Food&Drink Edinburgh deals continued ZULU LOUNGE

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Something DIFFERENT sandwiches and hot dishes, including North African chickpea and lentil soup.

SOUTHSIDE OOUD KITCHEN

S o m e t h i n g D I F F E R E N T 138 Bruntsfield Place, 228 8265, www.ooudkitchen.com Finally finding its feet, this Ottolenghi-inspired outlet serving Eastern Med cuisine does wonderful mezze boxes chockful of falafel, lemon hummus and baba ganoush with either rice or fresh flatbread. Add in a sweet hit of nutty baklava.

366 Morningside Road, 466 8337, www.thezululounge.co.uk Grab a little South African sunshine at this tiny shebeen-style café where the menu hits plenty of familiar notes, but a couple of exotic ones too with biltong salad and boerewors (a sausage with a spicy coriander hit) rolls. Soup’s fresh daily and never run of the mill.

WEST END BREAD AND OLIVES

17a Queensferry Street, 226 3005, www.breadandolivesedinburgh.co.uk Spice up your end-of-week lunchtime with ‘Curry Fridays’ or soup it up with chicken, sweet potato and chorizo or sweet spud and courgette, made fresh on the premises. And grab a hunk of bread to go, all very good stuff from the great Au Gourmand bakery.

CUCINA LC

S o m e t h i n g D I F F E R E N T 68 Haymarket Terrace, 467 2671 Lorena Crolla is the West End’s queen of the salad box. She offers nearly 30 choices, all made fresh. Flavours range from Thai to Italian. Carbs come from couscous, udon noodles, pasta or tatties. Balance all that healthy eating with a slice of Lorena’s accomplished baking.

HERBIE

SuperSOUP 7 William Street, 226 6366 No-one does more soups than Herbie: at least seven yes, seven choices hit the chalkboard every day, all-year-round. All made with real stock too. And since this wholesome William Street soup machine is owned by Morrison’s Bakery, the bread, rolls, pies, quiche and tarts are guaranteed fresh daily. Even on Sundays.

CAFÉ MILK

t h y H e a l O P T I O N 232 Morrison Street, 629 6022, www.cafemilk.co.uk Fresh new kid on the block, Milk has clear ideas about food. Fresh and seasonal if at all possible and served in compostable containers, there’s a Thai/ Goan/Moroccan slant to the flavours of salads,

LE MARCHE FRANCAIS 9a West Maitland Street, 221 1894 Go Gallic with the well-thought-out lunch offers at this bustling temple to all things French. Go for cheese, pâté, or charcuterie and salad on a baguette, while more substantial hot dishes such as chicken Provençal is good to go. Patisserie favourites will tempt too.

Milk

SCOTT’S DELI

S u p e r S O U P 10 Gillespie Place, 228 5200 Now in new hands, the bubbly Ashley Alongi runs a freshly-scrubbed place that’s perfect for veggies with salads full of freshness and imagination and a different soup every day. Get your hands around a hot Stromboli bursting with a marriage of spinach and mozzarella.

THE TREEHOUSE 44 Leven Street, 656 0513 When the sun’s out, students and other enlightened types grab a picnic from the Treehouse and head for the Meadows. Just about everything is freshly made on-site, and beyond the well-filled bagels, rolls and paninis, cakes like chocolate and orange sponge are highlights.

Soup for today Robert Leach meets a Glasgow cook who makes more than just chicken soup for the soul

‘Making soup is like any other activity,’ says Frank Larkin, cook, café owner and occasional philosopher. ‘The purer your intentions are, the more love you put into it, the better the outcome.’ Café Sejuiced is his bright daytime café hidden behind an impressive former tobacco factory, now converted into WASPS artists studios. Sejuiced has built a strong reputation in recent years for its soups, sandwiches and fresh fruit juices, but it’s the soup we’re here to talk about, and between us lies Frank’s soup diary, which contains the names and recipes of 243 soups he’s made and sold at Sejuiced over the past five years. He’s aiming to bring this up to a nice round 365, a year in Frank’s soup kitchen. ‘Anything that can be put on to a plate between a knife and fork can be turned into soup,’ he says, and some of his most popular past efforts have turned this philosophy into soups such as chicken korma,

and haggis, neeps and tatties with a nip of whisky. Browsing through the soup diary also unearths more delicate combinations such as courgette and orange, crab, coconut and coriander, cream of celeriac with pancetta and garlic, and cucumber gazpacho. Sejuiced’s Facebook page is an increasingly popular forum for requests, as well as for details as to what’s currently on offer. With three or four soups available daily, Frank now offers free samples. ‘Sometimes I’ll just give away free soup,’ he says with a shrug. ‘You’ve got to love what you do.’ Proof that soup has plenty to contribute to philosophy as well as lunchtime.

32 THE LIST 3-31 Mar 2011