Breakfast Nomination #18, the Caffeine Drip in the West End

Breakfast Nomination #18, the Caffeine Drip in the West End

Nominated by Erin Whyte 

Originally reviewed on October 9th, 2016

With our 7th guest reviewer - Emily Hair 

"What's pyjama party? Is that some bar down Leith?" 

Gary's score: 3/6 (would've been 4 if not for his actual meal) 
My score: tasty food but did the menu have to be so damn complicated? 
Emily's score: described by the colour "brown", she wishes it were "more green" but the "omelettes were delicious" 

Gary ate: (boldly) the vegan breakfast with toast, chickpea scramble (pureed chickpea) and ketchup (£5.50), fried banana (£1.60), vegan haggis (£2.50) and fried mushrooms (£1.60) with a (giant) Milo hot chocolate (£3) 
I ate: the non-vegan breakfast with toast, poached eggs and ketchup (£5.50), bacon (£1.60), vegan haggis (it just comes vegan) (£2.50), fried mushrooms (£1.60) and an English Breakfast tea (£2.60) 
Emily ate: a halloumi, mushroom and spinach omelette with toast and Mrs Balls sauce (a kind of chutney) (£8.50) with a Durbanville smoothie (£4.50) which was vegan as it was made with just fruit and apple juice 
Total cost: £41 altogether or £28 for just me and Gary 

Our pros: gluten free, vegan and veggie options but still meat options too; customisable breakfasts; friendly staff; a new experience for us food-wise; South African snacks sold here such as Biltong; takeaway options offered; tasty bacon, omelette, poached eggs and smoothie, and lots of cakes on display (such as their "crazy tiffins"). 
Our cons: milky hot chocolate; weak tasting tea; not much table space for 3 people; overly-complicated menu (just look at my attempts to list prices for our breakfasts to get a hint as to what I mean); vegan breakfast not filling but still expensive; customisable breakfast adds up to be quite expensive even if you don't order components to effectively make up a standard full cooked breakfast, and ordering at the counter for sit in or takeaway caused a bit of congestion at the café entrance. 

Our experience:  I have to begin this blog review by saying that this has been our most popular review to date! It's quite exciting to try something new and just from posting a little on Facebook, Twitter and mostly Instagram - a lot of intrigue has been sparked on the basis that we were reviewing a place that had quite a significant offering of vegan food on the menu. 

We received the most amount of feedback via Instagram, garnering the greatest amount of likes and comments on our review photos than we'd ever had, as well as getting a fair bit of interest on Facebook by simply mentioning the place we were going to to be reviewing next - often these posts are shrugged off and maybe get one or two likes (if we're lucky) but this time we had people commenting telling us how interested they were already in this upcoming review.
Anyway, here is our experience.

We dragged ourselves out of bed at 8:30 this morning (somewhat grumpily) to ensure we had time this afternoon for my birthday surprise at 1pm (which was seeing a double bill at the Film House of Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles) and took an hour-long scenic walk across town to the Caffeine Drip in the West End where we met our 7th guest reviewer, Emily, at the front door to the café then walked downstairs to grab a seat. 

We were greeted upon arrival, given free will to choose our own seats then handed our menus promptly though after that you are to go to the tills to order. 
This caused a bit of a kerfuffle at the tills as the till is located directly at the bottom of the stairs and patrons ordering their takeaways end up almost banging into you as you yourself queue to order your food to sit-in, so this was a minor gripe. 
Table service or a different till location would have been more ideal here. 

What sticks out about this place initially, other than the South African theme and décor, is that for the first time in our breakfast reviewing history - we have visited a place that caters pretty inclusively for vegans. 

I was pretty excited to try this place out as it's always interesting to have a place to review that is not your run-of-the-mill café just serving up your typical breakfast options, and it gives the review a bit more traction and a different edge to it, so I'm grateful to Erin for nominating this place for us. 

This place does do fairly standard breakfasts but there's a much wider variety of options for them. 
I'd say the key thing this place focuses on is customisation - you can order a full cooked breakfast but you're in charge of what bread you get (gluten free options available), what meat (if applicable), what kind of vegan-friendly egg/meat/dairy substitutes you want, what add-ons and even what kind of sauce you want to get (Mrs Balls, anyone?). 

the famous Mrs Balls sauce!

The customisation angle is great but it was also a hindrance when it's pretty much the only possible way to order as when we were first handed our menus we were hit by a mess of options, prices and lists of food components everywhere. 

