Breakfast List #1, Breakfast #10, the Royal McGregor on the Royal Mile

Breakfast #10 on the list

Royal McGregor on the Royal Mile

Originally reviewed on May 10th, 2015 

His score: 4.5/6
My score: nice but nothing special

He ate: Pancakes with maple syrup and bacon (£6.95) with a traditional tea (£1.70) and a pint of Pepsi for (£3.50) - jesus! only just looked at the receipt, £3.50 for a pint of Pepsi!?
I ate: scrambled eggs on toast with salmon (£7.95) and a traditional breakfast tea (£1.70) 
Total cost: £21.80 (that bloody Pepsi)

Our pros: nice service; nice food with good sized portions; nice layout and décor - lots of tartan and Scottish themes i.e. the thistle wallpaper; condiments on the table, which is very important to us since the Heller's Kitchen sugar debacle; decent prices other than the Pepsi, and the waitress complimented Gary's BFG t shirt. 
Our Cons: nothing special about the place; service was a little in-your-face at points i.e. when the waitress started leaning over us to clear our plates away when we'd barely just finished and there was no one in the place so it wasn't like the table was needed quickly; there was too much cinnamon (ugh) on Gary's pancakes and, well this place just really didn't have much of a unique feel to it or anything that particularly set it apart from the rest - which may not be a fault of the place itself as it is the last of the ten for us to review, however I do think it should've had something a bit more special to it to have wound up on that top ten list in the first place.

Our experience: The last one!

We very nearly missed our reservation, which wouldn't have been a good way to finish the top ten reviews.

We assumed, just like with every other café we'd visited over the last ten weeks, that it would be heaving and so thought we'd be smart this time around and book a table in advance but with it being a Sunday and buses being sporadic to say the least, we found ourselves running late and with only about 15 minutes to get to the Royal Mile from Fountainpark.

We frantically waved our arms about in the drizzling rain (hence my rather windswept/frizzy hair in the photos) by Cineworld until we were able to catch the attention of a passing taxi, then we gave him the address from Google and sped off towards the Royal Mile.

The clock was ticking down, we only had a few minutes until our booking! IWa he going to get us there in time!?

The taxi driver suddenly took a right down the Royal Mile when he should've taken a left. We couldn't see the Royal McGregor anywhere! What were we going to do!? 

We panicked, paid and piled out the taxi again, me whipping out Google Maps to guide the way.
"Up here!" I said and Gary and I sped back up the Royal Mile, raced in the front door, almost panting with the sheer panic of missing the booking for our last review and cocking everything up.

The place was empty.

Ok, so there was one very small group of people sat at the back of the café, but that was it! 

We apologised for running late, though we could see now that booking in advance was completely pointless and when the waitress led us to our reserved table, we realised we had wound up being sat next to literally the only other people in the entire place.

Needless to say, we sat down and ordered our drinks, and prepared to begin the last review.

I have to start by saying that it wouldn't be hard to beat last week's revolting Clock Cafe and Diner slop so this place already had that working in its favour. 
Food-wise this place beat it with no contest but there wasn't much else to really say about it.

The food was good and well priced and the service was friendly but the menu wasn't all that exciting, though it did have more variety that last week's one with more added stuff like yoghurt and granola etc and I did like having salmon with my scrambled eggs on toast rather than winding up having to have another cooked breakfast. 

It was a relaxed environment and we were lucky to be there at a quiet time though with it being on the Royal Mile we expected it to be very busy and that's why we'd reserved a table in the first place. 

It would be nice to say these top ten reviews were ending with a bang, but in reality it was just an ok place. 
We agreed it could be a nice place to for dinner but other than if we were in the area, I wouldn't hurry back for breakfast. 

At a later point I'll list all our cafés from least to most favourite, our reasons why and our scores for each. 

What's next: There's no more cafés to go to! I might just sleep in next Sunday and not have to run out into yet another rainstorm to get some food. Thanks everyone for reading and commenting and/or liking. It's been a good ten weeks, though I'll be glad to give my bank account a well needed rest now!