Ever since I saw Andrew Zimmern’s episode on making haggis in Edinburgh, Scotland, I’ve been hoping to cut open an intestine bag full of… cooked intestines myself.
Except, Haggis is not made of intestines. Haggis is a Scottish dish containing sheep's 'pluck' (heart, liver and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally boiled in the animal's stomach for approximately three hours. Yum - heart, liver and lungs are my favorite!
My research pointed me to a couple of places in New York that serve haggis --ChipShop in Park Slope (383 5th Avenue) and St. Andrews near Times Square (140 W. 46th street). I had a couple of tickets to a new Broadway production of Neil Simon’s “Brighton Beach Memoirs”, so the choice between the two came down to location.
St. Andrews looked like a decent enough place for being in the middle of Tourist Central. Their menu listed haggis, along with a decent selection of scotch, and boasted of its kilted bartenders, with a joke attached no less. When you see someone wearing a kilt, you are supposed to ask “What are you wearing under there?” The proper answer to that, of course, is “Shoes!” Unfortunately, our server was not wearing a kilt, and we failed to peer into the bar area, so we can’t testify if indeed they have kilted bartenders.
Most of us ordered the homemade haggis with neeps ‘n’ tatties (turnips and mashed potatoes in Scotts-speak), which is on their appetizer menu. I was licking my chops waiting for a bag of organs, but it turned out that the haggis they serve is “open haggis”, possibly in order to avoid scaring the tourists who can’t handle the sight of entrails.
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