Blue Bear Café on Brandon Terrace
Originally reviewed on March 15th, 2015
His score: 5.4/6
My Score: tasty
food, would recommend
He ate: full
cooked breakfast with juice and tea included ( £11.45) (£8.95 on its own)
I ate: cream
cheese and salmon bagel (£5.95) and a pot of tea (£1.90)
Total cost: £19.30
Our pros: all
day breakfast; friendly service; fresh tasting food; lovely artwork on the
walls and in a nice area by the Water of Leith if you were wanting to go for a
walk afterwards.
Our cons: the
only let down was how busy they were but we can't really fault them for that as
clearly they are this popular for a reason!
Our experience: Blue
Bear Café like City Café offers an all day breakfast/brunch menu so
Gary and I headed down for 1pm and yes, I know we're doing a
"breakfast" challenge but some of us like to sleep in the morning....
Unfortunately the minute we walked
in the door we saw the entire place was full and it was looking like we'd
either have to wait or go somewhere else! The waiter politely explained to us
that it was going to be a little wait for tables as everyone was pretty much
fresh in the door in the last 20 minutes so Gary and I left, momentarily
defeated whilst I huffed and puffed maturely outside the café about the
rudeness of all those customers for daring to take up all the seats - didn't
they know we had a challenge to complete!?
Gary soon returned and asked if we
could book a table for later and the waiter said unfortunately we couldn't book
a table (they'd taken enough bookings for the day) but as we'd already come in
looking for seats he would take Gary's number and call when a table opened up.
We headed a few minutes up the road
and sat in Coffee Angel which was almost deserted - so if you're needing
somewhere to wait for a table at the Blue Bear, I highly recommend this place a
mere 30 seconds up the road! We had some hot chocolates while we waited, which
were quite nice though I'm not technically reviewing *this* café today! We got
a call about 10-15 minutes later from the waiter at Blue Bear Café and returned
to get our seats and proceed with the challenge.
Initially I was put off by the
amount of people that were there, the noise levels and how close together the
tables were but the longer we were there the less I noticed it and by the end
of the meal a lot of people had cleared out post-lunch rush and the whole time
Gary and I had been able to chat comfortably without feeling we were shouting
over background noise.
The service was really friendly and
miles better than City Café last week. We had 3 different baristas/waiters
dealing with us and all of them were polite, friendly and efficient despite how
busy it was.
The bagel I ordered came with a
fresh salad with dressing and a generous handful of crisps. The bagel was also
wholemeal and seeded so the entire meal felt quite healthy but also very
tasty. Gary said his fried breakfast wasn't even slightly greasy and was
very filling and fresh tasting unlike a lot of cooked breakfasts you get in
other cafés. The café sources a lot of its produce from independent suppliers
and you could tell when you were eating the food that it was fresh, clean and
healthy.
With our meals we were given a
giant pot of tea and I'm not sure if this was part of Gary's Big Bear Breakfast
or because we'd both ordered tea with our food so they gave us the biggest tea pot
in the world. We managed to get about 3 or 4 cups each out of it and agreed it
was probably some of the tastiest English Breakfast tea we'd had. We also spied
a Winnie the Pooh teapot while we were in that Gary wanted for our table.
The Café had a much nicer
atmosphere than City Café last week. It was well lit with bright white walls
and lots of artwork on the walls including a Forth Rail Bridge mural. A lot of
the artwork was for sale, as well as some jewellery too and according to their
website the café works in partnership with a number of artists who display
their work there.
The café is "child and dog
friendly" and we saw quite a few dogs and children while we were there.
There was one dog that kept yapping really loud every few minutes which was a
bit distracting/annoying but other than that, it was a reasonably calm and
peaceful atmosphere considering how busy it was.
If you head down the stairs you can
find a ping pong table and the toilets (that were very clean and nice, I can
report!) as well as more artwork.
The Café's in a great area being by
the Water of Leith so after food we managed to have a little waddle by the
river and get some fresh air.
If I lived in the area I would be
likely to go back. The food was tasty and fresh and the service never lacked
for a moment despite the levels of business while we were visiting. They also
had some nice looking cakes and pastries on display which I'd love to go back
and try at some point and I really liked that they display artists' work on the
walls for sale and decoration.
What's next: Kilimanjaro
Coffee in Newington.
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