Oban Seafood Hut

Oban

A FRENCH lady opposite me is shouting “merd-uh, merd-uh” as forks and napkins come tumbling from her bag and flutter onto the Railway Pier. Her friend laughs and grabs the two Grand Platters they’ve ordered before they too hit the decking.

Right in front of the shack a glamorous young couple in shorts and classic Persol 8649 sunglasses are standing back working out what they’re going to have when they come back tomorrow.

“I’ll take the scallops, you have more oysters,” she says. I get up to grab a napkin from that bit beside the outdoor tap and four little Japanese ladies rush past me one by one – boom, boom, boom heading straight for the vacant spot I’ve foolishly vacated at the big bow shaped table.

A watching American woman gives me a wry smile from over her mussels as I look back in surprise.

On a day like today, with fishing boats gently clanking and clunking, with the sun’s copper trail blazing all the way from Maiden Island to those boats dozing prettily on the new pontoons, with Oban’s towers and hotels, vibrant colours and crisp clear shapes, perfectly gloriously and calmly framing the bay against a deep blue sky? I’m biased but the answer is, of course, no.

Is it any wonder that people who have crossed the world would think they have suddenly stumbled upon shellfish heaven in a West Coast paradise.

“Excuse me, is that the Very Famous Grand Platter for two?” a young woman says, pointing to the very spot from whence came this sweet, fresh prawn, just messily liberated from its hard pink shell and dangling from my fingers right now.

“I think it’s the just the Famous Platter for Two,” I reply, looking back towards a menu board exploding with chalk arrows, stuck on photos, neon stars and general cheery higgeldy piggeldyness. That’s the Very Famous Grand Platter over there, I add, looking along the table and giving the dish its full Sunday title.

Everybody seems to be eating that today – standing – because there’s only one spot where the bench is actually close enough to the curved table to sit.

Now, I had five plump scallops to start: fat, juicy, drenched in garlic butter not seared, not crusted a la mode, but for under a tenner great value.

When I was a boy we used to climb under this pier right here; when I was teenager a diver would pay me a few quid to keep his boat circling above him in the sound and we then tied sacks of live scallops below the water line under here to keep them fresh. It’s familiar but somehow more cosmopolitan now.

I ate today’s scallops standing at that enormous hewn-from-a-whole tree bench table there – another Japanese couple standing opposite, he firing down a plateful of oysters in 40 seconds, she giggling as they wandered off.

I didn’t order the Very Famous on account of the fact that when I was growing up in that house at the entrance to the bay over there, near the war memorial, lobsters were one thing the old man was rarely short of. Big blue monsters regularly scuttled round our bath, rubber banded claws raised, heading humanely, we were always promised, to whistle away in the big boiling pot, before being cracked and split and devoured. They were bigger then, certainly cheaper, actually free from his fishermen pals. Since then I’ve always resented paying for them.

So I enjoy a hunk of hot smoked salmon from my £17.95 platter, pick huge whelks and dip them in mayo, crack more of those show stopper-prawns, pick at pickled herring, fat mussels and squid and think that actually, damn, this time I should have taken the lobster. Just about everyone else has. A whole lobster comes with that Very Famous for a mere twelve quid extra. Next time.

Oban Seafood Hut

Calmac Pier

Oban

01631 565 666

Menu: Scallops in garlic butter, huge seafood platters on plastic plates, mussels and crab sandwiches – what a west coast seafood shack should be. 4/5

Atmosphere: When the sun shines is there a more beautiful town anywhere than Oban? Is there a better place to eat fresh seafood? 5/5

Service: Friendly, cheery staff deal with waves of customers and bring the plates to the stand-up bench table. 4/5

Price: The Very Famous weighs in at £30 for two. Considering it contains a whole lobster I’d say it’s a bargain. Scallops £9.95. Fresh value. 5/5

Food: It’s standing up with paper plates – sophisticated it ain’t meant to be. A charcoal grill would transform it, but the seafood is super fresh and very good. 8/10

26/30