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Kerr felt his breakfast was too pricey; stodgy mocha; not very flavoursome tea; clumsy service at points; website info out of date, and café only open for about 6 hours on a Sunday.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!

Breakfast nomination #10, TriBeCa in Brunstfield

Breakfast nomination #10, TriBeCa in Brunstfield 

Nominated by Kerr Henderson 

Originally reviewed on April 3rd, 2016 

His score: 5/6 

My score: thank fuck there's a good American restaurant out there to beat the shit out of Bruno's 7-7 pish

He ate: Original Brooklyn breakfast (pancakes w/ sugar and maple syrup) (£7.95) with 2 added scoops of ice cream (£2.50) and a banoffee pie snow blizzard milkshake (£4.50) 
I ate: Manhattan Grand Slam breakfast (full cooked breakfast) (£9.75) and a Summer Cooler smoothie (£3.75) 
Total cost: £28.45

The saddest man to ever
drink a milkshake

Our pros: really friendly and attentive service; very bright and well decorated restaurant; lots of choice on the menu for brunch; brunch served until 5pm; lots of American-themed food across all menu and drink options, and it felt like a more authentic American-themed restaurant than past places we'd been to *cough cough*. 
Our Cons: a tiny bit crammed where we were sat and the full cooked breakfast seemed a little overpriced for what it was. 

Our experience: When we first walked in it seemed like every single table was taken and we started cursing ourselves for not seeing if we could book a table in advance - which has so often been our downfall in the past. 
We stood for a couple of minutes wondering if anyone was going to approach us but eventually someone did and they were very polite and explained to us that they would just wipe down a nearby free table then seat us, and that even though they did actually have extra seats downstairs, he didn't want us to be seated down there by ourselves with no others customers in there yet. 
I wouldn't have minded that though, being the anti-social bastard I am I would've quite happily had us have an entire room to ourselves to munch breakfast in. 

My favourite picture of Gary, possibly ever

Despite a small squeeze to get into our table with two other sets of customers on either side of us (with me trying not to accidentally sit on their breakfasts as I squashed past them with my big posterior), we felt quite content when we sat down and took in our surroundings. 

There's a lot of New York themed décor on the walls - photos of famous NY landmarks; subway signs; red rick walls with painted information on them and even half a taxi cab stuck to the wall that I stupidly failed to get a picture of before leaving! 

I wouldn't go as far to say that this place was strictly an authentic American diner, as I don't think that's what it's trying to be, but it is certainly an authentic American themed restaurant and we loved the sheer volume of options for brunch (and other meals) that ranged from seemingly average UK breakfasts to proper American style food, such as sweet pancakes and French Toast etc. 
They also had a huge range of milkshakes, smoothies and hot drinks and though I usually have tea with my breakfast, I had to opt for a cold smoothie due to the humidity (or my hot flashes...) making me feel like I would burst into flames if I let a hot drink touch my lips.

 During our visit the music in the background seemed to have a late 90s/early 00's feel so we found ourselves listening to a lot of Will Smith (Men In Black), Robbie Williams (Rock DJ) and Justin Timberlake (Rock Your Body) which was certainly an interesting experience and actually fit quite well with the surroundings. 

It seemed like the staff were all happy and enjoying their jobs. Every member of staff that dealt with us was polite and friendly without being overbearing, and genuinely seemed happy to help us. 

The only minor gripe I had was that I felt my full cooked breakfast was quite a bit on the expensive side, also my bacon was a bit too salty and crispy for my liking but other than that, Gary and I both agreed that our food was nice, the environment was lovely and the service was great compared to past experiences so perhaps the price was justified in terms of the entire experience. 

Also, my breakfast came on a huge plate and I had difficulty finishing it so the portion sizes for both of us were more than adequate, and the staff gave us a good handful of complimentary Jelly Beans with our bill which we found the room to scoff, despite the odd flavours making our experience a little more like food Russian Roulette (seriously, one of the Jelly Beans was spicy, ugh). 

I would strongly advise anyone looking for an American-themed meal, particularly breakfast, to choose this place over Bruno's 7-7 Diner (which is by High Riggs/Lauriston Place). TriBeCa offers a huge range of choice, quality food, a warm and welcoming environment and a great level of customer service, and I guarantee you will find none of that at Bruno's unless you catch them on a rare day where they decide to actually take some pride in their work. 

TriBeCa made a pleasant change from some of our past experiences and we both left feeling happy and content with our experience so we would both 100% go back, especially to try out their lunch and dinner menu. There are so many options, I feel there is something for everyone at TriBeCa. 

