3 Star Restaurant and Takeaway Reviews

Browsing the newest of 126 3 star reviews on EdinburghMenus.com.

Gourmet Burger Kitchen

137 George Street, EH2 4JY, Edinburgh

from Neill (19%) on February 26th, 2008 (4 months ago)

Went here last Saturday for a friends birthday.

To start with service was a bit strange, a waiter takes your drinks order and brings drinks to the table, but doesn't/won't take food orders. This has to be done at the counter/bar where you pay up front. I imagine this could be a right hassle if you were with a large party. Secondly our waiter that night spoke a very accented english hich made him a bit tricky to understand.

Burgers were ok, a little dry for my tastes, certainly not the best burger I've ever had. I had the cajon and the relish seemed to overpower everything else on the bun.

Chips were my main bugbear of the evening, I hate frozen chips! These were advertised on the menu as "Freshly Made" but to me they definitely seemed of the frozen variety. They were ok but not at £2.55 for a tiny bowl. On the plus side the blue cheese dip was excellent if a little expensive at £1.50 for an egg cups worth.

Probably won't be back in my search for the perfect burger.

(+4) (+3) (0)

Channings

Channings Hotel, EH4 1EZ, Edinburgh

from Bryan (57%) on February 20th, 2008 (4 months ago)

Nice food, poor service.

We arrived early to take advantage of the cocktail bar and the enthusiastic waiter was more than keen to help. I ordered a Manhattan (perfect; straight up); my partner didn't know what to have but went with the waiter's recommendation of a Mojito. He came back 10 minutes later to say he had no Vermouth so no Manhattan and no mint so no Mojito. We had a raspberry thing instead as it was on the specials board so presumed they had the ingredients. It was quite nice.

We were taken through to the conservatory by another waiter who quickly realised we were completely freezing and found us another table next to the fire - good that.

I ordered the warm salad of squab with beetroot and a port sauce, followed by pheasant with wild mushroom risotto. My partner had duck and pistachio terrine followed by Sea Bream in (I think) a lemon sauce with tagliatelle. And a bottle of Cotes du Rhone and some sparkling water.

Neither the water or bread arrived before our starter and they were a little mean with the bread.

My squab was nice but they was a little too much going on and it was a bit too rich. The terrine was good but was a very small portion. It looked like it belonged on the tasting menu which they also offer (£48 per head without wine; £68 with wine).

My pheasant was excellent and the risotto cooked perfectly. The Sea Bream was dull and I think slightly overcooked. Both portions were a little small but generally I prefer that to being given too much.

For dessert I had the chocolate fondant with chilli ice-cream. The fondant was beautiful but the ice cream had clearly been sat on the plate waiting as it was half-melted away. The other dessert was a banana tarte tatin or something equally unlikely. It was quite nice though and bizarrely massive - easily the size of the starter and main combined.

Now to the service. We had the enthusiastic chap for almost all the evening and he did a number of things wrong. Too slow in some ways, too quick in others and completely incorrect in some of his decisions.

Too slow to bring our water, our bread and to clear our tables (it wasn't busy) our starter, main and dessert. Too fast to bring us the dessert menu. He also attempted to clear our table while holding a pile of teetering plates he just cleared from another table. Given that we had already seen him drop a pile that evening, this didn't fill us with confidence. he also spoke loudly with another diner cum pal of his about where he'd found 'the balls' to get engaged that weekend. I'm not a snob but if you're trying to do white tablecloth-fine-dining with tasting menus then you really don't want to be hearing that sort of thing. We skipped coffee as we hadn't seen him for about 15 minutes and went to the bar to pay.

The bill was £95 or would have been if they hadn't given us the cocktails gratis (or forgotten about them).

Decent food but certainly not a fine dining experience.

(+3) (+1) (+1)

Wedgwood

267 Canongate, EH8 8BQ, Edinburgh

from mary kearns (19%) on February 19th, 2008 (4 months ago)

Having read amazing things about this restaurant online my husband and I booked for Valentines Night as we were on a trip from Ireland to Edinburgh for the week-end. The booking was under the name of Greene - a friend who was good enough to book for me.

We were very disappointed to say the least. We were put downstairs in the very corner facing a wall so the ambiance and decor we expected was completely lost.

For 80 pounds sterling for start, main course and bottle of wine we thought it was overpriced. A very different experience to The Doric Tavern which I had not expected great things from. A similar meal with same bottle of wine was 60 pounds and food was gorgeous with table by the window.

Overall, a disappointing valentines night!

(+4) (+1) (0)

Montpelier's

159-161 Bruntsfield Place, EH10 4DG, Edinburgh

from clarindavine (66%) on February 17th, 2008 (4 months ago)

We took friends here for lunch at the weekend after hearing good things about the place. It was pleasant but nothing special. The waiting staff were not great...telling us drinks that were listed on the menu were not available (when they were), having to return to ask what we wanted after not writing it down and then serving something different to what we had ordered. The food was fine, not great but not bad and comparably priced to other bars (£7-9 for lunch course) but all 3 of our meals varied from the menu description.

I would eat there again if I was hungry and happened to be in Bruntsfield but I wouldn't go out of my way to make a special visit there.

(+2) (+2) (0)

The Voodoo Rooms

19a West Register Street, EH2 2AA, Edinburgh

from mdavidson (89%) on February 4th, 2008 (5 months ago)

I have to agree with Andy. I liked the design and ambience of the place but I was a bit disappointed with the menu - I had trouble picking what to eat as there was little that interested me. I ended up having a shrimp stack, which didn't really taste of anything. It was also more expensive than comparable venues.

