The Hungry Pilot

Another list, this one will be all about eating during layovers, and where to grab a well-deserved afterwork beverage.

• Glasgow, Scotland
• Porto, Portugal
• London, UK

Glasgow, Scotland

This first entry doesn’t come with any food porn in the form of pictures or videos. Simply because I forgot to take any, at least of the food we had…

Mother India’s Café

It’s always great to have recommendations from locals, and in this case my secret weapon was my buddy Chris. A native Scotsman who used to live in Glasgow for 10 years, he pointed us to an area called Finnieston. That was fairly easy to reach from the airport, just about 10 to 15 minutes by taxi. For dinner Chris recommended Mother India’s Café, and we were all glad we followed his advice. Oh boy, that was tasty. I had one of the day’s specials, the garlic chili lamb with spiced onions and garlic butter naan as sides. A total winner, definitely worth going back for more.

So instead of the pictures I give you a ranking (sorry, I just got started with this). The place is among the top 16 restaurants of Glasgow, according to BBC’s Good Food.

The Ben Nevis Bar

Not too far from Mother India’s Café is The Ben Nevis Bar, another tip from Chris also located on Argyle street. A nice and lively bar with an impressive whiskey selection. We had one from the Isle of Arann to celebrate my birthday. Another recommendation, if you happen to be in the area make sure you check it out.

Porto, Portugal

Tomar de Sal

After about 15 minutes of walking we came to Tomar de Sal, a place my colleague found while searching for a place to eat near the airport as we had a 5 hour long stay in Porto.

My friend Ricardo told me to ask for Francesinha, a local treat of Porto which I had never heard of before. It turned out to be a sandwich, a bit like a croque monsieur, but with a lot more going on on the inside. Besides the usual ham and cheese they also pack a thin beef steak into it as well as a sliced local sausage. It swims in a tomato based sauce, and it also came with a generous portion of fries. It was very tasty, but you better not be on a diet because this will fill you up properly. My colleague had to roll me back to the airport, in 35 degrees C. He had bacalhau by the way and reported it as very nice. On top of the great food there was also a very friendly owner, so this was a worthy lunch stop.

After this we thought we should adapt a bit and do what the locals do. They call it „sesta“ in Portugal, the equivalent to the Spanish „siesta“:

London, UK

London is huge, it has tons of airports and we fly there often. Over time I will expand this if there’s something worthy.

Mithras Turkish Mediterranean Restaurant

This time we flew to Biggin Hill airport and the company booked us a hotel in Croydon. After browsing Google maps we found this one, and it was probably the best Turkish food I ever had. Definitely better and cheaper than what we ate in Istanbul a couple days earlier.