Also, from Mon-Fri, 8am-11am they offer a bagel with one topping and unlimited coffee refills for just £3.95. And if you're a student, you can get 50% off your bill on Tuesdays between 5pm and 10pm - so definitely well worth checking out if you've got a student ID. 

What’s next: the Waiting Room in Morningside, nominated by my mum.

Breakfast Nomination #9 - Marie Délices in Morningside

 Nomination #9 - Marie Délices in Morningside

Nominated by Kerr Henderson

Originally reviewed on March 20th, 2016

"Bonjour, bonjour!!!"

His score: 4.4/6
My score: omg, stop with the French already

He ate: le Marie Délices gourmand (basically a savoury gallette type thing with a choice of two ingredients and then a sweet crepe for after with one ingredient, and a choice of either a large coffee, tea or hot chocolate). Gary chose to have an egg and bacon galette, then a butter and sugar crepe, with a hot chocolate (£7.90)
I ate: the same option but instead having salmon and egg in my galette (£8.50)
Total cost: £16.40

Our pros: lovely interior; very bright, friendly service; tasty food; very peaceful and quiet, and reasonably good value for money
Our Cons: staff were friendly but dealt with us so quickly we had no chance to ask for anything extra; there was far too much French going on the whole time we were there (merci, merci! bonjour!! au revoir!!!!); the website for the place offers very little useful information; portions are a little stingy; and the place felt a little...not wanky, but that it specifically attracted wanky people.


Our experience: "Let's do a brunch this Sunday," I say to Gary every week. 
"Ok," he dutifully replies. 
"Actually, let's just have a lie-in on Sunday," I inevitably say every Saturday night. 
"Ok," Gary replies, relieved. 
But this week I finally had enough and said "Let's just get it over and done with!". 

Gary and I actually originally went to review this place in early January right before we went to London but the website for the place was next to useless as it has a section that says "our menu" that literally just says something along the lines of 'we sell crepes' but with no information on what kind of crepes, or if they even serve anything else. 
Also, there is 0 information on if they do brunch, and if so at what hours which is *extremely* unhelpful for us when we're trying to plan a review. 
So, Gary and I originally went around midday back in January and sat down, only to realise they stop serving brunch at 11:30am - information that was on the front of their menu, along with a list of everything they actually serve food-wise (perhaps useful information to put on your website, no?). 
We ate there that day but as it wasn't for breakfast, we didn't review it and decided we'd go back at a later date. 

Ok, so 11:30am in not particularly early, especially when the place you're reviewing is literally a 15 minute walk away from your front door but still as I've said in many reviews prior, I'm lazy and I like sleep so it took us over two months to return and today, mainly due to pure chance, we found ourselves strangely awake at 9:30am on this beautifully sunny first day of Spring so we just decided to go for it. 

The waitress who served us was incredibly bright and bubbly but spent most of our visit enthusiastically throwing French phrases at us at every opportunity, which felt more for the benefit of other patrons who may enjoy going here to practise their French and feel like they're in France for a bit. 
However, for me who did standard grade German and about two minutes of intermediate 2 Spanish, and Gary who hasn't done French since he was in high school in the late 1840s, we were a little out of our depth and uncomfortable. 

Service was polite but the waitress never stopped to breathe or ask us if we wanted/needed anything else. She simply cleared away old plates/put down new plates and garbled "merci merci!!" before scuttling off to the kitchen again. 


The food was very tasty but the portions were pretty minuscule even with having essentially two courses; savoury then sweet, we still left feeling a little empty after. 
Also, the hot chocolates were far from flavoursome so we probably should've just gone with our usual teas instead. 

We left to a lot of enthusiastic "AU REVOIR!! MERCI MERCI!!!!" as the door closed behind us and felt that this place was not really for us. Sure, if you want to pick up a tasty crepe and maybe practise some French while you're at it then on you go but ultimately this place smacked of the kind of location semi-snobby people might go to feel cultured and sophisticated and perhaps arrogantly show off their handling of the French language, but then again what else would you expect in South Morningside? 

Tasty food, small portions, way too much French so probably won't return. 

What’s next: (which at this rate we will get to in 6-8 months) in the Killer Restaurant nominated by Daniel (Fawcett). Though as this place doesn't actually seem to have breakfast on their menu (yet?), we may need to skip ahead to the next nomination after that which is TriBeCa in Morningside, again nominated by Kerr.