Edinburgh - Lothian Road - Ryan Review

Ryan's picture
How Helpful?: 
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Author: 
Number of Visits: 
This was my first visit
How Busy?: 
Half Full
Date of Last Visit: 
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Time of Day: 
Weekday Dinner
Rating: 
2.25 / 5
Friendliness of Staff: 
3 (Not bad. Did everything I asked of them)
Speed of Service: 
1 (>25 mins - Asked repeatedly. I need my Nando's)
Quality of Food: 
2 (Quite disappointing - seems rushed, may have some parts burnt)
Decoration & Cleanliness: 
3 (Standard Nando's, nothing bad, nothing exceptional)
Comments - Stand out in our monthly competition! What did you eat? Unique aspects? Parking/transport tips?: 

In Edinburgh for a night out (I can definitely recommend Usher's of Edinburgh and The Bow Bar for some awesome ales), so what better way to line the stomach than with a tasty peri-peri treat? I chose Lothian Road and was on the train so walked the mile from Edinburgh station... only to realise that Haymarket station is only half a mile away :-) From times in Edinburgh before, I would forget trying to drive and park, especially during the day and stick with public transport if you can.

Arrived here in a party of 11 at about 8:30pm and the restaurant was less than half full, so we were given two six-seater tables together at the very back straight away. We were asked if we knew what we all wanted - and most people were having chicken on the bone - so this would let them "get it ready more quickly", which was good stuff! Sadly, it didn't quite happen that way... The first 8 people to order had their food come from anywhere between 15 and 20 minutes... but the next two didn't come for a further 10 minutes and the last person to order had a 35 minute wait from when they ordered, which was about 50 minutes after the first person, which also meant a lot of people had already finished before their food even came. Staff were apologetic enough, but this could have been avoided surely...

Sadly, the food didn't make up for the wait either. Having had two splendid meals at Stirling and Dundee I had this Edinburgh one up on a pedestal, but it didn't quite reach those heights. The half chicken portion was very measly, almost no meat on the leg bit at all. It was cooked nicely enough, but the lack of meat and sauce let it down. The chips portion was also average in size and it hotness (they were a bit soggy) and the rice portion was also below average and a bit cold. Never mind.

As the restaurant itself, we were sat in the back where on the back wall were a series of large coloured glass bottles on lots of small shelves. There are a lot of full length windows running along the restaurant, so during the day I imagine it is nice and bright inside, but of an evening it was pretty dark. We were also sat underneath a heating vent which was pumping the heat out - but the spicy chicken was warming us up enough!

Overall, a bit of a let down...

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