If you're looking to order a quick set breakfast then you won't have much luck here. Yes, there were breakfast rolls and French toast on offer but the bulk of the breakfasts came with at least 3 mandatory customisations you'd have to specify when ordering. 
This is good for people who want control over what exactly they're going to eat for breakfast but is a bit of a pain in the arse if you just want to sit down and order a breakfast real quick. 

We were sat in the corner dubbed "the bean room" with jute sacks adorning the walls with dubious looking Buddhist symbols on the walls. 
We all agreed it wasn't our kind of kind of décor but the place was uniquely bright and vibrant with oranges and reds colouring the walls and floors of the main café which was an interesting change. 

the Bean Room

Our food came out pretty quick despite the fact everything is specified to be "made to order", so that was nice that the food managed to be fresh *and* quick as other places (yeah, I'm going there again guys) such as BRUNO'S 7-7 DINER, THE WORST FOOD PLACE IN SCOTLAND used their "made to order" practise as a (pitiful) excuse for why they took 40 minutes to cook your food when the place was 3/4 empty. 
One day I may stop bitching about that awful diner, but today, today is not that day. 

Emily was a big fan of her haloumi omelette (and as it turns out, so was Instagram as its picture garnered about 30 likes in 5 minutes - a record for our_breakfast_challenge account) and her smoothie. 

 I quite enjoyed my food as the bacon was well cooked and my poached eggs were suitably runny. The vegan haggis was interesting (I'm not sure if there's any difference between this and standard veggie haggis as even a google search didn't offer up any explanations to what it was), it tasted nice though a little too nutty for me but my mushrooms were cooked perfectly. 

 My tea was a bit too weak but I'm starting to get used to that in cafés as they always seem to have really rubbish teabags for their English Breakfast teas. However, it was not worth over £2 and the takeaway price for the tea is less than half that for some reason. 

some more table jenga!

Gary wasn't the biggest fan of his breakfast, but I guess that's what happens when you panic and forget what you really wanted to order when you make it to the tills and instead order a total vegan breakfast with fried bananas in it! 
His scrambled chickpeas were beyond "scrambled" and instead had the consistency, and some may argue flavour, of baby food and the whole breakfast wasn't substantial enough as he practically keeled over (slight exaggeration) when I dragged him and Emily for a walk round Dean Village after breakfast. 
I spent part of my breakfast sneaking Gary a bit of bacon here and a bit of egg there for nourishment, hoping the staff wouldn't walk past and scream "traitor" at him for tainting his all-vegan breakfast with an assortment of animal products. 

I would say Emily enjoyed this place the most and Gary enjoyed it the least but we were keen to return for other meals and I really loved going to quite a different place for once - even going to McDonald's back in the day was a bit more of an exciting experience, if depressing, as a fair few of the cafés in this city get a bit samey after a while so I'm really pleased to have reviewed this place and I think already (based on Facebook comments and Instagram likes) this challenge has already sparked an attraction from people specifically due to the vegan/vegetarian aspects of the challenge. 

The whole experience today was fresh, fun and I enjoyed the vibe of today's challenge - even though we had to get up so early on a Sunday and everyone who knows me knows that this is a really fucking hard thing for me to do.
I really enjoyed the chat and the experience of trying somewhere totally new and different for a change. 

I'll tie up this review on a somewhat humorous (to us anyway) note by saying that after a quick jaunt along the Water of Leith we graciously walked Emily home (mostly to ensure we didn't go up any other steep slopes and cause Gary to pass out from lack of energy from the morning's breakfast) and she proceeded to fail to open her own front door for a good 5 minutes (leading us to worry she was in fact pretending to live in this flat in order to get away from us quicker) and wound up buzzing to get let into the stair as her attempts with every single key on her keychain failed to gain her access to the building she (allegedly, now it seems) has inhabited for a number of years. 
Of course, Gary and I being the awful people we are we stood and stared at her for the full 5 minutes to ensure maximum awkwardness for poor Emily as she tried to escape us post-breakfast and we refused to leave until she was safely inside whatever random stairway she had just broken into. 

