[May 2026] In Edinburgh, Scotland, I was already starving when we checked into our hotel.
As usual, my husband searched for a place nearby where we could eat something nice, and found a fish and chips specialty restaurant.
Fish and chips is his favourite food which he eats only in the UK.
That’s all well and good, but he said it was a 21-minute walk to get there, which made me stumble.
I protested, saying I was already hungry, but it seemed there were only ethnic restaurants near the hotel.
I’m not a fan of ethnic food.
So, I mustered all my strength and went up and down the hill.
I took tons of pictures along the way, so it took much longer than 21 minutes, but because of these disruptions, I did not feel too hard to walk that distance.
We finally arrived at a large restaurant called Bertie’s in the Old Town.
Perhaps because it was past the usual lunch hour, it was relatively empty.
Here, we shared calamari rings as a starter, and for the main course, we both ordered the basic fish and chips.
I didn’t know this, but fish and chips is subtly different in Scotland from the one in England.
Apparently, Scotland uses haddock, while England uses cod.
Since both are types of cod, they aren’t drastically different, but haddock is a smaller fish and supposedly has a richer flavour.
I think what we had here was haddock.
My husband eats fish and chips every time we come to the UK, but it had been five years since I last had it, back in St. Andrews.
The skin was crispy, and it was quite tasty.
However, the accompanying chips were bland, and we ate them with mayonnaise that seemed to have a hint of garlic.
For drinks, I had a local lager, and my husband had a bottled stout.
Both the food and the service (the waiters seemed to be part-timers from Eastern Europe) made me truly feel like I was in Britain.
After eating, we felt energized and took a stroll up and down the Royal Mile, the main thoroughfare of the Old Town.
We enjoyed the unchanging cityscape.
