Once we were back in the carpark having worked up a healthy appetite it was a case of heading straight into Airlie for what I hoped to be an appointment with a tapas platter, but unfortunately it wasn’t to be.
Once we’d arrived at Capers my inquiries about the contents of the tapas platter were met with a we’re not doing it that way any more and a glance at what was on offer in the menu revealed a number of options you could order individually, though we were informed that each platter contained four of the item in question.
The old arrangement meant you got a range of little platters in a multi-tier structure, with two samples of most of what was in there. That suited us, because I could tackle both offerings of anything that was highly spiced and there’d still be plenty left for Madam, who isn’t chilli-tolerant. One lot of tapas was a comfortable lunch for two.
While it might suit a party of three or four settling out on a lengthy nibble and sip session, the four bit development raised all sorts of potentially thorny choice-related issues, so we opted to go to the standard section of the lunch menu instead.
Not that there was anything wrong with my beer battered reef fish, chips and salad or with Madam’s lemon pepper seafood pasta (which I, as usual, had to finish off), both were quite delicious, but the passing of the old tapas scheme removes one of what used to be life in this part of the world’s little delights.
Of course, now that we don’t have the tapas platter as the default option, we can always explore other avenues for a casual lunch. There’s the range of wood-fired pizzas in the eatery on the other side of the pub, for a start.
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