Treasure Cottage Chinese Takeaway

It's been over a year since my last Chinese Takeaway review, where does time go? Anyway, we came back from holiday and had a couple of fliers through the door, one from Treasure Cottage which we hadn't heard of before. The pictures looked pretty good, so we decided to make an order that night.

In a break from our usual Kung Po Prawn and Crisy Shredded Beef order, we branched out and went for a couple of dishes from the Chef's Special menu, Su Zhou Duck and Beef in Garlic Black Pepper Sauce as well as boiled rice and duck spring rolls. The whole thing came to around £15.

Delivery wasn't amazingly fast, but it was a Saturday night, so they were probably quite busy. The food was nice and hot when it did arrive though and we got free prawn crackers and because it's December, a free calendar.

The spring rolls were 3 medium thickness ones, I was a bit dubious at first because I'm not massively fond of the fatter spring rolls, but these ones were crispy and tasty.

The Su Zhou Duck came in a big round foil dish and in addition to a duck breast, there was also char su pork and prawns. The sauce was savoury and contained a fair amount of vegetables, mainly brocolli and mushrooms. There was a hint of ginger in there as well. Overall, pretty tasty.

The Beef in Garlic Black Pepper Sauce was super peppery and also very savoury, the sauce contained lots of vegetables, including more mushrooms.

All in all, Treasure Cottage was a hit, both the dishes were nice and a little bit different, however if we order from them again, I would be tempted to go for one sweet dish and one of these two as they were both very savoury.

Score: 4/5

Treasure Cottage, 54 Saughton Mains Gardens, Edinburgh : 0131 455 7638

Hot Hot, Home Street, Edinburgh

Last Thursday we were out in town and looking for somewhere to grab some tea, we had initially headed for the Lee-On Chinese restaurant in Bruntsfield to stuff ourselves on their ridiculously good value set meal. But while walking up Home Street, we noticed a place we must have walked past hundreds of times but never thought of going in.

Hot Hot serve a kind of Chinese hotpot, each table has a heater on it on which is placed a large bowl of broth (we got a special bowl split into half normal, half spicy). You are then brought a lot of raw food and you cook it at your table in the broth. It costs a flat fee (around £15 per person) for as much food as you can eat. The food provided ranges from reasonably normal to the exotic. Thinly sliced beef, lamb, pork, raw prawns, scallops, razor clams, kelp, tripe, mushrooms, potato and all sorts of other stuff I can't remember. Once cooked in the broth, you take it out and dip it in a range of special sauces.

The whole experience is great fun and the broth and sauces made the ingredients taste amazing, even if there was a fair amount of stuff I would probably never think of ordering.

Overall, something a bit different, but still tasty and you get a lot of food, Hot Hot is worth a try if you want something a bit more fun than other restaurants.

Score: 5/5/

Bonsai, West Richmond Street, Edinburgh

After the show yesterday we thought we'd head out for something to eat and as we were over at the South side, we decided upon Japanese from Bonsai. Bonsai was one of the first places I'd had Japanese food in Edinburgh and I think it's also one of the oldest Japanese places in the city. I hadn't been for a while mainly because I'm not over that side of town very often and so Sushi-Ya on Dalry road and Tang's on Candlemaker row are both a bit more convenient and are both pretty good anyway.

So, between the four of us we ordered up a feast consisting of Dragon Roll, Sashimi Platter, Teriyaki Beef, Yakisoba, Prawn and Salmon Nigiri, Wasabi Peas, Char-Sui bun, Mixed Tempura, Rice, Kim-Chi and Okonomiyaki. Everything was excellent and although the sashimi pieces seemed a little small, we were still pretty full once we'd eaten everything. I can especially recommend the Char-Sui bun and the Okonomiyaki. We followed this up with desserts (I had a chocolate torte).

Overall, Bonsai is pretty good and definitely one of the best Japanese restaurants in Edinburgh, it's just a shame it's over the other side of town from where I live.

EIFF 2010 - Day 4

Our first full day of films and with 5 to get through it proved to be a bit of a marathon. First up was New Zealand comedy Boy which was excellent. This was followed by the 1930's period piece The Red Machine. Third film for the day was another excellent movie, Monsters which is as much an emotional road trip tale as it is a monster movie. After a short break for dinner it was time for gritty prison drama R and then on to the pretty awful Outcast.

EIFF 2010 - Day 3

Day 3 and another 3 movies, first up was the massively disappointing Huge followed by yet another slow paced foreign film (in a good way). This time round it was Iranian drama The Hunter. We finished the evening with madcap Greek Zombie movie Evil in the Time of Heroes.

