f4f3 | That seafood platter in full...

Just back from the tiniest restaurant I've been in since I was last at The Wee Curry Shop in Garnethill. The Seafood Temple has 18 covers. 20 if they use the prep table. The building has some history - it sits at the southern tip of Oban Bay, on the Gallanach road, and when I say it sits on the bay it's a length of grass away from the shore. One site I consulted says it used to be a coastal lookout. Another that it was a public convenience. Both are right.

John Ogden acquired it a few years ago, and set about transforming the place. He used local craftsmen, and wood from his own land. The entire frontage is glazed, and two tables are built around concrete pillars. The kitchen is tiny, and we shared a table with two strangers.

John isn't the easiest chap to get on with. Caledonian Macbrayne, who have a monopoly on ferry routes in the Western Isles, have been trying to close down the seafood shack he owns on Oban Pier for at least 10 years, and they've used every trick in the book to do it. He's not budging. I guess being a fisherman makes you a bit slow to quit, even when you hit rough seas. Espescially when you hit rough seas.

He sources all the produce for the Seafood Temple, cooks most of it, and comes round every table with the order slips to check how the food went down. After our meal tonight I asked to shake his hand.

So, what did we have? The menu is hand written, with about half a dozen regular dishes and two or three specials. I liked the look of their surf and turf - I'd never seen it made from half a lobster and half a loin of venison, you see. That came in at £15 by the way.

We asked for the special, the seafood platter for two.

After a taster of the salmon he smokes in his own kilns, and a couple of clams, we were brought half a dozen oysters, 3 cooked, 3 raw. unblinkered raved about the balsamic vinegar and shallot dip. I enjoyed the ones swirled in garlic butter.

Once they were gone (30, maybe 40 seconds) the platter was brought, and the waitress explained that they'd brough the oysters first since there wouldn't have been enough room on the table for both. She was right.

On the platter were:

5 langoustines
4 scallops on the shell (2 in garlic butter, 2 in mornay sauce) with the corals intact. They were every bit as sweet as the ones he serves in the shack, by the way
3 crab claws
Smoked salmon
Hot smoked salmon (almost honey roast, creamy, melt in the mouth)
Some other white fish, smoked,
Roll mop herring
Clams
Cockles

Oh, and a whole lobster.

With asparagus (which unblinkered spared me from) mashed potatoes and (because I asked for them) roast spuds too. Bread and butter, two baskets worth.

The sheer quantity of food would have had a quality of its own, but everything on that platter was of top quality. Someone told me that nothing on the plate had been landed more than five hours ago. We were introduced to our lobster before they cooked it.

John explained that we'd had the last of the langoustines, and as he did a trawler came gliding up the the channel outside - he grinned and said he'd run down to the peir and find out if they had some for him - I don't think the captain would refuse him.

The bill, when it came with free glasses of port, seemed ridiculously small. I've paid twice what it was for meals half as good.

I honestly think it was the best platter I've ever had, and one of the top five meals, ever.

If you're going within 50 miles of Oban this year, pick up the phone now and reserve a table.

That's +44 1631 566 000