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!