Review: Rustico

Travelling for Work

Rustico - tucked away just off the main high street in Aberdeen

I've been fortunate enough to have travelled quite a bit for work since I started this new job. I've found myself in many different cities in the UK and beyond, living in hotels and looking for nice restaurants to eat at. Unfortunately, I've mostly looked in vain, and restaurants that have made a lasting impression are few and far in between. Rustico, however, is an exception. This fantastic Italian in Aberdeen is one of the best I have ever been to, although I will admit to not being an expert on this particular cuisine.

Discovering the Oven

Lemon, Garlic and Rosemary Roast Chicken

Roast chicken with vegetables and gravy. No potatoes though,
I've never been any good at potatoes.

The oven doesn't feature in the the usual Bangladeshi kitchen. We have our tandoori ovens of course, but those are completely different beasts. They're usually only found in restaurants or road side food huts. The average urban Bangladeshi household uses a simple gas stove, and if you travel to more rural areas you may even encounter cooking pits.

A bare earth cooking pit at my paternal grandma's
in Salop, Bangladesh

The oven, therefore, was quite new to us when we first moved to Hong Kong; and I don't recall mom actually using it while we were there. It wasn't until we later moved to Paris that the oven really took off in our kitchen and even then our use of it was limited to pizza and cake. This is why when I first moved into my flat in Birmingham the oven in the kitchen was so full of potential - it represented a whole new subset of foods that I could learn to cook.