If you’ve been following our twitter or Instagram feed you will know we have been on a little break to Scotland over the past week, and you will have seen some of the places we have visited and more importantly what we have been eating! Hehe! Me and Jon try to visit at least once a year as my aunt lives there in a little place called Auchterarder, which is right next to Gleneagles. This time we visited with my sister and her boyfriend and stayed in The Eagles Rest, which is a lodge park just on the outskirts of the village – I’ll review that at a later date, but today I wanted to do a quick review and sing the praises of one of our favourite places to eat when we visit the area which is The Jar Jar!
This isn’t our first visit to The Jam Jar, in fact it is our third, but we loved it there on our past visits so thought we would return for lunch during this trip. It is situated in the small town of Bridge of Allen which is just 20 minutes from where we were staying in Auchterarder. It is a lovely relaxed cafe/restaurant, with a log burner, comfy chairs, modern decor and really friendly staff! The menu seems to be ever changing as its never been the same on our visits, and we love places like this as it proves they have skills to make lots of different dishes and they often use local and seasonal ingredients, plus it means we get to try different things each time we go.
Jon had the cheese and bacon burger with black pudding, rustic fries and home made slaw which looked pretty epic, and he says tasted amazing! As you all know we are big fans of a good burger and have eaten them in lots of places all over the world. Jon has given this one a good 9 out of 10 as it was full of flavour, still moist but not greasy or falling apart. He managed to clear the fried and slaw but the burger actually beat him and he had a small chunk of it left at the end of the meal.
I had the Broad Bean, Pea, Asparagus and Spinach Linguini and it was absolutely delicious! I am a big fan of pea based dishes so knew when I saw this on the menu that I really wanted it, but I always worry about pea dishes being over peppered (I don’t know why but it seems to be a bit of a reoccurring theme!) luckily this one wasn’t peppered at all (as far as i could taste) so it was perfect for me. The pasta was cooked perfectly and the portion size was great, a perfect dish to fill me up at lunch time. I also think this dish deserves my entry into the Firelabel ‘Best Dressed Dish’ awards as it just looked and tasted so damn yummy!
If you are planning to be in the area surrounding Bridge of Allen and are looking for somewhere tasty for lunch then I would definitely recommend trying out The Jam Jar as we have never been disappointed. It gets quite busy with locals (which is always a good sign) so do book if you chose to go in the evening, but we have always been fine with walking in during the day and I think they serve all day (but don’t quote me on that!) as we went at 3:30.
Post in collaboration with Firelabel