Breakfast Nomination #15, Peter's Yard in Stockbridge

Breakfast Nomination #15, Peter's Yard in Stockbridge

Nominated by the same former Christmas Temp who nominated Earthy last time

With our fifth guest reviewer and my dear friend, Tanya Rodger Benson

Originally reviewed on July 17th, 2016

"Tombola Bamba. What does that mean then?" *looks at Tanya expectantly* 

Gary's score: 3/6 
My score: what's with all the bread? 
Tanya's score: 10 points to Ravenclaw (yeah, we had breakfast with a Harry Potter nerd!) 

Gary ate: Frukostfralla (essentially a salami and cheese roll) (£2.50), focaccia (a doughy cheese and pepper thing) (£2.90) and a hot chocolate (£3.20), then later on he had one scoop of mango ice cream (£2) 
I ate: the breakfast basket (assortment of breads, cheeses and jam) (£5.40) and a royal breakfast tea (£2.60), then later I had chocolate orange ice cream (£2) 
Tanya ate: a breakfast basket as well (£5.40) and an Americano (£2.40), and later also had chocolate orange ice cream (£2) (what a copycat!) 
Total Cost: £30.40 altogether, or £20.60 for me and Gary 

Our pros: food reasonably priced and filling; food delivered quickly; tasty ice cream with interesting flavours on offer, and they had bottled tap water in the fridges with chilled glasses that you could keep helping yourself to. 
Our Cons: somewhat indifferent service; tea was really bitter after it had been in the pot for 10-15 minutes; menu said they served breakfast until 12 but we were told 11:30am when we called up so their information needs to be clearer; table was cluttered and not cleared until our food was delivered; passive aggressive notes around the place directing customers where to order and pay; lots of large tables sometimes with just one person sitting at them so if it was busier we probably would've had to park ourselves down next to strangers to eat breakfast; really poor breakfast choices (only 3) and none of them particularly breakfast-like, and all the different breads we each ate were very chewy. 

Our experience: Safe to say - we did not get off to a good start this morning at all. 

My alarm woke me from a deep sleep and I blearily picked up my phone, frantically jabbing at it in an unsuccessful attempt to shut it off. Eventually I found myself shouting at it to shut up and managed to put it on snooze. 

not convinced we were awake yet

I disentangled myself from the sheets and checked the bus tracker - uh-oh! The only bus we could get to get to Peter's Yard in time to meet Tanya was in twenty minutes, we better get our arses in gear and get dressed! 

Gary and I scuttled about, with me barely dragging a hairbrush through my hair (seriously, my hair is on end in my photo) before we headed out to the bus stop for the 23. "3 minutes" said the bus tracker, for what seemed like 20 minutes and when the bus finally trudged slowly up the road, a small British dance took place at the bus stop of 'were you here before me? no, you get on first, I insist!' while the old lady dance of 'get the fuck out my way you rude children, I'm a pensioner and I'm getting on this bus right now' was also taking place (please note, I was not the old lady in this scenario). 

Eventually everyone stopped circling round each other and got on the damn bus, which crawled up the road and picked up about 30 tourists along the way then broke down on George IV bridge with a flat tire. 

Gary and I piled off the bus, fearing if we waited to see if the bus could carry on driving or not, we would be exceptionally late. We raced towards the mound, practically knocking over more tourists in our wake until our 23 steamrolled past us again! We raced for it and caught it a few meters down the road, relieved that we would finally make it to Peter's Yard on time...until...until I got off the bus in Stockbridge and realised it was not where I thought it was. Someone had moved Peter's Yard! Or maybe I didn't know Stockbridge as well as I thought I did. 

After a quick check of google maps, a frantic power walk in the opposite direction with a quick text to Tanya explaining I'm an idiot who has no clue of where she's going, we finally found ourselves at Peter's Yard, a mere 15 minutes late after the clusterfuck of my poorly organised journey to our 25th ever breakfast. 

The staff have very little involvement in your experience there, I have to say. We sat ourselves at the only free table there was that didn't have people already sitting at one end of it and there were cups, plates and newspapers left from the previous occupier. 

You go up to order and pay and the only one-on-one part of the experience is when they deliver the food to your table, and that's when they decided to tidy away the previous occupier's mess though I accidentally found myself grabbing the waiter's hand as I attempted to help him clean the table but we both reached for the bottle of water at the same time. Just showing once again that I can successfully embarrass myself in almost any situation. When the waiter left again, he left behind the piles of newspapers - presumably as he either thought they were ours or thought we might want to read them. However, it resulted in a whole quarter of our table being used up by rubbish and so a breakfast tetris had to take place for us to ensure we had all our food and drink in front of us properly.

