Weekday lunchtimes at the St Andrew Square market have been pretty quiet affairs on the trips I’ve made. I stopped by local seafood purveyor Alanda’s on this visit.

With an impressive array of items, from crab to whole lobster, my eye was taken by a mention of seafood chowder (£5). I’d tried a particularly good one from a spot very near here, during August’s Festival fun, from Love Fish.

I ordered a bowl, which was accompanied by “crusty bread”. The bread was a sad, shop-bought roll, which was really rather poor.

The soup proved to be a much more decent effort, with good creaminess and profuse chunks of potato making for good, hearty eating. It was pretty light on seafood, both in terms of flavour and evidence of seafood pieces, though.

It’s clear that having a showcase for Scottish seafood at this type of event is a worthwhile, not to say essential, element. It’s just a shame that in terms of their soup, Alanda’s didn’t quite hit the mark.

So overall, go along and inspect the tempting items on offer at Alanda’s. I’d recommend trying something other than the chowder, though, as while it was perfectly fine, it didn’t do the job of showcasing Scotland’s outstanding seafood in quite the way it could and should have.