Restaurant-Guide.com
hand picked restaurants

Oryza Sushi is a stylish restaurant offering freshly made sushi, salad and hot noodle soups in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere. It is an ideal spot for an intimate meal with your partner or a grab-and-go lunch. The interior features an open kitchen plan, bright colours and is well lit.

Start with fish roe thin maki, smoked salmon nigiri, mixed seafood and vegetable soup. For main course consider the quick break set which consists of mixed roll selection, pieces of maki or soup, and a soft drink or green tea. For dinner consider lemon drop sushi, inside-out crab stick roll covered with a layer of salmon slice and drizzled with lemon juice, and tuan roll, and stir fried teriyaki chicken and vegetable with noodles or rice. End with Oryza dark choc roll, and green tea cake with adzuki bean.

The Creel Inn is the very epitome of the clifftop hideaway with food. Yet it is a mere 25 minutes from the centre of Aberdeen and 4 miles from Stonehaven.

Whilst understandably hot on seafood it is not restrictive and Scottish beef, for instance, features strongly. You could do little better than start with their renowned crab soup, the staple ingredient for which comes from the bay below the inn. Deliciously creamy and with a good balance of flavours, guaranteed to get you off to a good start. However there is always the home-made Arbroath smokie pate that comes with oatcakes and a juniper chutney. Rumour has it that those who think they know better than we ourselves do about what we want to eat are seeking to do away with the famed smokies from Arbroath. Words fail me, but one day and in another context they won't.

Move on to the duck, pigeon and haggis platter. This is such a blindingly obvious happy blend of flavours and it never fails. The duck and pigeon breasts are pan-seared, then served round some of Charles McHardy butchers award winning haggis, drizzled with red and black currant coulis. For years I treated the notion of surf and turf with disdain until one day after a soaking out sailing I threw discretion to the winds (and tides), and have stayed converted. At Creel it's a 10 oz sirloin steak with garlic crab claws. For their other steaks there's a range of sauces, with way out ahead the haggis and drambuie cream version.

Desserts follow the same invigorating pattern, with a great favourite the sticky apple and carrot pudding, unique to the Creel, and served with an indulgent butterscotch sauce. The wine list has been carefully selected, with some wines chosen for the signature dishes, and straddles the world. House wine is provided by Rioja from the Cosecheros y Craidores.

It is appropriate that in a house set up by the Knights Templar to provide hospitality for those on their way to the Holy Land such excellent provision should continue to be made for the happiness of the inner man.

In the Priory Restaurant it's all open log fires and dinners by candlelight, with Scottish produce at its best forming the basis of many of the attractive dishes. The Poacher's Pocket Bar presumably brings us up to date with nefarious events related to the River Dee which tumbles past outside as haggis, neaps and tatties with a whisky cream sauce or lamb and coriander broth are savoured within.

Collops of Highland venison, dipped in oatmeal, pan-fried and served with lyonnaise potatoes, savoy cabbage and a red onion and wild berry chutney would seem to hit the right note, but the fillet of monkfish or broccoli, goat's cheese and sweet pepper Wellington will also appeal.

Running my eye down the menu I was arrested by the Turkish delight cheesecake, drizzled with a bitter sweet chocolate sauce.

House wine starts at £17.95 and there is a decent list.

Yes, this is certainly a place where the tradition of hospitality is magnificently maintained - the Knights Templar should feel well cherished.