The food came quick but it's hardly surprising as none of it is hot and I was quite let down by the fact there were three breakfast choices - a basket of bread and cheese, granola and yoghurt or a savoury filled roll. 

I was perplexed by the fact they explicitly stop serving breakfast after midday when there was nothing remotely breakfasty about the breakfast options and considering none of it was cooked, surely you could order cold bread at any point of the day? 

I did like that the place had an open fridge with lots of bottled water and chilled glasses in it so you could just keep helping yourself to water, though this is mostly what I wound up drinking as my tea got too bitter to drink and all the loose leaves ended up falling into my cup. Tanya said that she thought maybe the little basket was supposed to get taken out the teapot after a few minutes of brewing but the staff never mentioned it so I kept it in and wound up with horrible acidic tasting tea that I just had to leave.

I would be reluctant to return just for breakfast as we didn't feel that anything they had on offer was something we'd rush back to eat for our first meal of the day. However, I would return for lunch or maybe even dinner as I felt the food was reasonably high quality with pretty good prices - though Gary's hot chocolate was extortionate in my opinion! 

What I can say positively about this place is that this was different from anything we'd had before - I don't really feel like it was much of a breakfast experience in particular but it was nice to eat something different in a nice place and have tasty ice cream after. And when the three of us left, we went for a nice long walk along the Water of Leith which is almost a tradition for myself and Gary at this point as we have eaten so many times in that area! Stockbridge definitely has the most varied and high quality cafés on offer compared to other areas we've eaten in.

the ice cream was fantastic

We spent most of the meal quizzing Tanya on Spanish words that transpired to not even be Spanish "You're just making noises at me!" and discussing Harry Potter in-depth, and it transpires that Tanya isn't the all-knowing Harry Potter geek she was back in the day (you've got some researching to do!) so the company and conversation for me was 10/10 but that didn't really have anything to do with the location!

Stockbridge is filled with endless cafés, especially those that do great breakfast options, so sure, if you want a different experience and you're a big bread and cheese fan then knock yourself out. It's cheap (except the drinks), it's tasty and it's a lovely, clean café but I wouldn't go in expecting particularly special service or a hot breakfast 'cos it just isn't on the cards. 

What's next: Montpelier's in Brunstfield, nominated by Strevs.

Breakfast Nomination #14, Earthy in Causewayside

Breakfast Nomination #14, Earthy in Causewayside 

Nominated by a former Christmas Temp 

With our fourth guest reviewer Amy DG 

Originally reviewed on June 19th 2016 

"Hi, I don't think we've actually met before!" Amy to Gary half an hour after we finished breakfast and walked halfway to Tollcross together.  

Gary's score: 3.5 happy monkeys/6 
My score: does anyone know what they're doing here? 
Amy's score: full marks for food, slightly below half marks for service but still a pass all round. 

Gary ate: Shakshuka (Moroccan baked eggs) (£8) with a Strawberry banana Happy Monkey (£1.50) - which transpired to be a children's smoothie, this is not apparent on the menu! (waiter: "It's not just for kids!") 
I ate: scrambled eggs on toasted sourdough with bacon (not what I ordered) (£7) and an English Breakfast tea (£2.50) 
Amy ate: scrambled eggs with smoked tofu and potato hash (£8) and an Earl Grey tea and almond milk (£2.50) 
Total Cost: £29.50 for all of us, or £19 for just me and Gary. 

Our pros: nice, chilled out area with good ambience and relaxed music in the background; organic food; reasonably friendly service; interesting menu selections; water brought to table without asking, and fairly nice food. 
Our Cons: worryingly slow service; confused wait staff forgetting parts of our orders/not fully clarifying orders; quite expensive for what we got, and food was nothing special - even for being organic. 

Our experience: This breakfast review comes over a month after our last because my cousin, Amy, is a hard lady to pin down! Fleeing to Arran then to Berlin for various weeks but with her overdraft reaching breaking point, she finally returned to Scotland to help us with our review. 

Earthy is tucked away just off of Ratcliffe Terrace (not far from one of my old flats) and is essentially a food market for buying organic produce but has a café to go along with it as well. 

