Iris

Iris - Eating out in Edinburgh

For the last week we were in Edinburgh, my lovely boyfriend treated me to dinner. I had the task of picking where to go, and thought I would search what Thistle Street had to offer. Thistle Street is a road running between George Street and Victoria Street and is packed with lots of lovely restaurants.

Eyeing up the menu, this definitely seemed like the best choice.  If you want to go there I would definitely recommend making reservations. We watched couple after couple walk in and ask for a table, and told to come back two hours later if they wanted a seat. Very popular!

For starters I opted for Pork Belly. The pork itself was in strips, lying on a small bed of salad. I think I received a fairly generous helping. It had a honey glaze, and looked lovely. The boyfriend had a smoked duck salad starter. He wasn’t particularly impressed with it, as there was very little duck on the dish.

The main meals were a lot better. I had roasted duck with raspberries and drambule. And oh my! It was so good. The duck was perfect. Very pink, and I was impressed with just how well duck and raspberries go together. The perfect combo. The boyfriend had a rack of lamb, rare again and cooked to perfection. We were very happy with the meat, the side however were a total let down, and I feel they kind of ruined the meal. Normally you would expect to be served a bowl of extra vegetables or something in addition of the meal. Not at Iris though. You have to buy sides as you literally only receive the meat. This wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if the sides actually go with the dished, but they weren’t brilliant options. We decided that the sweet potato fries would be best, they did the trick, but I’m sure that Iris could come up with a lot more flattering sides.

After some deliciously tender meat it was time to fill the sweet pocket. I opted for Chocolate Key lime Pie. It was so good! I’m always a sucker for key lime pie, and the addition of chocolate made it too tough to refuse. It was wonderful. A raspberry sauce and icing sugar decorated the plate to make the whole thing look even better.

What I think:

The food was really, really good. The mains cost about £13 for the Duck, £17 for the lamb (bill totalled at £68 with drinks), which is what you expect to pay on Thistle Street. Desserts were good and pretty cheap.  When the waiting staff deliver the bill you are also given an envelope that goes to an Edinburgh charity for the homeless, which I think is a very nice touch. They could probably do with having more than two staff serving, as sometimes we were left for a while longer than we should have been to be asked about desserts/ serve desserts, but they were both very pleasant. I would recommend this place, but I would be tempted to check it out on lunchtime as you can get a three-course meal for 14.99. Barry bargain! Like I said at the very start, you need to make a reservation too. It’s so busy. Would recommend and give a 7.5/10 

Holyrood 9A

Eating out in Edinburgh

The Holyrood 9A

It’s August which means Edinburgh has sprung into Fringe life! Woooo! The biggest Arts festival in the world is on my doorstep (for the next two weeks, as I am soon to be moving!).

The boyfriend and I went on a date night on the 1^st Of Aug, which was the opening of the preview shows. We went to see David O’Doherty which was a laugh a minute. The show was at pleasance, situated around a step hilly corner from HolyRood 9A, a place you must check out if you like super brilliant quality burgers. They also have a large list of beer and ales.

After a good bit of pondering I decided that the “Pioneer” would be my burger of choice. A 6oz burger, sautéed rosemary scented wild mushrooms, crispy

bacon, Swiss cheese & Garlic mayo. It sounded dreamy, tasted dreamy, and was very messy to eat! The burgers are presented on a wooden block, with a cup of chips (very good size serving) and a small side dish of red cabbage coleslaw. The burger itself was so juicy and full of flavor, especially with long stems of rosemary running throughout for a big hit of flavor. The only thing I think could do with improving would be better chips, perhaps some big chunky wedges with lots of tasty herbs all over them.  The staff were great, very attentive, quick to serve us, and take our orders. The restaurant was clean, nicely presented with interesting artwork over the walls. It’s safe to say it’s not the cheapest burger place in Edinburgh, but I’m pretty certain few would do it better! 8/10 for sure!

Eating out in Edinburgh

Eating out in Edinburgh

A sea foodie dream.

LA FAVORITA

The best thing about Edinburgh has to be the big collection of amazing restaurant’s dotted across the city. On Saturday night The Boyfriend and I jumped into the car and set off to Leith Walk- an affordable part of town with restaurants, take-outs and worldwide food stores to suit all the corners of the Earth.

