Crombies

Thursday at Crombies is all about the hog roast roll!! Crombies is primarily a butcher that  have a great reputation for their meat, especially their sausages with many an Edinburgh restaurant boasting them on their menus! With this knowledge we were confident that their hot food counter was probably going to have some good quality meat on offer!

The counter has a rotating special every day and on Thursday it is a hog roast roll. This constitutes a large bun with a generous helping of roast hog, apple sauce, stuffing, gravy and optional crackling. The meat was very well cooking, nice and stringy and very filling - it was really hard to fault!

There are no tables to sit and eat so as it was a sunny day, we decided to walk to a local park to consume our rolls. The drinks on offer were the usual array of soft drinks. If you are in the area and want a good value take out lunch, you should consider giving Crombies a go!

Quality Food                     7.67

Quality Drinks                   2.67       

Value                                7.67

Service                             6.67

Ambience                         6.00

Overall                              7.00

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Bill - Hog roast roll with the works              £3.75 

Comments:

- Great tasting hog roast!

- One of the nicest hog rolls I've had - generous portion of pig. You can't sit indoors so the ambience was sitting outside in the sun - nice on a good day.

- What a great roll, Pulled pork, apple sauce, stuffing, gravy and pork scratchings lovely. Not a restaurant so no drinks. But a very nice butcher shop.

Wings

Wings Edinburgh boasts to be the first and only restaurant in Edinburgh that specialises in chicken wings! Even though the Old Town was busy due to the festival, hidden away on a lane just off the Royal Mile,  Wings was relatively quiet, as you really have to know it is there to find it!

The menu is absolutely dominated by various options for chicken wings and there are over 50 options to choose from. These are divided into sub-categories including dry, sweet, bbq, sizzler and fresh. The friendly waitress recommended that each person order two portions of wings and maybe a side. As I am quite a fan of spicy food I chose the molten mounty and feeling Scottish the whiskey pepper. I rounded this off with a side of chips. Also be warned to anyone vaguely health conscious that there is hardly a vegetable to be seen, as the section of the menu titled Veg only has chips, tortilla strips and the like.

The wings started to arrive in even batches, which was good as we had quite a large party. The wings were well cooked however some of them had more flesh than others. The sauce on the molten lava had a good kick to it and the chips were nice and chunky. This was all washed down with a good bottle of beer - their range is mostly a good selection of local and international lagers. I opted for the local Innis and Gunn!

The big drawcard of this place is the wings with the suicide sauce. The wings on the menu have a spice rating, most of them appearing between 1-5. The suicide sauce to sound menacing has a Spinal Tap rating of 11! If you are able to eat an entire serving of these wings, you will be able to boast your claim with your photo on the wall of flame! Alas out of our party of 10 no one was game to try. We however were offered a sample of the sauce only, with only a few takers even considering it. I tried it and have to admit it was unbelievably hot - I could maybe consider eating one wing with the sauce however 6 would definitely be beyond me.

Wings Edinburgh has a good relaxed party vibe to it. The staff were friendly and they are well geared up to cater for larger groups. We were asked on leaving if we were part of a stag do and then we had to disappoint in responding that we had to return to the office!

Quality Food                     6.56
Quality Drinks                   6.00
Value                                 8.00
Service                              8.00
Ambience                          7.22
Overall                               7.00

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Bill - 2 servings wings, chips, bottle Innes Gunn beer + tip: £11.00

Comments:

- Good fun and a bit quirky but not a lot of variety of food other than all the different sauces.
- Sad to see the old Le Set restaurant is no longer there. Basic cheap and cheerful chicken wing joint. Good service and atmosphere, food was OK.
- Well roasted chicken wings, and big range of tasty sauces - though I doubt they were all cooked in house. Fun place.
- Really cool place. Good selection of sauces. Could do with some more beer options. Staff were good fun and I like the StarWars theme !!!!
- Friendly staff, tasty chicken wings done well, great selection of sauces.
- Glad we shared 'cos everyone else's choices were better than mine.
- Excellent selection of sauces and a great price, especially that near to the High Street. Good alternative ambience too.
- Massive variety of wings and friendly service.

St Andrew Square Garden

With the festival in full swing, we decided to head to St Andrew Square to soak up some of the atmosphere! The famous Spiegeltent has being doing the rounds of the past couple of years and this year it has found a new home in St Andrew Square. It has brought with it a circus of bars and food vans, so we decided to head over and enjoy a pint and some food over our lunch break.

We sat ourselves at the Terrace bar which has a huge outdoor sitting area. There is a covered area to protect against the elements, however the sun was shining so we picked a table that we could enjoy the warmth of the rays. We arrived very close to 12:00 and by 12:15 most of the tables were occupied, so would recommend you get there early!

Caledonian Brewery is one of the major sponsors of the festival, so it was no surprise that most the beers on offer were from their brewery. This, however, is not a bad thing as it is good to have local fresh beers, the choices included Deuchers, Three Hops and Caledonian 80". A pint of three hops was £4.35 which considering the surroundings was not that bad, as the festival has a reputation of highly inflated prices. There are actually pubs nearby that would charge more for that even when the tourist season is not at its peak. Unfortunately, the staff were quite inattentive and inefficient, it also seemed like none of them had ever poured a beer in their life, however, one has pretty low expectations for service when the festival is on!

