Katie's Diner
Yesterday was my third wedding anniversary. My husband and I have been married for three years and we have lived together for two and a half years. (Marriage? Fine. Living together? Don't want to rush these things.)
Yesterday we spent our anniversary bathing guinea pigs and running tedious errands. But today, we went out for dinner.
We got on the bus to the town center to get the bus to the restaurant. There was a group of people who were either going to a rave or were insane. Neon colors and big hair and fishnet stockings and furry legwarmers all over the place. I was happy that they were not on my bus.
We went to the neighborhood of the restaurant early to go to Lupe Pinto's to get American food. Root beer and graham crackers and Nutter Butters. Hooray! Then we had time to kill before our reservations, so we went into a pub to get out of the rain. I kept looking at the bar and thinking about my favorite game, Drunken Masters. I had diet Coke.
Then we went to the restaurant, a little tiny place called Katie's Diner. There are about a dozen tables and you absolutely must make reservations because they're very popular. It is advertised as an American style diner, and I've never had the Scottish interpretation of American food, so I was looking forward to it. It's a small place run by a married couple. Geoff takes the orders and Kate is the chef.
It would be funnier if I could go down a list of how they got American food wrong. But in this case I totally can't do that. We started out by sharing an order of jalapeno poppers. They were exactly like what I remember from home, but bigger, fresher, and presented better. For a main course I had the Mexiburger. It was a thick slab of top quality Scottish beef, topped with cheese, salsa, sour cream, and jalapenos. It was quite simply the best thing I've eaten in a long time. The burger was grilled to perfection. The fries were fresh and hot and perfect. I had been craving a proper thick hamburger, and the one I had at Katie's Diner could stand up next to (or even above) any of the top quality burgers in the US.
Then there was dessert. I ordered double chocolate brownies. It was a beautiful arrangement of little bites of brownie topped with ice cream. The brownies were perfect. Slightly crisp on the outside and warm and soft in the middle, with rich fudge sauce. The ice cream was good proper rich ice cream, not the fluffy stuff you get so many places here.
My husband loved it as much as I did. In fact, he insisted on booking another reservation before we left. So it looks like we've found a new favorite restaurant. It takes two buses to get there, but it's entirely worth it. It's a perfect cure for homesick Americans in Edinburgh.
Alana