La Favorita is an Italian restaurant, with incredible food and very attentive, friendly staff.  They make homemade desserts, handmade pizzas, and have an impressive array of pastas, meat & fish dishes, and risottos.

The menu is rather large, with an assortment of mouth-watering dishes throughout. The portions themselves are rather large; lucky for us we had a table where we could see a lot of dishes going out and realized that bruschetta, as a starter would work best between the two of us. So glad we did that as there is no way I could have managed a whole dish for just a starter! But oh my! It was wonderful. A beautiful selection of seafood on white bread accompanied with a little salad and some olives.

Gluten Free King Prawn & Scallop Pizza.

 Due to the huge menu the boyfriend and I spent ages to make a decision on our main meal, and still hadn’t decided what to have until we had finished the starter, ooops! After a lot of dithering between pizza- pasta, pizza- pasta we decided to treat ourselves to huge pizzas.  Again, there was a huge selection that all sounded delicious! Boyfriend chose a pizza with slices of steak on it (I kid you not!). It looked sensational! He was even asked how he would like the steak cooked, very impressed!  I went for a ‘blue mare’ (I think that was it’s name!) gluten free pizza, which was covered in mozzarella, king prawns and scallops. It was wonderful! There was a lemony zest to the pizza that gave it a lovely fresh feeling. The gluten free base was not anything I had tried before, but something that did really interest me. It didn’t have as much crunch as a regular pizza base, but I think overall the taste from it was better. The pizzas were huge too, I was shocked at how much pizza I could get for £11-£12! 

Close up of Boyfriends steaky pizza!

Overall this has to be one of my favorite restaurants in Edinburgh, and one of the most affordable! The meal that left us absolutely stuffed came in at under £30. Pretty good value when you also factor in the fact that we got out left over pizza (in my case half of it!) put into a pizza box for the next days lunch! I can’t wait to return and try their pasta dishes, I had a look at some other people were eating and they looked so good! Another thing I am desperate to try are there desserts! They all looked so authentic and delicious! But If I could only manage half of my main I don’t think there was any real chance of a dessert! I was very impressed by everything here, the restaurant was clean, had a vibrant buzz about the place and the staff were so nice, Super friendly, and smiley and not in a way that seemed false at all. The service was fast, polite and it felt like a treat to be there! All over 10/10! 

Eating out in Edinburgh- Café Cassis

Eating out in Edinburgh- Café Cassis

The last weekend I went out for lunch with The Boyfriends family to celebrate his Mum and Sister’s birthday. Wooo! We headed to, Café Cassis, (part of The Salisbury Hotel) A French restaurant in the Newington area of Edinburgh.

The restaurant offers a very nicely priced lunch menu, with the option of having specials on a board. We all opted for the lunch menu, which offers two courses £8.95 with the option to add on £1.95 for a dessert.

I opted for a bowl of Moules marinière with cream, garlic and parsley, in a delicious sauce, served with a few baskets of bread for the table to share.  I was so happy with this starter. Having the bread also meant I could soak up all of the juices to leave a clean bowl! The portion size was pretty generous, especially for a starter, and to my delight I didn’t have to throw any muscles away as they were all opened, woo wooo!

For my main course I had, beef bourguignon, which looked like a small portion when it came out, but it was deceptive as it was actually the perfect portion size! The meat was wonderful, very tender, and the whole dish had plenty of flavour.

For dessert I chose Homemade nougat ice cream terrine served with crème anglaise and

Raspberry coulis. It wasn’t the most impressive looking desert, but it tasted good and was a lovely way to finish the meal.

What I think: The service was excellent. We had one waitress to take all of our orders, and two waitresses to serve everything, so food came out very swiftly! The quality was wonderful throughout and I don’t think there is anyway you expect more, especially with such a small price tag on the set meal. The restaurant itself looked for clean and fresh. I expect I will go back for more. All things considered I don’t think I can give it any less than 9/10 (an upgrade on desserts and it would be a very easy 10).

Restaurant website:  http://www.cafecassis.co.uk/index.html

Eating out in Edinburgh, Café Malayne

So as it happens, I have a very hard working boyfriend, who was given  £75 to blow on a meal as a “Thank You’” for all of his hard work. Brilliant!  It took us forever to decide where to go, and a few months later settled on Café Marlayne, Thistle Street in Edinburgh.

