The Arch Inn
10-11 West Shore Street, Ullapool (01854 612454)
IT’S the noisy ship engines one of the online reviews of The Arch Inn complains of bitterly. Going on all night, mate.
Crikey, I should have stayed here, I think, idly reading it as I wait to be served. Being brought up in a house on the rocks of a bay meant being soothed by the rhythmic judder of Cal Mac ferries as they pulsed past and on into Oban – sending us children off into the land of Nod.
I kind of miss that but it's probably an acquired taste.
I suspect The Arch Inn, too, is an acquired taste having been repeatedly told it can be a great West Highland party bar, but for a meal…well, I’ll say it’s a bit cold today, quiet as in not very busy, a bit like being in a bar the day after the night before. Which it probably is.
The telly blares through the back, folks cheer when Aberdeen scores (long time since I have heard that), as waiting staff come out from behind the counter and, as I can’t help overhearing, repeatedly have to tell everyone, including me, that, no, we can’t order from that gigantic chalkboard specials menu. It is only available at night.
Actually, they have to do something about that blackboard. I know it clearly and prominently says “evenings only”, but nobody notices that, including me.
The blackboard dominates the bottom wall where, frankly, a bay window should be – there being a loch and mountains and all sorts of Highland-ness right on the other side of it.
Instead, there are only two little slit-like windows channelling a meagre amount of light into this long room that seems to run from the street outside way up and into the back of Ullapool.
It’s a bar. It feels like a bar and it looks like a bar. Nothing wrong with that when there are scallops to look at instead.
They come bustling out from the kitchen big and fat and plentiful and while not still spitting from the pan, they’re well seared and juicy. From Achiltibuie just up the coast, the menu says. Actually, Achiltibuie is where I was heading half-an-hour ago but the fish restaurant there is either closed for the season or they’re just not answering the phone to tourists like me this weekend.
So I gave up and swung down the hill and into a sleepy-feeling Ullapool, past the petrol station where a group of children were queuing to pump air into their bike tyres, past the ferry terminal and along the main drag here looking for something decent for lunch.
Always a risk I know. But these scallops are hand-dived and served with a snow pea and apple puree which sounded like it would be weird, or a bit out of place but instead is simple and actually very nicely balanced.
The scallops themselves are excellent, not trimmed or sliced in half as you sometimes find in the Lowlands, served with roe attached, almost a meal in themselves and at £7.95 not too outrageous. There’s a fishmonger I know who keeps telling me to stop mentioning scallop prices on the grounds that there are restaurants in France and Italy where they’ll charge a tenner for just one. And it won’t even be cooked. Maybe, but even up here in scallop-land I notice the price varies from restaurant to restaurant from pricey to well-pricey.
With the evening specials off limits it’s burgers and steak and tagliatelle on the lunch menu…or beer battered haddock and chips.
I’ll tell you right now that I won't be rushing back for the chips, but the haddock is a huge portion in the sort of batter that ships could be built from. It cracks under the knife to reveal white, clean and freshly steaming just-about-to-flake fish. It’s good. It’s simple. It’s not too expensive either and best of all it’s all pretty local.
Menu: Nothing too exciting for lunch, racier in the evening, but local scallops and haddock are available. 3/5
Atmosphere: Nothing great during the day being a bit, er, bar-like and there not being much of a view, but I am told it’s lively at night. 3/5
Service: Perfectly pleasant waitresses dealt efficiently with the slow drip of visitors such as myself drifting in for lunch. 4/5
Price: The biggest, fattest and maybe freshest – though who can tell – scallops and haddock for £20 all-in. Not bad. 4/5
Food: Pretty simple stuff on the lunch menu but then it is the West Highands and why wouldn’t you want to eat fresh, simple seafood there? 7
Total: 21/30
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