Hi Everyone!

I'm writing this post rather late, almost 3 months late, but rather late than never I guess!

Aaron and I went to Edinburgh in February, the trip was a Christmas present to myself and Aaron from Aaron's dad and step mum, they paid for our return train tickets (First Class on the way back) and for our stay at The Witchery By The Castle, which is a historical, luxurious, 5 star hotel and restaurant.

The Witchery By The Castle get's it's name from being located extremely close to Edinburgh's famous castle, (you walk outside and the castle is right there) and because of the Witches that were burnt at the stake and now haunt the area and the castle. The Witchery was the perfect hotel for us (Aaron's family know us so well!)
We stayed in the Guardroom, which was more of a suit than a hotel room. The suit was filled with antiques, unique items, and armour, hence the room being called 'Guardroom'. Once you entered there was an entrance area with seating and a huge bucket full of ice containing still and sparkling water, but also to our delight a large bottle of ice cold champagne! There was a long hallway which led us to three rooms, the dining room/living room, the bathroom, which contained a beautiful deep bath and heated flooring, and then the final room, the bedroom, which contained a huge four-post bed, I have made a video tour of this beautiful hotel room, I feel my words wouldn't do the room justice, so if you want to see for yourself then CLICK HERE
The last thing I want to mention about The Witchery (as this post is meant to be about food) is the incredible service, the staff were so polite, friendly, helpful, and they all looked the part too! I couldn't have asked for better service!

DAY ONE:

When we arrived in Edinburgh we dropped our case off at the hotel, as we couldn't check in yet, then proceeded to head straight to the castle. The train takes around three hours to get to Edinburgh and from what I remember we hadn't eaten yet (as we got a super early train), we thought it would be a great idea to get breakfast at the castle, turns out the breakfast service hadn't begun yet and it was already 10am, we'd been up early and travelling and decided not to wait for their breakfast service and grabbed what was already there, which was cakes and buns, I had carrot cake which was delicious and Aaron had a raspberry and white chocolate bun, we both had a hot chocolate, however, I didn't drink mine.


We walked around the castle grounds,  read about it's history, time quickly passed by and it was time for lunch, we left the castle and whilst walking around trying to see what may take our fancy, we stumbled upon a small blue french restaurant called Maison Bleue, the food here was beautiful and for the price, you could not grumble! I believe it was £11 for two courses! The waiter was a Spanish gentleman who was so bubbly, chatty and yet again, couldn't do enough for us! Aaron and I ordered the same starter, curried mussels, I always have garlic mussels and would have never thought to have curried mussels, but they were amazing, so flavourful! For my main I had tagliatelle with pesto, aubergine and tomatoes, yet again so yummy! and Aaron had a burger, which he also raved about! Would definitely recommend for a cheap delicious meal!


After finishing our meal we could finally see our hotel room! We went straight to The Witchery, and were simply amazed by our room and decided that we didn't really need to go out for tea, we had a large dinner and we really wanted to soak in what our hotel room had to offer. We had a lush bath bomb bubble bath together with the champagne, then headed to the bedroom and ordered some food from Uber Eats, we ordered from a place called Bread Meats Bread, Aaron had their classic burger with fries (yes, he had burgers for dinner and tea, why not) and I had their buffalo chicken poutine, I love chips and gravy, I did wish there was less buffalo sauce with my meal as there was a lot of liquid going on, but I guess I should have just ordered the classic poutine, regardless, I did enjoy it. Then for dessert, we shared a Baskin-Robbins waffle, with whipped cream, birthday cake and cookies n cream ice cream! SUPER YUMMY, it was warm and gooey and just really good! (we ate the food on the bed whilst watching a film, that's why there's a towel laid down)



DAY TWO:

When we checked into The Witchery they gave us an option to have the continental breakfast or full Scottish breakfast, we went for the continental as we didn't want to have a huge breakfast and I'm the awkward one who doesn't eat most meats, anyway, they also said that they could leave our breakfast outside of our suit door in a basket if we wanted more privacy or they could set it up on the table in the dining room in our suit, as our bed was in a completely different room we didn't mind the staff coming into the living room area whilst we were asleep to set up the breakfast, it was actually a lot of fun to wake up to a table full of breakfast food, there was different kinds of cereal, passion fruit yogurt that came in a jar, croissants, pain au chocolat, pineapple, passion fruit, grapefruit, orange, kiwi, melon, a selection of cheese's, a selection of cured meats, a selection of preserves, orange juice, apple juice, cranberry juice (my personal favourite) and tea! It was a delicious breakfast, it was a great feeling just to wake up to it being there and just being able to chill in our robes!


