Pop Goes the Weasel

So having whined about growing uniformity in the previous post, I will now write about how that is pretty much rubbish.

Here are brief profiles of two shops that I frequent that are distinct to this part of the world.

The place where I can buy Springbank sells all kinds of booze, nibbles, mixers and occupies the same space as a wonderful sushi, sashimi guy and a butcher who only sells beef but in cuts that are unrecognizable.

Alice’s restaurant

Fresh, authentic, the fish comes from a few hundred metres away. Yes, you can get it in SF or London but it is not the same. The guy makes each nigiri by hand in front of you.

By the way, the beef butcher can be seen chopping up beef into unrecognizable shapes in the rear of the photo.

There is an amazing selection of drink, beers from Belgium, wines from all over the world, I even found angostura bitters with which to make pink gin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Gin

A long way from home.

Awamori comes in cardboard boxes. They contain a strange volume. I think it is 1.8 litres

Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging and whomsoever partaketh thereof is not wise

Anyway I drove past this place for 2 years moaning about how difficult is was to find wine and drink other than Awamori on Okinawa. Never assume you know what is going on in a foreign country before you can speak the language well and in the case of Japan, be able to read the language.

However my all time favorite shop lies on my drive home from the university. It is here that I generally provision myself.

Outside

The other side of the road

You can get all the usual stuff, you know, washing up liquid, Spam, potatoes, firelighters, charcoal, beni imo, lettuce, horsemeat, soy sauce, squid, beer, pigs feet, cabbage, pork, chicken, paper plates, and on and on and on. They have just about everything you could think of. What I really like is they get lots of fresh fish and in particular octopus, which the old ladies pull from the rocks across the road. Buying an octopus for your tea on the way home does not happen much in Kintyre. The shopkeepers are of course the nicest of people and so are the people of Kintyre, well-known for being, canty, couthy and kindly.