Initially we were struck by the nice ambience of the place - there was soft lighting, rustic tables and chairs, and big windows with plenty light coming it. It felt peaceful and the music playing wasn't invasive at all. 

A waitress approached our table promptly and gave us menus whilst she wiped down our table and made polite small talk - things were starting off well! 
Gary, Amy and I perused our options and were relieved to see some normal seeming menu choices as I was pretty sure when I'd checked online it seemed like a lot of nuts and seeds and crazy, non-breakfasty (and perhaps somewhat hippy-ish) choices but we were pleasantly surprised to see things such as jam! Toast! Scrambled eggs! And so forth. 

Gary branched out, trying the Moroccan dish on the menu whilst Amy went for the vegetarian but still somewhat exotic choice of smoked tofu with scrambled eggs. I went for the scrambled eggs with bacon, sausage, mushroom and tomato for a whopping £10, though this is not what I wound up receiving. 

I'd say within a few minutes we had decided what we wanted but we sat for almost bang on 15 minutes before we managed to give the appropriately British 'polite but somewhat pointed' eye contact to a nearby waitress to come and take our order - I point blank refuse to be one of those "AHEM, EXCUSE ME *snaps fingers*" patrons I so often see in eateries, though this does mean waiting for sometimes excessive amounts of time with rumbling tummies and a passive aggressive agitation that leads you to stare longingly, yet ferociously at any waiting staff in the nearby vicinity. 

Once the waiter came he said "Sorry!" and began to take our orders. Amy asked for soy milk with her tea and the waiter told her they had almond milk and possibly goat milk so she said she'd take the almond milk instead - I thought this was interesting, not that I would drink any kind of ridiculous milk other than dairy but it was nice to see a variety of dairy-free options there for customers. 
Gary ordered his strawberry banana Happy Monkey (all the information the menu supplied) and the waiter responded with "I like them too! They're not just for kids haha" which then made us wonder what the hell Gary had just ordered, even speculating he was about to be delivered some kind of baby food with a little plastic spoon. 

Another 15 minutes passed and we finally got given our drinks, or rather Amy and I were given our teas with no almond milk in sight and Gary's drink was non-existent. The waiter had forgotten to bring me a saucer so we assumed he'd leave and come back with everything else but instead he just delivered the saucer and left. 

After another few minutes of pointed eye contact with the wait staff, Gary eventually went up and explained his predicament that we weren't given his Happy Monkey or the almond milk, so they brought it over and apologised, though still seemed a bit confused about the whole process of delivering us things we actually ordered (and considering the waiter wrote down our whole order and reiterated it back to us after, we didn't think there would be a problem). It was then we discovered that the drink Gary had ordered was a smoothie that literally had "FOR KIDS!" written on the box, oops, but he drank it nonetheless. 

not just for kids!

The staff seemed worryingly confused the whole time we were there, even ten minutes earlier another waitress had wandered round all the tables with two plates literally asking customers who they belonged to and then wound up almost accidentally ignoring the two customers shouting "er, I think those are ours!" from the other side of the café. 

After another ten minutes, our food was delivered to the table - Gary and Amy's food looking quite spectacular and elaborate and mine looking like.... like... why the hell was I getting charged £10 for this? 

We took our obligatory food photos and began to make a start on our food. After I'd worked my way through maybe a quarter of my portion, I suddenly realised I was missing mushrooms, and tomato, and sausage! This was daylight robbery, did they think they could rob me of THREE ingredients and then charge me £10 at the end of it?  

thrilled to bits

Gary noted my distress but also my reluctance to cause a fuss (so very, very British) so he waved a staff member over and I explained the issue so she got our waiter to return. He knelt down by our table, looking nervous and almost upset - as if I was about to throw my plate of expensive food in his face and demand he bring me what I actually ordered. 

As it transpired, after him nervously explaining what had happened and hurriedly trying to console me with the offer of remaking my food or giving me a free coffee, there were two toast, scrambled eggs and bacon options on the menu - one coming literally as I've just stated and the other with mushrooms, sausage etc and because I didn't specify all the other ingredients (due to me not noticing there was another option just with scrambled eggs, toast and bacon) nor did he clarify which option I definitely wanted, I ended up getting lumbered with the other option that was thankfully not £10 but still a rather expensive £7. I ended up consoling the waiter as he looked like he was bracing himself for a full-on tirade of abuse from me, and told him it was ok and I'd eat what I'd been given as it was simply a misunderstanding. 
We finished up our meals, Gary feeling his had become somewhat bland the longer he ate it and me still feeling a little robbed. Amy, however, really enjoyed her food and couldn't fault it at all. 