EIFF 2010 - Day 2

3 films yesterday at the second day of the Film Festival. First up, a slow paced family drama from France, Family Tree. Second, a slow paced drama from Hong-Kong questioning memories and identity, Fog. And lastly, a Dutch horror which although pretty generic, still had a few scares: Two Eyes Staring.

Another 3 films today, so hopefully some more interesting ones.

Levens - Thai Fusion

Levens in tollcross sits in what used to be Favorit, the restaurant has a big glass frontage with further seating in the back behind the bar. Modernly decorated the interior is bright and well presented.

While the menu is a little short, there were still a number of options which caught my eye, I opted for Umbrella Prawn to start followed by duck in red and green curry sauces. The starter consisted of a massive prawn served with a fried tofu sheet for the umbrella. There was a helping of some kind of sweet crunchy noddles on the side, overall very tasty.

The main course was more impressive, the dish was served in two halves, one with the red curry sauce and one with the green curry sauce. Each side had a helping of perfectly roasted duck breast as well as aubergine, pineapple and grapes. A portion of rice sat in the middle. The duck was excellent as were both the sauces which were different enough to warrant the separation and serving of both, highly recommended.

The dessert menu had the usual ice-cream/sorbet as well as some other desserts. I opted for the Taro creme brulee. The creme brulee was excellent and the layer of Taro (An oriental root vegetable) on the bottom complimented the sweetness of the top well, although there was a little too much of it for my liking.

Overall, in an area of town with a fair few Thai restaurants, Levens comes recommended, their blend of Thai and Western cuisine makes for some interesting dishes.

Shilla Korean Restaurant

Last Wednesday, Rosie and I went out for a meal for her birthday. We thought we'd try somewhere new and so I booked us a table at Shilla on Dundas Street. This Korean Restuarant is modernly decorated and seems to have a fair number of tables. At 7pm on a Wednesday it was quiet, but not completely empty.

The first thing that struck us was how extensive the menu was, I would happily have ordered pretty much any of the mains, and I feel like I have to go back to try some of the other options. We had grilled dumplings and Prawn skewers to start followed by a spicy prawn dish and some kind of noodle dish to follow. All the food was excellent and extremely tasty, my prawns were especially nice.

Overall, I highly recommend this restaurant and definitely want to go back to try more of the menu.

Band of Brothers

I got Band of Brothers on Blu-Ray for my Christmas, I had never seen it before but had heard good things and after recently finishing the series, I'm pleased to say it lived up to expectations.

The 10 1 hour episodes follow a paratroop regiment during the Second World War from their landing behind enemy lines on D-Day through to the end of the War. It plays out much like a 10 hour Saving Private Ryan, with movie quality production values, sets and action sequences.

The Blu-Ray presentation is pretty good, a lot of the scenes shot in lower light are visibly grainy, but some of the action sequences looks stunning in Hi-Def.

Overall, well worth watching on either DVD or Blu-Ray.

5/5

The Wire Season 5

Shortly before New Year, we finished the fifth and final season of The Wire. At only 10 episodes, it's much shorter than the previous seasons, but contains some good drama as the show makes its way to the finale.

The story follows the Baltimore Homocide department as they finalise their attempt to bring down drug kingpin Marlo despite increasing pressures from those above in terms of reduced budget. These pressures force McNulty to take extreme action to get the case solved.

The alternative viewpoint in this series comes from the journalists at the Baltimore Sun. Again, series 5 isn't as good as the excellent first two seasons, but is still worth watching and a fine end to the show.

4/5

The Wire Season 4

Just finished season 4 of the Wire and by this point there isn't much to say. Season 4 is good, but nowhere near as good as the first 2 seasons and feels more like filler between 3 and 5. Not all that much happens plotwise, although a lot of the characters are fleshed out more. Overall, worth watching if you've seen the first three, but nothing amazing.

3.5/5

S.W.S. Chinese Takeaway

We received a flyer for S.W.S. through the door and since we didn't have time to go shopping at the weekend and it's almost Christmas, we thought we might as well have a mid-week Chinese takeaway.

We ordered Kung-Po King Prawn, Crispy Shredded Beef and Boiled Rice. The order came to £12.30 and it's that time of year where free calendars are given away.

First impressions of the dishes were that the sauces were quite dark. The Kung-Po was good, but not the best so far. The sauce was sweet, spicy and there was quite a lot of garlic in there. Vegetables definitely included some carrot and the usual suspects.

The crispy shredded beef was also pretty good, again sweet and full of garlic, with the beef being slightly crispy.

