Oban

A two-hour drive from where we were stayed in Dunoon will take you to Oban. Its a fairly small town but has some decent restaurants, a brewery and a distillery. Arriving at lunchtime we went straight for our pre-booked meal at Ee-usk on North Pier. You couldn't ask for a better location, looking right out over the harbour through its glass frontage. Its a shame the weather wasn't up to much.

We were led to a prime table and ordered the drinks in. Unsurprisingly there's a good range of whiskys, including a few from the nearby distillery. Beer-wise there's nothing from the local Oban Brewery but there's some bottles from Fyne Ales so myself and my dad have a Piper's gold. Its a decent bitter session beer with English hops and goes well with the seafood platter we choose as starter. The Thai fish cakes were wonderfully spiced and delicious and the king prawn wrapped in salmon made an interesting juxtaposition of textures. Myself and Daisy also bravely tried our first oyster, straight out of the local loch. It was okay but nothing exciting, not sure I'd pay for one again.

The mains were all decent sized portions, particularly the whole, stuffed sea-bass and haddock and chips. The food all tasted great too. My scallops were cooked perfectly, but I still don't like those orange valve things. The staff were friendly and helpful and food reasonably priced. The only shock came when I saw the price of the Fyne Ales...£4.95 each! Its only £2.25 at the brewery not 50 miles away...

After lunch the plan was to use our Classic Malts passports for a free tour of the distillery and a few drams. Unfortunately all tours were choc-a-bloc and we had to content ourselves with a perusal of the (fairly bare) shop instead. Not to worry though as we had plenty of distilleries lined up for later in the week....

We didn't make it to the brewery, opting instead for some locally made chocolates and single origin cocoa, much better suited to the Scottish April weather.