The food on offer was a series of food vans lining the footpath around the square. As the two bars did not serve their own food, it was a bonus that you could eat food from anywhere on the outside tables. The options included Valvona and Crolla, serving up posh panninis; Hendersons who specialised in vegetarian food; a very greasy looking pizza and chips van, one serving up ice cream and waffles and even one offering champagne mussels! There was also a interesting looking Thai noodle van, however it was not open due to the staff sleeping in! The options were a little bit limiting, one person in our party actually went across the road and bought his lunch at Sainsbury's! In the end I decided on the Hendersons, who served up a spinach and feta pastry and two salads for £6.50, not too bad in price and it tasted fresh and was reasonably filling.

It was very pleasant sitting outside seeing the festival in full action passing by. I was even deceived into thinking I was a tourist in my own city and could have even been on holiday. Definitely made it a bit more difficult having to face the reality of heading back to the office..

Quality Food                     4.57
Quality Drinks                   6.00
Value                                 4.00
Service                              4.00
Ambience                          8.14
Overall                               5.14

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Bill - Pint Three Hops, Spinach + Feta pastry + 2 salads: £11.00

Comments:
- Nice place to sit and have a pint. Three Hops is good stuf, but £4.23 q pint. Good snack food and expense. The Waffle was good.
- Good place to hang out in the summer, would have found it better if the noodle guy hadn't slept in.
- Its the festy...rip off prices but good vibes
- Food (pizza slice and waffle) adequate but very pleasant sitting in the square and sampling the festival atmosphere. Shame about the closed noodles bar though!
- Ambience is good in the Square. Couldn't comment on the food or drink as I bought mine from Sainsbury's, due to the Thai noodle bar being closed :-(
- Enjoyed sitting sipping a beer watching the crowds, but I thought the range of food on offer was very limited - so much that one of us went to Sainsburys and another opted for canteen food!
- Nice sitting outside soaking in the atmosphere of the festival.

Thistle Bar

Fridays at the Thistle bar is all about the pie and the pint!

The food menu is extremely simple, so simple it involves asking the person behind the bar what types of pies they are serving. Today they had steak, mince steak and haggis on offer. The only other decision you have to make is if you want beans or mushy peas served with that! A good tip is to ask for a steak bake instead of a normal pie as they are larger than their counterparts. Pie tasted pretty good with chunky pieces of steak throughout, probably sourced freshly from a local bakery. If you are also hungry you might consider ordering two pies as some of our team did!

The selection of beers was also very decent. A good range of local ales and lagers were on offer. I decided to go for the California Common from the Knops brewery which is just down the road in Musselburgh. Tasted quite fresh and light, perfect for the warm weather outside.

The Thistle Bar is extremely down to earth and well worth a visit if you are in the area - especially if you are in the mood for a pie and pint!

Quality Food                     6.00

Quality Drinks                   8.00

Value                                 7.83

Service                              7.83

Ambience                           8.00

Overall                               7.67

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Bill - Pint of Knops, Steak pie + mush peas + tip:   £7

Comments:

- Classic pie and pint venue!

- Down to earth pub with good selection of drinks and cheery staff.

- Good straightforward pub lunch - did all the basics well, friendly service and unaffected by festival fluff

- Pretty simple, if you fancy a pie and pint then you can't beat it.

- perfect lunch - pie and a pint

Barony

The Barony is a no fuss old school pub tucked away on Broughton Street. The decor is dark wood paneling with some very rustic furniture, all making a very relaxed atmosphere.

As you would expect from a pub like this the selection of beers was decent with a good selection of regional ales and a few standard lagers to fill in the space. I decided to get a pint of the local Caledonian Flying Scotsman which tasted really fresh - no surprise as the brewery is just down the road from the pub.

The food menu had all the usual pub classics including burgers, fish and chips, all priced at a very reasonable £7-8. The highlight for most was the interesting selection of pies, which included plain beef and chicken and mushroom. The food was decent, leaning much more towards quantity than quality. It also looked to be freshly prepared, dismissing the fear at some pubs that you are being served a factory prepared meal.

The service was generally good - maybe a little bit inefficient however the staff were pleasant. In all, The Barony is a good pub with no major complaints by the patrons on this day. It stands out from the crowd with its decent selection of beers and value for money.

Quality Food                     6.33

Quality Drinks                   7.83

Value                                 7.67

Service                              6.50

Ambience                           6.50

Overall                               6.83

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Bill - Pint Flying Scotsman, Chicken Mushroom pie + small tip:  £12

Comments:

- Good pub grub at a good price, generous portion sizes and a good selection of beers.

- Old school pub with good selection of Ales. Food was decent enough with the sizings providing good value for money.

- Good sized cheap serving of crap food. Good beer selection in an old skool pub. Nae bad.

- No comment

- Good quantity of food for the price.