Overall, a good solid takeaway, but not quite as good as the better ones I've visited so far. 3.5/5

S.W.S.: 8 Stenhouse Cross, Edinburgh, EH11 : 0131 455 7804

Time Trumpet

Originally shown on the BBC in 2006, I had never heard of this series from Thick of It creator Armando Iannucci until Amazon recommended it to me. It sounded pretty good so I took a punt and it payed off.

Set in 2031, it's basically a satire of these horrible TV shows you get where a group of celebrities talk about the top 50 movies or the top 50 events of the noughties etc. It consists of people ostensibly from 2031 looking back at events in the years shortly following 2006 and talking about things that happened then. These events include both current affairs based things like winning the war on terror and the time Tesco invaded Denmark as well as celebrity based things like the time Charlotte Church vomited herself inside out.

The talking heads are interspersed with fake footage and interviews from "fake" versions of our celebrities (e.g. old versions of Ant and Dec). The setup is quite good and there is a lot of really funny material in there. Some of it misses the mark and the 5th episode seemed a bit weak, but there are some comedy gems to be found in there.

Overall, really worth watching and probably something which will make less sense as time goes on, so watch it soon.

4/5

Magic Kitchen Chinese Takeaway

Before I started my survey of Chinese Takeaways in my area, the Magic Kitchen was the "Chicken of Choice". The food is pretty good and it shares its name with an Andy Lau movie which is always a plus. Anyway, we made an order last night and since I've not yet reviewed it, here's a review.

Pretty hungry after a 20 mile cycle during the day, so we went for Duck Spring Rolls, Mixed Kung Po and Duck in Plum Sauce along with a portion of boiled rice. Came to £15.50 including free prawn crackers (win!). Delivery was prompt and without problems.

The spring rolls were quite fat and there were too of them. Not a huge amount of duck, but pretty tasty.

Mixed Kung Po is an awesome find, no other takeaway seems to have it on their menu, but it's basically Kung Po with all the meats (Prawn, Beef, Char Sui, Chicken). The sauce was sweet and spicy as it's meant to be, loads of meat, cashews, water chestnuts and some green chilli bits, very yummy.

The Duck in Plum sauce was also pretty good, Roast Duck with Pineapple in a sweet plum sauce. Makes a good alternative to Sweet and Sour.

Overall, Magic Kitchen is still one of my favourites, 4.5/5

Magic Kitchen: 60 Manse Road, Edinburgh, EH12 : 0131 3348 288

Amazon MP3 Download

I've never really been convinced about buying music downloads, ever since the days of iTunes only doing DRM'd songs I've always preferred to buy CDs and get something physical to hold. I like owning stuff, I like being able to flick through CD artwork and if my house burns down my insurance company will pay out to replace physical property but probably won't cover downloads to my computer.

With all that in mind, I was a bit disappointed to be unable to find Toxic Holocaust's 2005 offering "Hell on Earth" anywhere to buy on CD in the UK. Amazon were selling the MP3 download for £6.99, so I thought what the hell.

I have to say, user experience was pretty good, downloaded a small app from Amazon, clicked buy this album, entered my Amazon password, confirmed and I was already starting to download the songs. The Amazon app automatically adds the tracks into iTunes, which is pretty cool and I guess means it's as easy as buying from iTunes itself. (BTW, digging the iTunes taskbar integration in Windows 7).

The whole experience was pretty painless. Although, I didn't realise that the 11 tracks only run to 27.5 minutes, which makes the £6.99 seem a little less of a good deal. The album is good, not as good as An Overdose of Death, but still pretty rocking. I need to listen to it properly, but at 27.5 minutes, I'm sure I can get 16 rotations a day in at work ;)

I did get a bit panicky that maybe it's cheaper in iTunes, after some iTunes connectivity issues I'm glad to report it's £7.99 on iTunes. Although I don't know how bitrate compares and not sure if the iTunes version is DRM'd or not.

Alien marathon

Well, yesterday I watched the first three Alien movies and I've just finished the quadrilogy with Alien Resurrection. I have to say Alien and Aliens are awesome, definitely classics. Alien 3 is a bit disappointing but not as bad as a lot of people seem to say and I actually thought Resurrection was pretty good. With Scott, Cameron, Fincher and Jeunet it's an impressive line up of directors however you look at it.

King Wa Chinese Takeaway

Another Chinese takeaway on Gorgie Road, we've been to King Wa before but I couldn't remember much about it. The don't do Kung-Po King Prawn, so we went for plan B, Shredded Chilli Beef, Boiled Rice, Chicken and Sweetcorn soup and Spring Rolls.

