Sampling Edinburgh

Burns in Parliement

We were in Edinburgh for a few days. We absolutely love this city, the restaurants did not disappoint either. 

Breakfast:

Red Squirrel
http://www.redsquirreledinburgh.co.uk/

We ordered the country breakfast (smoked back bacon, egg, pork sausage, baked beans, haggis, flatcap mushroom, tomato rye toast) and veggie breakfast (vegetarian haggis,egg, quorn sausage, baked beans, flatcap mushroom, tomato, rye toast) and buttermilk pancakes with berries and maple syrup. To tell the truth, it sounds better than it tasted.  Haggis was not my cup of tea (though I have nothing against its ingredients, and have consumed them cooked in various ways before). Vegetarian haggis was way tastier. The rest was nothing fancy - though we expected things to be looking and tasting fresher.  The buttermilk pancakes were interesting, much denser than the American style pancakes, but still went well with the maple syrup.

Loudon
http://www.loudons-cafe.co.uk/

The best breakfast ever! Egg benedict on English muffin and hollandaise sauce. Unimaginably beautiful fluffy and gluten-free pancakes with berries, and maple syrup. Fervently recommended as a relaxation oasis.

National Gallery Cafe
http://www.contini.com/scottish-cafe-and-restaurant

Very very good bakery options - delicious carrot cake with a beautiful cream, coffee and walnut cake with a rich frosting (a bit too sugary for me as all frostings are), and melt-in-the-mouth butter croissants served with respectable cappuccinos.

Dinner:

Henderson's of Edinburgh
 http://www.hendersonsofedinburgh.co.uk/

Our first night in Edinburgh, we are already charmed with this lovely vegetarian place and good friendly service. A variety options are available, I have a crepe with a roasted vegetable filling. Steve got a choice of three salads. Our friend got a vegetable tart - beautifully spiced.  Everything was very tasty, but the portions for the mains are not uniform. Also, salads, no matter how many are combined, remain an appetizer size. Then we had desserts: the best was a warm apple rhubarb pie.

Blonde
http://blonderestaurant.co.uk/

We stumbled on this place -and luckily they had a table for us. To wait for our mains, we decided to nibble on a shared single appetizer of Smoked tofu and mint koftas; rocket and pumpkin seeds; carrot jam. I loved the originality of this recipe, however, not all liked the koftas. However, we all appreciated the taste of the sauce they came with.  The mains were so delicious, especially my grilled sea-bass fillet; leek, green peas and smoked salmon risotto; saffron oil. The desserts are quite amazing too - with twists on the traditional such as banoffee pie with no bananas :), or the steamed banana and date pudding. But, the real winner was the wine, a Gewurtztraminer – Los Gansos, Chile.
Beautiful fruity tones, complemented every single dish we had.  What a lucky find this was!

Passorn
http://passornthai.com/

This time we had to make a reservation, guessing how full the place looked the previous night. Passorn means Angel, and this Angelic Thai place had only a single availability between 6-8PM.
So, the expectations were running high. Unfortunately, although it was indeed quite good, it just did not live up to expectations. First, the service is flawless, but in that flawlessness, there is something lacking in putting the client at ease. The food is indeed nicely spicy and beautifully executed, but just what one expects or imagines reading the description. So at the end, the place ends up being highly ambitious, but quite not there yet.