I would go back to the Voodoo Rooms as it is a nice setting and the cocktails were pretty good but I don't think I would eat there again. They also had a pretty good DJ playing on the Sunday evening that I went.

(+1) (+2) (0)

Panda Inn

36 Leven St, EH3 9LJ, Edinburgh

andy's image

from andy (100%) on February 3rd, 2008 (5 months ago)

I ordered a Lemon Chicken and boiled rice from here last night. It was fine. Pretty tasty and loads of chicken but otherwise unremarkable.

I phoned to order and went to collect it. It was a Saturday night and there was not a person in the restaurant. The inside of the restaurant was pretty messy with random files and paperwork cluttering up the bar area where I paid.

Whatever - it didn't affect me - the food was fine, but not a great place to take someone for a meal if you want to impress them!

(+2) (+1) (+1)

Shanghai Chinese Restaurant

7-8 Cadzow Place, EH7 5SN, Edinburgh

from nettles (91%) on January 31st, 2008 (5 months ago)

That's right, I still have not had good Chinese food in this town. But, it was better than usual so I am writing this review.

We were in the area for a shop at Sainsburys nearby and since it's always good to go food shopping on a full stomach (or else you just buy everything in site) we stopped in. The service was ok but not helped by the confusion of English - but I took this as a good sign hoping that the people in the kitchen had not been in town long enough to change the food.

I ordered the special garlic monkfish and my partner had sweet and sour king prawn, like a true Scotsman (!). The monkfish was unfortunately coated in batter and deep fried so it was stringy but the sauce was lovely. Full of freshly fried garlic and whole dried chillis. Too hot for my husband but perfect for me. The sweet and sour king prawns were big and plentiful, beautifully fried with not too much batter. Of course it was topped with the ubiquitous flourescent sauce but that is to be predicted.

With our meal we ordered fried rice. Fried rice when done properly is a glorious dish even when the only additions are some onion and egg. Get a bowl of this from a street hawker on the other side of the globe and you dont need any overly sauced meat to eat on top. It's full of flavour and is a dish in and of itself. I am continuously dissappointed by the fried rice here. The grains are usually broken, the rice is hard and the dish is always brown. Why? I didn't take this into account in my stars but I think from now on it's boiled rice for me!

If you are in the area, this is an ok place to get some grub. The staff are friendly if a little challenged by the language and the prices are in tune with other Chinese joints.

(+3) (0) (+2)

Henrick's

1 Barclay Place, EH10 4HW, Edinburgh

from yeahyeah (27%) on January 29th, 2008 (5 months ago)

This place is local to me and friends frequent it so I went along one day to meet a buddy who had arrived up from London. I would seek to find positives but the place was void of atmosphere, despite being around Christmas, smelled very strongly of cooking, despite there being only one eating customer and we were sat by the door area, and the coffee was appalling. Truly awful coffee. Service was friendly but it couldn't make up for the lack of love in the place.

(0) (+1) (0)

San Marco

10-11 Mary's Place, EH4 1JH, Edinburgh

from craig777 (63%) on January 22nd, 2008 (5 months ago)

For an Italian restaurant this is ok. The prices are reasonable and they do a pre-theatre dinner which is good value but I wouldn't overly recommend this to anyone when there are better Italians on offer further into town. It gets alot of local trade so people obviously like it and keep going but if you are looking for a good Italian I would try La Favourita, Valvona & Crolla or Vittorias further into town.

(+1) (+1) (0)

Indian Cavalry Club

3 Atholl Place, EH3 8HP, Edinburgh

from jwjlewis (74%) on January 18th, 2008 (5 months ago)

I went here on a Monday evening and it was relatively busy, so that should speak well of this restaurant.

I have long walked or driven past this restaurant and thought it looked nice. Finally I went with my girlfriend and auntie. We were greeted at the door and shown to our table in a courteous, if fairly non-communicative (verbally) way. After we had been chatting for quite a time the waiter came and offered poppadums, which are the same in every restaurant you go to - so no complaints there.

The menu has quite a large range of dishes, including dosa, for those fans of South Indian cuisine. For every main course there is a recommended side dish and accompanying wine - helpful if you like wine!

Our starters arrived and were very tasty. Having ordered the dosa I was surprised to discover that it was almost main course in size! Shortly after our empty starter plates were removed our main course arrived. We had prawn dansak, lamb karahi and Red Fort chicken, with a chick pea dish and gobi paneer as side orders. The main dishes were kept heated à la Chinese restaurant candle powered warming plates. The food was very tasty - although not quite up to Voujon or Khushi standard - and plentiful. We were struggling to finish and so we asked if they could put the food in takeaway tubs for us. Now it may not have a takeaway section, but in my opinion every restaurant should provide the option of taking anything you can't eat away with you. This not only means that you are not wasting food, but it is a massive compliment to the restaurant.

In this case, the response was lukewarm to say the least. "We don't have enough tubs for all the dishes sir, which ones would you like to keep (grumble, grumble)". When I said that I would like to take four of them away as we had finished the fifth I was again told there weren't enough tubs. So I politely asked them to double up on the tubs - that is hardly rocket science and wouldn't really have taken the waiter much thought to suggest this himself.

Dessert was kulfi and a rice pudding type dish, both of which were perfectly palatable.

My overall impression of this restaurant is that it wants to be a posh Indian restaurant. It has the right decor, excellent staff uniforms, the food is above average, but the price and the attitude of the staff are wrong. Our total (including a bottle of champagne) was £150. I'm not sure how much the champagne was, but this seems a little steep given the partial lack of civility on the part of the waiters.

Would I recommend this place? I'm not really sure, I would always say go to Voujon or Khushis first.

(+1) (0) (0)

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