Wee Blether Tearoom

Tasteful Tat but not the Tearoom

Barry Island signpost

At a time when Olympic Britain seems to be becoming a 'real food' free zone with fast food outlets invading the country like Panzer tank divisions and propagating untruths with all the panache of Goebbels, it is always a reward to find a local cafe that serves real food. When it sticks to home cooking, good value and edgy humour to generate business it puts a smile on people's faces. The Wee Blether Tearoom in Kinlochard in the Trossachs does all of these things and attracts a motley assembly of day trippers, walkers, cyclists, foreign visitors, locals and tradesmen.

To describe it as quirky is to understate the ambience: a signpost has been erected with each finger pointing in the wrong direction. Barry Island, Uddingston and New York vie for nail space on the pole. The adjoining shed is a billboard for rescued colourful adverts and you trip over witticisms before you find a seat, if you are lucky, next to the cake filled Welsh dresser. There is slow food served fast and fast food served well. It comes in portions that satisfy cyclists and provide enough calories to survive the journey home along the rutted and pot holed roads back to the towns and cities. You can get everything you want in Shona's restaurant, she just loves to make cakes and make you "fu tae bursting!" She'll even let you swim in the loch and you don't need a swimsuit.

Shona and Ricky have created a haven of good grub with a laugh on the side. You can also sign up for Ricky's plastering services, not only does he ice the cakes but he also wields a mean trowel and instead of marketing e mails he will send you new jokes by text which arrive randomly. It is a genuine local business and it seems to hit the button with hungry cyclists, cake fanatics, feisty locals and grateful tourists escaping the fangs of fast food Britain.  The Wee Blether Tearoom is too remote to be challenged by the corporate fast food syndicates; I am not sure whether even Brakes gets this far but, if it does, it would probably because the driver wants some decent food.