After wondering if it was worth waiting to see how long it would take to get them to bring us the bill, Gary went up and paid, and they deducted the cost of one of the teas as they forgot the almond milk (if they'd deducted an item for every mistake they made, we may have wound up with a free meal) and after looking around for the toilets briefly, which I couldn't locate, and making a few sly notes in my notebook, we up and left. 

Roughly £10 a head for a breakfast doesn't sound too much in the grand scheme of things, and it's not much more compared to other places we've eaten but ultimately it seemed like we were paying extra for the organic produce. 
Considering we've eaten at Water of Leith Café and Blue Bear Café, both serving organically sourced produce, and they both had much fairer seeming prices versus the portions we were served, I felt this place had no justifiable reason to charge as much as they did for what you got. 

The layout and feel of the café was great, the service was friendly but it seemed like no one really knew what they were doing and were so afraid to fuck up that they fucked up anyway.

I'd be reluctant to go back based on the waiting times alone - 40 minutes from sitting down to having our food delivered when they were, at most, 1/3 full is not really justified. 

Not the worst place we've been to but not a whole lot of reasons to rush back! At the very least, it was nice to spend time with my favourite little cousin and have her meet Gary again, even though she has little to no memory of meeting him last October at my 25th (that's alcohol for you, guys). 

What's next: Peter's Yard in Stockbridge, nominated by the same (nameless) Christmas Temp.

Breakfast Nomination #13, the Water of Leith Café in Stockbridge

 Breakfast Nomination #13, the Water of Leith Café in Stockbridge 

Nominated by our AM, Ally 

(his 3rd nomination for us after having previous nominated Urban Angel and Cross & Corner, both in Stockbridge as well - can you tell that's where he lives?) 

With guest reviewer number 3, Kerr Lawrence Henderson 

Originally reviewed on May 1st, 2016

"Shut up, you stoned cunt." 

Now, I have officially broken my record for latest ever review write-up as we (obviously) did breakfast on Sunday and it is now Friday, whoops. 

You're probably thinking I've been too ashamed to write it up because Gary and myself, two upstanding citizens, did something unheard of and took a manbun out for breakfast, but that is not the case - I have simply been lazy and preoccupied so here is our review finally!

Gary's score: 4/6 
My score: I seriously didn't know they made bagels that size 
Kerr's score: 3.5 Kerr's/Kerr 

Gary ate: poached eggs on toast (£4.50) with added bacon (£1.95) and an English Breakfast tea (£1.80) 
I ate: a bagel with salmon and cream cheese (£5.95) and a tea (£1.80) 
Kerr ate: a full Scottish breakfast (£8.95) and a mocha (£2.40) 
Total cost: £27.35 altogether, or £16 exactly for just me and Gary 

Our pros: really nice area with views of Water of Leith (obviously!) from window; food delivered quickly; quite big portions for some things - seriously did you see the size of my bagel?; reasonably pleasant service, and a very bright and airy café. 
Our Cons: tiny table for three people to sit at; Kerr felt his breakfast was too pricey; stodgy mocha; not very flavoursome tea; clumsy service at points; website info out of date, and café only open for about 6 hours on a Sunday. 

Our experience: The day did not start off great! I stupidly assumed because the café was advertised online to only be open 10am - 4pm that surely they would do an all day breakfast. Surely!  

Well, Gary being the sensible man he is decided to phone them up around 10:30am to find out if that was the case, and of course it wasn't, and they stopped serving breakfast at 12pm. Fuck! We had already arranged to meet Kerr at 11am to head down to the café but with buses being on a Sunday service and there being one single bus to take us to our destination, we were now pretty much fucked for getting there in time unless we could hustle Kerr up the road towards us that much sooner. 

Look at that bagel!

Frantic texts were sent. Was he even awake?! I must Facebook message him so I know if he's reading my messages! "Just phone him" says Gary, "NO! He must reply to our message!!" I reply, shunning phone calls like I always have. Didn't Gary know we all communicate through screens these days!? 

Gary and I rush to the bus stop, mere minutes to spare until the bus arrives. Where is Kerr? Is he on the bus already? Is he meeting us here to get on with us? But the bus is due now! We're just going to have to go on without him! The challenge comes first!! He's not here, the bus is pulling up! We have to go! 


