Pictured above is MadChauffeur, aka as MadPriest, aka Fr Jonathan Hagger, who blogs at Of Course I Could Be Wrong.... When I requested permission to use his picture and told him that the stars of the post would be langoustines, he insisted that if I used his picture, he had to be at the head of the credits, and there he is with his wonderful suntan. Foxy, isn't he? (Psst...his blog is well-titled, as he is often wrong.)
MadChauffeur was the driver for the greater part of our trip in the Northwest of Scotland last August. Links to my other posts on the travels of the Mad Three, MadChauffeur, Cathy, and me, may be found on the right sidebar under the heading "Scotland".
Pictured below are the stars of the post, the mouth-watering, to-die-for langoustines which we ate at Glenuig Inn on the Arisaig Sound. The proprietor, Steve, who was also a bit of a fox, even though he was bald, told us that the langoustines went from the water into the pot. That's how fresh the delicious shellfish were.
The Glenuig Inn offers contemporary-style accommodations, which are nothing fancy, but quite comfortable and clean, and the proprietors make much of being green, which is a good thing, surely. The restaurant serves delicious food, and it is there that I fell madly in love with the savory taste of langoustines. I didn't order them for my first meal, but MadChauffeur did, as a starter, I believe, with only about 6 in his dish, but he didn't like them, so he gave me his leftovers. How could he not like them?!!! Well, you can be sure that for my next meal I ordered langoustines, and perhaps for every meal after that, except breakfast, while we stayed at the inn. As you see below, the buildings are nondescript, but the setting at the end of nowhere is gorgeous.
For most of our stay there, we didn't spend a lot of time at the inn, except in the evening, for we used it as a jumping off spot to visit other places.
Below are the lovely flowers at the front door of the restaurant/pub part of the inn. We saw gorgeous flowers in gardens and pots all over the places we traveled in Scotland.
The adorable boy with auburn curls and a couple of sheep, along with beautiful scenery which surrounds the inn on every side are pictured below.
See the adorable sheep crossing in front of the inn. Cathy, the prime wildlife photographer in our group, was in heaven when the sheep approached, although cows are her first love.
MadChauffeur left us stranded without wheels for a day, as he headed home to Newcastle, so, since Cathy and I did not want to spend money on an expensive taxi into Mallaig, we entertained ourselves in the vicinity of the inn. We wanted to take a nature walk, but it rained all morning, so we were confined indoors, except for a pleasant lunch at the tea shop just a way up from the inn - pleasant except for the moment when a woman at the next table knocked a floor lamp over onto me. Fortunately, only the shade hit me, but I had raspberry-flavored tea all over my jeans.
On the way to the tea shop, we passed the old church pictured below.
The weather cleared in the afternoon, and Cathy and I walked to a beach on a lake (I believe it was a lake, but I'm not sure. It was water, water, everywhere.) not far from the inn, where we had a lovely, peaceful, soothing sit-down in view of the beautiful surroundings.
Note: I'm told the body of water was very likely an inlet of Arisaig Sound.
We sat on rocks just above the scene pictured below. There's something about a beach....
Here I am in the restaurant at the Arisaig Inn. You can see MadChauffeur's shoulder and side, but I feared he'd think more than one photo of himself de trop, so I cropped him out.
The picture to the left has nothing to do with our time in Arisaig, but I found the photo when I was searching for a picture of langoustines, and I could not resist posting it here. It's a Scottish dish called Tian of White Crab. I had the starter at a restaurant in Tobermory upon the recommendation of MadChauffeur, and, once again, it was food for the gods, food to die for. Can you tell I'm a foodie? Have I rhapsodized enough over the food in Scotland for you to know how much I enjoy good dining?The following morning, Cathy and I left for the Isle of Skye, where we hired a car, and Cathy drove for the rest of our trip. Several posts on our travels and dining on the Isle of Skye may be found in the list under the "Scotland" heading on the sidebar.