After breakfast we got ready for the day and visited the local museum's, art galleries, and walked to this wonderful cafe for lunch called The Pantry, this cafe is one of the places that I wish were local to me, I think about the food I had there and feel disappointed that I can't have it more often. I had a Eggs Royale, which consisted of some of the best salmon I've ever had, it was incredible! Egg's Royale is toast or an English muffin, in this case it was toast, smoked salmon that is more commonly served raw but this salmon was cooked, poached eggs, and hollandaise sauce! Aaron had the same but instead of salmon he has molasses braised short rib, Aaron say's his meat was tender and delicious! And to drink Aaron had a hot chocolate and I had a gingerbread latte. This cafe was cosy and had a unique vibe to it!


We spent the rest of the day sight seeing and eventually collected our case from The Witchery and checked into the Premier Inn on Princes Street for our final night, we got freshened up and ready for the meal we were so excited for, this was only restaurant that we booked in advance, The Ship on The Shore!
Finding the best seafood platter and the best seafood in general is something Aaron and I seek for wherever we go! As most seafood restaurants we visit, I found them on Instagram, when we go somewhere new I search for hashtags such as #edinburghfood #edinburghseafood #edinburghlobster, it's the best way to see how their food actually looks and most people only tend to share pictures of their food on Instagram if it's good, so that's why I prefer to find restaurants that way.
The Ship on The Shore is a very lively restaurant, it's formal but casual, if you're looking for a quiet meal then this isn't the place, the atmosphere in the restaurant is wonderful, you can hear people talking, laughing, just having a great time with great food!
We ordered their seafood platter and it was huge! Whole lobster, scallops, crab claws, langoustines, clams, baked oysters, and a ridiculous amount of mussels in a creamy garlic sauce, I've never eaten so many mussels in my life, it was incredible! I would happily eat this every week!
We finished our meal with a trio of desserts to share, aka The Love Boat, sticky toffee pudding, cheesecake, creme brûlée and a scoop of vanilla ice cream.


DAY THREE: 

The third and final day!
On the last day we slept in late, had a shower, got ready and packed our case ready to head home!
As we woke up late we'd missed breakfast and it was dinner time anyway, so we did a quick search to see if we could get our last seafood fix for our trip and found a place called Fishers in the City!
I had a starter of salmon and smoked haddock cream chowder, it was so good, even Aaron liked it and he doesn't like soup! For my main I had lobster thermidor, one of my favourites and I was very pleased, it was filled with lobster and a delicious thermidor sauce, Aaron had the surf n turf and for dessert I had a earl grey panna cotta with poached pears! I can't remember what Aaron had for dessert, it was this chocolate hazelnut ice cream thing, but with a fancier name.
The restaurant was a lovely but it was the busiest restaurant that we went to, so it didn't have that personal vibe to it, maybe on a quieter day it may be more chill, be the at the time we visited it did feel more of a rushed atmosphere, but I cannot complain about the food, the food was lovely!


It was then time to catch our train home!
We travelled in first class on our way home, unlimited drinks and snacks, but it's the sandwich that they gave us that we need to talk about, it's simply up there with the best sandwiches I've ever had, yes, a pre wrapped train sandwich is one of the best, it was a Bloody Mary Prawn Mayo sandwich, it was just so good, it had a little kick to the sauce, not overly spicy but enough so that it gave it extra flavour and I wish I could buy it in stores, but I can't. They also gave us a toffee muffin and some crisps!



Aaron and I had a wonderful time in Edinburgh and would love to return one day! This blog post makes it look like we ate a lot of food and that's because we did, we both bond over food together and have an appreciation for great food, that's why we fit in as much as we can in new places, so we can experience as much as we can from what they have to offer!