But then, we get on and there he is, sat tired, dishevelled and a little hungover with his manbun on the ground floor of the bus. All was not lost yet. 

We made it to the café by half 11 with plenty time to spare for our breakfast and were sat at the tiniest three seater table we had ever seen. 

After peering over our menus for a while, the waitress came over and asked us if we were ready to order. Gary went to start ordering his food and she simply went "Oh. Hang on." then walked away with the three of us looking at each other like "???" She came back a minute later with a pad, took down our orders then headed off to the kitchen. A little clumsy and unusual but at least we'd got our breakfast orders nailed down. 

When our drinks arrived, Kerr was not too impressed and I can't say I blame him. Despite ordering a Mocha, he appeared to have been delivered a watery latte with congealed chocolate stodge at the bottom of his cup that he managed to scrape up into a big blob with his spoon.  

We all got complimentary shortbread with out drinks which was a little stale but nice considering it was free, however Gary and I were both disappointed with our teas as well. They were those horrible "brew in 2-3 minutes" tea bags that we'd come across in so many cafés before and they were pretty flavourless as tea goes. 

The food arrived promptly and a small game of Tetris ensued to make sure we could fit all our plates and cups on the table and eat simultaneously without items of food falling into our laps unexpectedly. 

how did we even fit this all on the table?

I was happy with my food - extremely generous portions (again, that fucking bagel was the size of my head) and the salmon was delicious. The cream cheese was a bit plain but most cream cheese is unless it's Philadelphia really, but ultimately the price felt extremely fair to me.

Gary was mostly happy with his breakfast, only saying that he would've preferred to have four (FOUR!) poached eggs rather than "just two" as that's what his mum gives him (you spoil him, Louise). 

Kerr was less than impressed with his breakfast as he felt the portions were *not* generous considering the price. Me and Gary, being the seasoned breakfasters that we are didn't think it was *too* pricey for what he got as we had been even more ripped off for less in the past but I have to admit there wasn't a lot to Kerr's "full" breakfast. 

We felt the place lacked a lot of breakfast choices as (after visiting the many breakfast places we have in our time) we have discovered there is actually *so* much you can eat for a good breakfast but a lot of places seem to fall into the trap of basically just doing cooked breakfasts and then smaller variations on that. What about fruit, eggs benedict, French toast, pancakes etc? So much to choose from out there and a lot of cafés would stand to benefit from branching out a little more with their breakfast menus. 


I think the place could *also* benefit from updating their website as it had no prices on it, the wrong opening hours and no info about when they served breakfast until and these are the sort of things that having a website is kind of made for, surely!? 

Gary and I agreed that if you were in that area we would recommend you visit Blue Bear Café instead (the 2nd review on our original top ten review list) as it's just round the corner and this place just felt like a slightly discounted version of that. 

What’s next: Next on our list is Earthy in Causewayside, nominated by one of the former Christmas Temps who shall be remembered purely by his enthusiasm at saying "HIYA!" to every single person who set foot in the store from November-January. He is not missed. And as far as I know, we shall be taking my dear little cousin Amy to this one with us as she booked her spot for this particular café a month or so back.

Breakfast Nomination #12, Spoon in Newington

Breakfast nomination #12, Spoon in Newington 

Nominated by oldest friend and dear wife, Ashley 

With guest reviewer, Sarah Courtney 

Originally reviewed April 17th, 2016

"I might get a tipple! Whatever that is. Oh, it's alcohol." 

His score: 3/6 (revised from a 4/6 initially) 
My score: nope, just nope 
Sarah's score: ⋆⋆⋆/⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ 

He ate: grilled kippers with wholemeal bread (£9) with a Whole Earth cola (£2.60) 
I ate: the veggie grill (cooked breakfast) (£8) with a hot chocolate (£3.20) 
Sarah ate: mixed grill (cooked breakfast) (£9) with a freshly squeezed orange juice (£3) 
Total cost: £34.80 altogether, or £22.80 for me and Gary and £12 for Sarah 

Our pros: loads of space and light inside; water delivered to tables at start of breakfast, and varied breakfast choices in terms of healthier options e.g. porridge, fruit etc. 
Our Cons: disgusting beans with breakfast; overpriced; website info out of date; slow service; cold and empty feeling inside café; smelly toilets and the food just wasn't that great. 

Our experience: I have to start off this review by saying our next nomination *was* the King's Wark on the Shore but as they don't even serve breakfast, we had to strike it off the list completely! A shame as I was looking forward to it but no breakfast = no review. 

