As regular readers will know, the 5pm Food blog usually covers the latest restaurants and bars in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

However, we occasionally meander off this well beaten path and look at food and drink from a wider perspective.

Over the last few years, food waste has been the focus of more and more attention.

Zero Waste Scotland has calculated that Scottish households throw away 630,000 tonnes of food waste every year and that avoidable food waste costs Scotland over £1 billion.

Their Love Food Hate Waste website is packed with recipes plus hints and tips to help us all reduce the amount of food we throw away.

Food Sharing Hub

In Edinburgh, the recently launched Food Sharing Hub is taking another approach to tackling food waste.

Having opened their doors for the first time this weekend, the Bread Street premises is stocked with surplus food from several local businesses including branches of Tesco, Co-op and Lidl.

To shop at the Hub, customers pay a £1 monthly membership fee and then pay what they like for the food they select.

The 'rescued' food is past its best before date but still perfectly safe to eat; it just doesn't fit the supermarkets' brand standards.

The Hub is open noon to 4pm on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

Latest restaurant reviews

In other news, Scotland's restaurant reviewers have been enjoying their jobs recently.

In The Herald, Ron McKenna was blown away by The Newport Restaurant in Fife. In a review titled 'Is this Scotland's best restaurant?', Ron concludes that 'some great cooking and fabulous flavours make it a must try'.

Joanna Blythman is similarly impressed by Bibimbap Korean restaurant in Glasgow. Weighing up exactly what makes a good restaurant is hard, she says: 'you just know it when you see it, and it’s quite obvious when one, like Bibimbap in Glasgow, nails it'.

In particular, she singles out the kimchi pancakes and fried rice cakes for their comforting nature while the 'ferrous heat' of the Korean red chilli paste in the janchigugsu noodle dish keeps reeling the critic back for another mouthful.

We have already mentioned that Bibimbap is expanding out from the city centre with plans to open a second branch in the West End. More news on that as we get it.

Over in Edinburgh, Gaby Soutar has used her Scotsman column to review the just opened Bertie's (main pic).

She gives the new fish and chip restaurant a cautious thumbs-up with the haddock and chips taking the lion's share of the praise.