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!