If Sarah, Gary and I were making up our own Breakfast Club this morning, it was safe to say we we the hungover Breakfast Club after a perilous night of drinking last night. 

We began our expedition to the café with Sarah blindly (in one eye, at least) toddling over to me and Gary on Princes Street and declaring "I actually feel ok, I think. I mean, I can't see out my right eye and I think I'm still drunk but other than that..." so we were off to a great start.

When we first went into Spoon and were seated, I was genuinely quite positively bowled over with how it looked - loads of big leather sofas everywhere with lots of space, loads of seats and big windows letting light fill the room but then after we sat down I started noticing how cold the whole place felt and how echo-y it was. 

Despite being crammed full of furniture, it felt like we were in an empty/sparsely decorated room. It felt like being sat in a warehouse where someone had scattered a few tables and chairs about, hung curtains randomly from the ceiling and then gone "look, it's a café!". 

The menus we were given were also different to the ones online which had said they were up to date as of 7/3/16. 
The menu in Spoon had more options which was good, however it was more expensive than the prices on the website which was quite frustrating - some of the stuff as much as £1 more than what it allegedly was a month ago. 

After tallying up the total costs for breakfasts just now (I may not have fully taken in menu prices when initially sat in Spoon due to hungoverness), I really feel like we were overcharged for everything we got and especially due to the food quality. 

Sarah and I agreed that the chips we got with our breakfasts were really tasty and a nice, unique touch to the meal however there was only a small portion. 
The beans that arrived with the cooked breakfasts looked bizarre and when I tentatively tasted mine (Sarah outright avoided hers due to not being a big fan of tomato sauce) I wasn't sure wtf I had just eaten. 
The best way I can describe it is like having eaten cold tinned tomatoes with beans mixed in with it - it was repulsive and I left the rest of them on my plate. 

Sarah said her sausages were great, the haggis was...well, just haggis really but she was not bowled over by her egg as it seemed a bit slimy and strange. 
Mine also was not particularly nice and I felt like I'd just paid nearly £10 for a plate of disgusting beans and cooked tomatoes and the other ingredients were almost an afterthought. 
I did enjoy my toast but the rest of the meal left something to be desired. I had the combined feeling of feeling as though I had only eaten half a breakfast whilst also feeling as though the breakfast was purely stodge that was sat uncomfortably in my stomach for the rest of the day. So, I left feeling both empty and uncomfortably full at the same time - some of this could be attributed to the hangover but the breakfast was not good.   All Gary could say about his breakfast, aside from "why did I order kippers!?" was that it felt like he had literally just eaten kippers for breakfast. Kippers, just kippers and more kippers. There was two piddly slices of bread on the plate too but not enough to drown out the extreme... kipperiness of the breakfast. After we left he said he felt like he just drank a mouthful of seawater as it was all he could taste for the next few hours. 

The place opened at 12pm today and we were sat inside by about five or ten past. There were already a few other tables filled with people by the time we got there but there was still more empty tables than full ones yet I felt the service was really slow. 
It took quite a while for anyone to take our orders and then maybe ten minutes for them to even bring our drinks over. 
By the time breakfast was delivered, we were starving but unfortunately it wasn't worth the wait. All I could think was how would they cope if all the seats were filled? If the place was maybe, at most, 1/4 full and the service was that slow then I dread to think what they would be like if all the tables were taken. 

My last point, which may sound ludicrous but I'm going to make it anyway, was that when we paid the bill (£34.80) we put down £35 and after the waitress took it away, we sat for maybe 5 minutes finishing our water and she never came back with the change. It's only 20p, sure, but I couldn't help but think it was awfully presumptuous or poor customer service to not bring back the change when we stayed sitting there for quite a while after, All in all, despite our hungover state and desire for any kind of food, we all felt a little let down. Probably moreso Gary and myself, the harsh critics that we are! 

We wouldn't go back or recommend and the best thing about today just had to be the ridiculous chat we had with half-blind Sarah but everything else felt a little meh. 

What’s next: the Water of Leith café in Stockbridge, the third café to be nominated by our AM, Ally. The other two being Urban Angel on Hanover Street and Cross & Corner in Canonmills.

Breakfast Nomination #11, the Waiting Room in Morningside

Breakfast nomination #11, the Waiting Room in Morningside 

Nominated by my mum 

With our first guest reviewer, Matthew Gladstone

Originally reviewed on April 10th, 2016 
(shout out to my friend Jahan, whose birthday is today!)

