgh, £2.70 •••• Scotland’s first cider from the makers of Belhaven Fruit Ice, this cider is described as ‘Scottish and…

Taste Test - Energy food for cycling

11 Jun 2009

Banana £0.30, fruit shops everywhere. ••••• Good old-fashioned natural food and what all energy products are trying to recreate in their caffeine or carbohydrate pumped products. Combinations of carbohydrates and B vitamins in bananas give a huge…

Taste test - Scottish Honey

5 Mar 2009

Honeyhill Bee Farm’s Scottish Heather Honey 454g, £5.49 at Peckhams With its toffee consistency, dark colour and distinctive rich taste, heather honey is one of Scotland’s unique foods, with bees spending July and August in the Grampian foothills…

Taste Test - Water

22 Jan 2009

Highland Spring - Still Spring Water ••• Various stockists, 330ml glass bottle around £1.30. Filtered through land certified as organic by the Soil Association, this is pleasant without being remarkable. While being a refreshing drink, it didn’t…

Taste Test - Carrots: Organic v Non-organic

18 Sep 2008

After potatoes, carrots are our most consumed vegetable; they are also a stalwart of the organic vegetable box scheme, so we decided to see what difference we could find locally available carrots. These ones came from a decent dedicated local…

Taste Test - Olives

24 Apr 2008

Osmin Olives Speciality Mixed From Bread & Olives, 17 Queensferry Street, Edinburgh Black olives are simply green olives that have been left longer on the tree to ripen further. Mixing olives can be one way to divert attention away from less…

Taste test: Christmas cake

The best Christmas cake evaluated, including Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and Morrison’s

15 Dec 2011

Waitrose Richly Fruited Xmas Cake. £16.99 ●●●● Nicely decorated and complete with an edible icing snowflake, this cake has a balanced and suitably delicious compliment of cake, icing and marzipan and is packed with fruit. Broughton Deli…

Taste test: Cranberry sauce

The best cranberry sauces from Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Morrison’s and more

13 Dec 2011

Hopetoun / Mrs. Bridges Cranberry Sauce with Port ●● This sauce from Mrs Bridges is so sweet and sugary, it’s a bit like eating your roast turkey with a side-order of jam. It does contain whole cranberries, but it just wasn’t saucy enough for our taste…

Taste test: Truffles

The best truffles from Waitrose, Peckham’s, Thorntons and more

13 Dec 2011

Seriously Chocolatey Truffles, Waitrose ●●● We like the creamy texture of these truffles from Waitrose, but sadly the taste doesn’t quite live up to the name. The flavour fails to pack a punch, though they are quite boozy – perhaps even a little too…

Taste test: Champagne

The best champagne evaluated, from Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Moet And Chandon, Tattinger and Waitrose

13 Dec 2011

Sainsbury’s Blanc De Blancs Champagne ●●● This is a light, if slightly forgettable offering from Sainsbury’s, but as a reasonably priced bottle of fizz, it’s decent enough bang for your buck. Morrisons Champagne Brut ●● There’s something a tad…

Taste test: Christmas Pudding

We track down the best from M&S, Lakeland, Coles and Tesco

28 Oct 2011

Marks & Spencer Classic Christmas Pudding £3.99 ●● This pudding does the job, but won’t make you too jolly. It has the bitterness of peel running through it, giving it the flavour of a fruitcake, is densely packed with raisins and there’s not a lot…

Taste test: The Scottish Café and Restaurant

10 Nov 2009

Porridge with berries and heather honey Porridge needn’t be grey wallpaper paste served as punishment. Salt should be included judiciously when cooking (as with bread), but John Knox doesn’t birl in his grave if you put sugar on it – though berries…

Taste test: Scottish-grown apples

Finding the very best potato of the sky

1 Oct 2009

Charles Ross October is the time for apples in Scotland – for this month at least you can stop buying the few familiar types of imported apple and choose from the hundreds of native varieties growing in orchards, parks and back gardens near you. The…

Taste Test - Delis

2 Apr 2009

Earthy 33–41 Ratcliffe Terrace, Edinburgh, 0131 667 2967, www.earthy.co.uk Mon–Fri 8.30am–7.30pm; Sat 8.30am–6pm; Sun 10am–5pm. This indie supermarket sells fairly-traded, local, seasonal and organic produce, from in and around Edinburgh. Choose…