I visited “Scotland’s first restaurant festival and pop up market” this weekend at SWG3. Luckily they had brilliant weather for it as it was mainly outdoor with the pop up market being based in SWG3 itself. Being a bit of a foodie, I have been to loads of food fairs and they are all pretty similar with local and national businesses coming to sell their produce be it cheese, oil, booze or chocolate. This was no different. Sadly, I am currently doing the dryathlon for Cancer Research UK and was unable to sample the gin, whiskey and craft beers that were on offer. The one think that was different about this event, I guess because it was a restaurant festival, was the tokens for food. Several of the independent restaurants from Glasgow had set up a stand and were serving a small (average 3) selection of dishes which you could buy for a token. The tokens were £5 each.

I began by buying 4 tokens and then wandered over to the food market. I sampled some of the tasters on offer, sadly I am going away tomorrow so steered clear of a lot of the fresh produce as I wouldn’t be able to use it so I am sorry for not including more about them in this entry. I did walk away with some lovely gourmet popcorn from Poporopo. I tried all 4 flavours Salted caramel, Sweet Ginger, Chilli and Lime and Peanut Butter. They were all amazing with the chilli and ginger ones having a pleasant kick to their sweetness. I couldn’t decide so I bought all 4 for £10.

I moved on to a bit of tasting of Lime Tree Larder’s chocolate, this included my first ever try of 100% dark chocolate which was surprisingly smooth and not bitter at all. As I am a huge fan of the fondant sweets in your standard chocky selections I bought a pack of their strawberry creams. I had a couple on returning home and although they were lovely, they were a little too sweet. That is something I almost never say as I am the worlds biggest sweet tooth. The chocolate they were covered in was lovely and creamy and they did have a nice strawberry flavour.

And then on to the main event, the food for my tokens!

I started with an offering from Ubiquitous Chip. I went for the roast Renfrewshire wood pigeon with mushroom, hazelnut and barley salad. The pigeon was perfectly cooked and incredibly tender, it was complemented by the salad which had a hint of balsamic vinegar which went really well with the pigeon.

I then moved on to The Gannet’s selection. I opted for the oak smoked scallop carpaccio, radish, purslane with a lemon dressing. This was really lovely on such a sunny day, it was vibrant and fresh with the light crisp lemon dressing perfectly complementing the scallops but without overpowering their delicate flavour.