Today's review is special because we have had our first ever guest reviewer! Today Matthew Gladstone joined us for our breakfast and gave us his thoughts and unique score for his experience.  

His score: 3.8/6 

My score: cheap but nothing special 

Matthew's score: C+ 

He ate: scrambled eggs on toast with English breakfast tea (£4.95 with tea included in the price) 
I ate: eggs Benedict with salmon with two English breakfast teas (£5.45 + £1.95 for an extra tea) 
Matthew ate: full Scottish breakfast with orange juice (£7.95 with OJ included) 
Total cost: £20.30 altogether or £7.95 for Matthew and £12.35 for me and Gary 

Our pros: very cheap; reasonably good service; very quiet and peaceful inside; nice layout; extra toast came with the cooked breakfast; not stingy with sugar sachets; drinks included in breakfast price, and decent sized portions. 
Our Cons: some of the cooked breakfast was a little stale/overcooked; there was nothing too remarkable about what was on offer breakfast-wise, and Matthew felt the price for his breakfast wasn't justified as parts of it weren't very well cooked. 

Our experience: It was certainly a pleasant experience adding someone new into the mix today - not that Gary and I don't enjoy our breakfasts together but having someone else there to bounce conversation around with is a nice change to the dynamic. 

We were unsure of what time the Waiting Room did breakfast to/from on a Sunday so we stealthily popped in last night under the pretence of having a drink (ok, so we maybe had one after all) to ask when they did breakfast on Sundays. 
Gary was told they did it from 10am-12pm on Sundays, and as we discovered today this is not even close to true! Sunday breakfasts are 10am-3pm and Mon-Sat breakfasts are served from 10am-1pm.  

The place doesn't have an official website so any info you can find about the bar is from generic business info websites that might give you a photo of the menu and opening hours but not the ridiculously important information about breakfast times so Gary and I can find out in advance how much of a lie-in we can get before our nomination! 

Gary and I arrived first and sat by the window in the hopes of getting some natural light, though I inadvertently cursed us on the way to the bar by saying "it's sunny! we should sit in the window so we can get some sunshine" and of course the sun literally immediately disappeared behind an enormous bank of clouds and didn't make any inkling of a reappearance until at least 3 hours later. The Lydon weather curse strikes again. 

Gary kept and eye out for Matthew as we'd not seen him for a year or so and when he thought he saw him pass the window he asked "Is that him?" and once I turned and looked, I saw nothing but an old man slowly sidestepping past the window mere moments after Matthew had already walked past. "Er no, that's not him!" but Matthew popped into the bar a second later and we decided to start ordering food. 

Sadly this place didn't have a huge amount to offer for our experience but I will say that I was pleasantly surprised at how cheap the whole thing was - especially as I'd told Gary I'd treat him today! It is the cheapest breakfast we've ever had and even if I included the cost of Matthew's breakfast, it's still cheaper than places Gary and I have gone just the two of us. £12 for two breakfasts and 3 drinks is spectacular and the food was still a decent quality and the portions were more than adequate so if you are looking for a cheap, simple breakfast then this place ticks all the boxes.

There wasn't much more we could really say about the place - Matthew felt parts of his breakfast were delicious and wonderfully cooked, such as the haggis. But other parts, such as the sausage, was stale and somewhat overcooked. He also remarked that "mushrooms are an abomination" and pointedly left the pile on his plate untouched for the duration of the meal (madness! I love mushrooms).
He also later remarked that at least his breakfast got a better score than Batman V Superman so it wasn't all bad. 

The experience of having breakfast with a guest reviewer was pleasant and fun. We pretty much covered all the bases conversation-wise, having an in-depth discussion about the Simpsons and its effect on on pop culture; discussing work and education and our personal approaches and opinions on what works best for us to learn or gain experience, and we even covered aspects of religion and what shapes our morality and helps us make our decisions in life. 

The three of us left agreeing that the breakfast was nothing special in itself but the experience and the conversation was very enjoyable - not that we're saying you'll have to take the three of us if you fancy a good breakfast here, just that the experience would be what you make of it and that the breakfast alone probably won't be spectacular in itself. 

What's next: the King's Wark in Leith, nominated by Simon Messer (previous nominator of the Southern in Newington that we visited last year) and we should have another guest reviewer lined up for that one too!