Delivery arrived reasonably quickyl considering it was a Saturday night and cost £13.00. No freebies, but we were probably just under the cutoff for prawn crackers.

The Spring Rolls were mid thickness, not the big fat ones, but not the little skinny ones. One each for Rosie and I and they were pretty tasty, if they'd come with a dipping sauce like Taste Good I'd go as far as to say they would be in that league.

The Chicken and Sweetcorn soup was very hot, but loads of chicken, a fair amount of sweetcorn and not as gloopy as it could have been. Again, very good, things were looking impressive.

Finally on to the main course, the Shredded Beef in Chilli sauce looked a little daunting, the sauce was very very dark. Upon opening the lid we were hit with a pleasant aroma of garlic. Vegetable wise, the usual suspects, lots of carrot and possibly some green leafy stuff, later on I disovered dried chilli at the bottom.

Despite the overly dark sauce putting me off, the initial impression was that it smelled really good. Luckily, it tasted as good as it smelled, sweet, garlicky, a hint of chilli at first (which developed into pleasantly spicy as you ate more) and the beef was actually crispy unlike most Shredded Beef dishes which tend to be a bit chewy.

Overall, King Wa was a pretty good choice. In fact I'm going to say it's the best we've had since I started this regular feature.

Score: 4.5/5

King Wa: 388 Gorgie Rd, Edinburgh, EH11 : 0131 337 5864‎

The Wire Season 3

Just finished another season of the Wire, Season 3 sees McNulty and the special investigations team back investigating big drug players in the area. When the Major of the Western district creates an unofficial and unsanctioned drug amnesty provided dealers stick to one of 3 areas, the ripples are felt across Baltimore.

Season 3 isn't as focused as the first 2 and lacks a solid single case at its heart which provided the intrigue in the other seasons. Having said that, the end does feel less disappointing and more wrapped up than in previous seasons.

Overall, great characters, some interesting plots, but could have done with a better driving force for the plot.

3.5/5

The Wire Season 2

Season 2 of the Wire follows up where Season 1 left off. McNulty has been sent to work in the marine unit and the rest of the detail involved in trying to bring down Avon Barksdale are spread out the Baltimore police department.

When 13 dead girls turn up in a shipping container at the docks, Bunk and Freeman are tasked with clearing the case, but they soon realise they can pool their resources when Lt. Daniels is given a detail to investigate the head of the dockworkers union.

As they get deeper into the case, everyone involved begins to realise that things go further than they could have imagined and the usual management bullshit starts to hinder their investigation.

Season 2 starts of even better than the first season, the number of sub-plots and characters make for interesting viewing without getting overly complicated. It's a setup which wouldn't have worked without the first season laying the groundwork in terms of introduction of many of the characters.

The change of scenery from the streets of Baltimore to the docks keeps things fresh but still familiar.

Like Season 1, Season 2 is well shot, written and has some great perfomances from the lead actors (of which there are now a fair few). My only critiscm is that like Season 1, the end is a little bit disappointing, setting itself up for Season 3 without bringing about a satisfying conclusion to all the events of Season 2.

I've already got the Season 3 DVDs ready to watch, so hopefully 3 is as good as the first two.

4.5/5

I-Ching Chinese Takeaway

Nearly two weeks since our last Chinese takeaway and being a Friday night, who can be bothered cooking? We went with the I-Ching on Slateford road, literally a couple of hundred meters at the most from Taste Good. It's somewhere we have ordered from in the past, so thought we'd try it again in our quest to taste them all.

Our order consisted off duck spring rolls, spare ribs (we've not been feeling the love for the chicken and sweetcorn soup recently), crispy shredded beef and boiled rice. Total cost just over £16. No freebies.

The food arrived very quickly and we tucked into the duck spring rolls. They were pretty good, although not as good as Taste Good. A pot of sweet and sour sauce was provided for dippage, again the Hoi-sin from Taste Good is better, but the spring rolls and sauce were still tasty.

The spare ribs came coated in BBQ sauce and there were a lot of them, possibly meant as a main rather than a starter. The were tasty as well, although very messy to eat.

The crispy shredded beef was ok, not amazing, it wasn't really to my taste (could have done with being a bit sweeter). Also, there wasn't quite enough sauce and the rice seemed a little soggy.

Overall, good starters, ok main, nice enough but not the best we've had.

Score: 3/5

I-Ching: 83 Slateford Rd, Edinburgh, EH11‎ : 0131 337 9898‎