What's next: Odds and Ends Coffee Shop in Polwarth, nominated by Claire Wheelan, the former nominator of the Tower Restaurant in the National Museum

Breakfast Nomination #17, Hemma in Holyrood

Breakfast Nomination #17, Hemma in Holyrood 

Nominated by Russell Simspon - who was eager for us to give Hemma a second chance 

Originally reviewed September 18th 2016

Gary's score: 4/6 
My score: nowhere near as bad as I expected 

Gary ate: the Hemma breakfast (cooked breakfast) (£8.50), a tea (£1.60), an orange juice (£2.60!!!) and a small chocolate cake (£1) 
I ate: French toast with salmon and dill (£7.50), a tea (£1.60) and also a small chocolate cake (£1) 
Total cost: £23.80 

Our pros: good vibe in the café; very bright and spacious inside; not *too* expensive; pleasant service; food delivered quickly; nice big cups of tea and sweet little chocolate cakes offered with our drinks. 
Our cons: staff a little nervous and sometimes overbearing; slightly burnt French toast; food not very flavoursome; no sauce for cooked breakfast; staff hard to spot as they're all in plain clothes, and not very many breakfast choices on offer. 

Our experience: I have to start off this review by saying that we actually originally tried to go to Hemma a year ago. That's right, we tried but were unsuccessful!
Long before this place was recommended to us, Gary and I went through a stint of not doing our breakfast nominations and just trying places for breakfast to just... you know, eat, for sustenance rather than to review for Facebook. And every place we went to, we had a bad time. 

Around this time was when we went to the God awful Bruno's 7-7 diner and were insulted by the manageress - and I will mention the awfulness of that place as many times as I can in my reviews because it should be avoided! DO NOT GO! 
Anyway, so one day we were walking around Holyrood looking for a place to eat and we stumbled across Hemma, but we didn't even get as far as eating here before we had to leave and go somewhere else.  

We stood hovering around the front with no one paying us any attention and we weren't sure if we were to seat ourselves or wait but I think after a few minutes we seated ourselves anyway but were then ignored for another 10 minutes or so. Gary got fed up and went up to order at the counter but a waitress walked past and told him he could have a seat again and she'd come over and take his order. 

Gary sits down again, another 5 minutes or so pass and then she comes over to take our order - we mention the food we'd like to order and she says "Ah, ok. Well it's going to be a 40 minute wait for food so....". 
We glanced round Hemma, maybe a quarter of the tables actually full but still the place is near-empty, and we think "fuck this" and we leave. 

So, after that experience of waiting 20-odd minutes just to have someone attempt to take our order only to tell us it'd be another 40 minutes to get some food, we weren't keen to return. 

However, Russell (the nominator of this challenge) visited Hemma at a later date and tweeted about it himself, we had a little conversation about it via Twitter and it wound up on our nominations so Gary and I had to return - I simply cannot back down from a challenge, plus it's always good to give places a second change. Except Bruno's 7-7, they can fuck right off. 

Anyway, we went in with low expectations and with the experience of last year still fresh in our mind but they were a lot more on the ball today, if a bit nervous or unsure at points. They now have a sign with "please wait here to be seated on it" so that cleared up that issue. 
We got bright, attentive and friendly service upon arrival, got to pick our own table (from the non-reserved ones) and were given menus right away. 
Our orders got taken for our drinks and food within about 5 minutes of sitting down and our food was delivered maybe ten minutes after that. 

Everyone that served us was friendly though one of the waitresses seemed a bit nervous, tripping over her words and repeating our orders back to herself as if she was worried she might forget them, but everything came as we ordered it, and aside from being congratulated on finishing our arguably not very big portions of food -"Well done!!", and being asked how were, how we'd spent our morning, what we were up to next etc - the service wasn't too over the top, which was nice. 

Neither of us were too impressed with our breakfasts in terms of flavour and my French toast was a little singed round the edges, but the food wasn't the worst we'd had. 

I thought considering we'd have two breakfasts, three drinks and two cakes that £23 didn't seem a lot to pay at the end but I don't feel that £2.60 for orange juice is right, neither is £1 for a mouthful of cake or £7.50 for a small bit of French toast. 
However, we have ordered two breakfasts and two drinks before and wound up paying £30 elsewhere so it didn't seem too bad overall - just individual things seemed more expensive than they should've been.  

Hemma is part of a chain of Scandinavian bars/cafés/restaurants (they seem to be all three at different parts of the day) and we actually have another nomination from the chain it belongs to coming up in future, Akva at the start of the canal, so we shall see how that one compares to this (hopefully it's not the exact same). 

The place could do with more breakfast options but it's such a nice, spacious place and we had the choice of sitting on big plush sofas or at a large table (finally we had enough space to eat!) so I reckon this one would be good enough to be recommended for people to try if they were in the area but it wasn't anything spectacular. 

What's next: the Caffeine Drip in the West End, nominated by Erin Whyte