We’ve been to the café Marlayne at the top of Leith walk twice before for lunch, and the food was pretty good (the service comically bad, but that was just down to one waiter on a verrry off day!), so we looked at the evening menu, and ding dong! It looked incrediable!

We rolled up on Thursday evening, to the restaurant, despite the tiny size of the room there was a definite buzz about the place. Quickly we were seen to our table and greeted with a bowl of delicious sliced baguette- which was very welcome as we were both starving!

On to the food!

For a starter I had Fresh Crab with Mango, Avocado, Corriander Salsa & Lime Mayonnaise, which cost £5.10.  It came out in a tower with the mayonnaise drizzled in a zigzag across the plate beneath the tower of crab, avocado and mango. The starter was light, had a sharp-fresh taste and was just the thing I needed to get excited for the rest of the meal.

The one and only thing that let the starter down was how much better my boyfriend’s starter was! He had a dish of pigeon breast and bacon, on a bed of rocket. I was eager to try it, and it didn’t disappoint! It looked marvelous and tasted even better.  The portion size was very generous, especially for a starter (could easily pass for a light lunch).  Everything on the plate complimented each other perfectly, and it’s something I would love to eat a full portion of.  Think this starter cost about £5.00

For the main meal we both decided on the same dish: Gressingham Duck Breast on a bed of spinach.  The main meals come with a plate of vegetables (broccoli, carrots and potatoes- which was the perfect portion side to compliment the Duck) The Duck was cooked to perfection, and melted in the mouth. We were both very impressed with it and it was easily worth the £15 we paid for it. There were two very clean plates when we were finished!

The best bit- dessert!

I chose Key lime pie (one of my favourites!), which I knew I was a fan of as I’ve had it before at the other café Marlayne. It’s beautifully sharp, and creamy with lime zest throughout and I cant sing enough praise its way! The base was made using ginger snaps, and keeping in line with the rest of the meal looked beautiful!

Louis (the boyfriend) opted for white and dark chocolate Almond torte, which again was beautiful and equally as delicious, but I think was a bit too heavy to have a full slice after so much food.  Both desert’s came in at £4.50 and are worth every penny!

I would love to go back there and eat everything all over again! The service was brilliant, and there are no complaints from me in the slightest. The whole meal came in at £71.00 which included all of that food, a bottle of wine and two beers which seems pretty reasonable for an evening meal that tasted so good.

A very easy 10/10

Eating out in Edinburgh.

Amore Dogs, Edinburgh.

Went out for dinner last night to Amore Dogs. It’s a lovely little place on hanover street which is decorated by pictures and statues of dogs. Dream! We’ve been there before with boyfriends mum and sister for lunch and it was pretty well priced and tasty so we headed back for round two.

Nothing really sounded appealing for starters, just garlic breads for a fiver- bugger that! So we got some bread as the past hour we both spent a lot of time moaning about how hungry we were (me especially). The bread was actually so tasty, so warm inside and nice and crisp on the outside. It got severed without any butter, which is a bit odd, and when I asked the waitress if we could get some she gave us a tiny amount on a plate and seemed really pissed off that she was having to do it. The joker!

Anyway, after a little bit of a wait, on came our main. We both decided on the same dish (I was toying with the idea of black olive potato dumplings with roast cherry tomatoes and prawns), which was a seafood linguine in a tomato sauce, and boy, it was pretty yummy. It came out we both thought it looked like there was not a lot in there. In fairness, they didn’t go to town with adding in many seafood bits. The muscles tasted amazing and decorated the bowl nicely. There were these little octopus things which were kind of cute so I felt a bit guilty eating them (soon got over it mind). But you did have to rummage through the linguine to find other fishy bits, in fact, I think I only had one bit that was some fish, no idea what. 

Overall it was really tasty and second round of bread to soak up all the sauce and juices worked as a treat. My biggest complaint would be that I didn’t see the waitress smile once, until she realised she received a tip (annoyed bf tipped her as she totally didn’t deserve it, and I think people should earn them, but whatever). I don’t know if I would go back to that restaurant as the company has two other dog themed restaurants on George and Rose street with different menus that I would like to check out.  I would give the food 6.5/10 and the service a 3/10

Taken from my old blog.