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Win Tickets to the Scottish Restaurant Awards!

Foodies February

The February issue of the free Foodies Magazine was distributed this weekend so get it while it's hot (and there are still copies left).  This month it includes features about Gordon Ramsey and Alicia Silverstone as well as tons of recipes and food news.

You can get Foodies Magazine in over 300 restaurants, cafes and delis in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, including Peckhams, Di Maggio's, Tinderbox, La Tasca, Pizza Express and loads more.

Ladies’ Luncheon with Annabel Karmel

If you're one of the thousands of parents who are fans of  children's food guru Annabel Karmel then you'll definitely want to get along to Two Fat Ladies at the Buttery on the 22nd of April, where she will be the guest speaker at a charity lunch to raise funds with Noah's Ark.  Guests will enjoy a reception and gorgeous lunch and then listen to Annabel give advice on baby and children's food and nutrition.  All proceeds from the event will go to Noah's Ark, a group which raises money for the Sands charity, funding research into stillbirths and neonatal deaths.  Tickets can be booked online here.

Look out for Foodies Magazine and win a boutique hotel break

If you've not already picked it up don't forget to look out for the latest free Foodies Magazine and enter our competition to win an overnight stay in Channings in Edinburgh.

As well as this the magazine is also full of food news and recipes, so it's definitely worth a look - find it in restaurants, cafes and eateries in Glasgow and Edinburgh

worst ever Christmas present

When you're into food Christmas and birthdays become somewhat predictable as your friends and loved ones immediately have a massive pool of easy gift ideas, and in general this is works out great for me.  At the very least I'm guaranteed at one cookery book on every gift giving occasion, which I love because as well as actually cooking the new recipes I can happily spend many hours just browsing through cookery books.  I've been given a few lovely homemade hampers (including a particularly impressive Italian spectacular featuring piccante and dolce provolone, scamorza and no less than 6 different Italian meats), and one birthday some friends even gave me a live lobster (dear Pinchey, he was very tasty).

This post and gallery on the Guardian's Word of Mouth blog did make me chuckle though, because I've also had my share of flavoured salt and ramen noodle kits.  Even the people who should know you well can stumble when trying to pick a foodie present if they have no real interest in food themselves - last year my boyfriend, who is usually excellent, gave me an absurdly massive spice rack that needed space to stand on its own and burled around to help you find the very spice you're looking for.  There was literally no surface space in the kitchen that would accommodate it, and although it had 18 different spices it still didn't have all the ones I use so the spice shelf in the cupboard couldn't be retired.

Although in fairness, my foodie tendencies have been known to cause problems in my own gift buying.  I assume (quite naturally I think) that everyone likes food as much as I do.  Who wouldn't enjoy a scotch egg gift box?  Or a duck and venison pie?  Astonishingly though I've learned that some people have a strange 'food as fuel' attitude and will not thank you for a lovely box of meat.

Have any other foodies out there received an unusually rubbish present?  Or given one that was not well received?

Pinchey's final salute

Win an iPod Touch with 5pm and the Scottish Restaurant Awards

If your place of work provides an eatery in a comfortable breakaway space for staff with healthy food to help recharge and fuel the batteries during your break then nominate it for the Healthy Workplace Restaurant of the Year before midnight tonight and you'll be entered in our competition to win an iPod Touch!

All you have to do to enter is send an email to competitions@5pm.co.uk with the subject line 'Healthy Workplace Restaurant of the Year' and tell us the name of the eating place, the name of your workplace, the reason you think it deserves to be nominated and your own name and best contact telephone number (so we can get in touch if you're the winner).  Remember though - the eatery needs to be for staff, and it needs to be within your own place of work!

Good luck!

Nominate your favourite for the Scottish Restaurant Awards

If you've not already nominated your favourite restaurants for the Scottish Restaurant Awards then you'd better get cracking because time is running out with the final categories closing this Friday, the 11th of December.

The categories that are still open are

Best Italian Restaurant

Best Family Friendly Restaurant

Best Indian Restaurant

Best Customer Service of the year

Healthy Workplace Restaurant of the Year

Best Pub Grub

Best Oriental Restaurant

Now in their third year the Scottish Restaurant Awards celebrate and showcase the very best of Scottish Restaurants across the whole range of dining out.  You can have a look at last year's winners and runner ups here.

We’ve launched a tv campaign!

You already know that 5pm offers the best value dining deals in town, but we want everyone else to know it too, so yesterday we launched our very first tv campaign in STV's Edinburgh region!

The advert outlines all the great reasons people book on 5pm, so whether you're already loyal 5pm booker or have never booked with us we hope you'll enjoy it and take a look at our hundreds of great value dining deals.

The ad was premiered yesterday and will be shown at various times over the next few weeks, and we hope you'll see it, but if you just can't wait you can view it right here

Big breakfast

I love this picture by David Sykes, it's so fun.   Although it is making me wonder if it would be possible to make a full fry up in the 5pm Towers kitchen...

I’ve changed my mind

In direct contradiction to my original scoffing comments on Jonathan's original post in April I've become increasingly interested in the underground restaurant scene that's blossoming in London.  I've even considered starting my own supper club - although the stranger danger potential is too scary for me.  Ok, maybe it would be lovely if you got 10 fun, friendly people, but what if you got 10 crazies?  Or even 1 crazy?

It seems I'm not the only one who's interested though, television types have caught the whiff of reality tv gold with 5 UK shows in the pipeline, starting with Restaurant in Our Living Room on Virgin 1.

Underground restaurant pioneer Ms Marmite Lover is concerned that these shows will kill the phenomenon before it gets off the ground, but I'm kind of hoping it'll mean that a few supper clubs will spring up in Scotland.  I seem to hear about a new one in London every other week, but haven't heard of any up here yet.  Unless I'm just not in the cool foodie network?