Peel and Paddle’s

I’ve been having a lot of Festival fun; perhaps a little too much. Following a day in which I’d laughed with hilarious Caroline Mabey (Opium at 1.15pm every day, then also with Michael Legge in Two Stupids at 3.45pm), taken a drink with Lunchquest Manchester’s Frances, stopped at the Book Festival to revolutionise literacy, popped into pop-ups at the Holy Garage, Liquor Library, Checkpoint and Filament, then concluded things with a boat-load of soju at Lucky Liquor, I felt like a pig had shat in my head.

To offset this, I walked around like a re-animated cadaver for a while then alighted upon the pizza stall in George Square Gardens.

This wasn’t my first visit here, but when I tried it during the Jazz Festival it was called Joey “Jaws” Pizza. During the Edinburgh Food Festival, they swapped to being called Peel and Paddle’s and changed to serving a menu of “pedestrian” and “pretentious” options.

On this visit, it looked like they’d ended up with a blend of the two approaches, with only one “pretentious” matching the three “pedestrian” options that had comprised the original Joey “Jaws” menu.

I opted for the obviously highly pretentious goat’s cheese, roasted peppers, red onion and fresh rocket pizza.

There are surely no more pretentious animals than goats, with their craft beards and hipster brogue boot hooves. You can just see them sporting maroon trousers and braces, too. Bastards.

And don’t get me started on how pretentious roasting vegetables is. Ugh. And whereas regular onions are a delight, those bloody maroon red onions are just the worst. What rocket was doing on a “pretentious” pizza is anyone’s guess, though.

The friendly counter people were soon handing over my sliced item, having blasted it to life in their wood-fired oven.

Taking a seat at the nearest available picnic table, I tucked in. It proved really good eating and rather better than the one I’d sampled from the boring old “pedestrian” menu. It hit the spot rather nicely.

So overall, aside from the staggeringly idiotic designations of “pedestrian” and “pretentious”, Peel and Paddle’s is doing pleasingly good work. It can be relied upon to serve you a tasty snackish item well into the night. Make sure to visit as part of your Festival frolics.