Siam Square

Occupying the space where 9 cellars used to be, Siam Square advertises a mix of Thai food, bar and karaoke. With wild splashes of colour the website portrays the image of a hip party location, so how does it stack up for Friday lunch?

The restaurant did not get off to good start, as it appeared to be closed on arrival. After confirming on the door the opening time was indeed 12:00 (by now it was 12:10) and knocking for a couple of minutes, an apologetic waiter came and opened up for us. We then descended several levels into a maze like basement (it was certainly as cold as one), we were then seated and ordered a round of Singha beers on draught.

We were handed the lunch menus which had a reasonable sounding lunch deal of two courses for £9.95. The menu was dominated with Thai classics including tom yum soup, green curry and pad thai. I decided to go on the safe side with a tom yum soup and green chicken curry.

We then had to wait an extraordinary long time for our two courses to arrive. The waiter was friendly however the entire operation seemed disorganised. When the food did arrive it was very average. The ingredients seemed a bit sparse with just a couple of slices of veg in both my soup and curry. The flavours were not very strong and the sauces were on the watery side.

The best thing one could say about Siam Square is they had Singha beer on draught which is a bit rare in a Thai restaurant. You could give the benefit of doubt that the they are still a bit new and finding their feet on the ground, however there would have to be a lot of improvements before I would consider a revisit.

Quality Food                      5.17       

Quality Drinks                    6.17

Value                                 6.67

Service                              3.17

Ambience                          4.17

Overall                               4.67

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Bill - Tom Yum soup, green chicken curry and pint Singha beer:   £14

Comments:

- Food was tasty - but ingredients were cheap, presentation was basic, room was cold, restaurant was locked when we arrived, service was slow and appologetic, restaurant

was a maze... but the beer was good

- There is way better Thai food in Edinburgh. Service was a total shambles.

- Not great, and very slow.

- Cold and slow dishing up poor quality food. Draft Singha was its only saving grace. Not recommended.

- Good value but the service was too slow for lunchtime. The food was good but not great.

Bellevue Bar

Tucked away at the bottom of Broughton Street and the corner of London Street is the recently renovated Bellevue bar. Broughton Street has quite a selection of rustic pubs and the Bellevue is aiming for a slightly smarter look. The beer selection is not extensive, however adequate having the local Deuchers and West options on draught. Drink in hand we started perusing the menu!

Monday to Friday, the Bellevue have a competitively sounding two courses for £10 lunch deal. On first inspection, it is wee bit confusing as to what this actually entails, however, you essentially pick something from the left of the menu (snacks and small things) and the right (mains except steak). The menu has a good mixture of pub classics and slightly more elaborate options, trying to cater for all tastes. The snacks and small things sounded particularly interesting including courgettes with Isle of Mull cheddar and houmous with warm rolls. I decided on the courgettes and sea bream as a main, the others mainly opted for the ubiquitous burger option.

The quality of the food was really good. It was all freshly prepared on premises and very well executed. The starters were particularly good and quite big considering they were part of a deal. The hand cup chips looked big and fat, just the way you want them! It was good to see them being cut on premises as I past the kitchen on the way to get a drink at the bar. This is definitely much better than your average pub fair and the value for money was just outstanding!

The service was friendly however a wee bit slow considering we were the only people there. I was surprised we were actually the only people there the entire time we were there. Maybe the place is just slightly out of striking distance for a lot of office workers. However if you are in the area during the week and are looking for an excellent value lunch I would definitely recommend giving the Bellevue Bar a go!

Quality Food                     8.25

Quality Drinks                   8.00

Value                                 9.25

Service                              7.25

Ambience                          7.50

Overall                               8.25

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Bill - Courgette with cheddar on toast, Pan fried crispy sea bream, pint Deuchers   - £14 

Comments:

- Really Nice new Gastro pub. The French Onion soup was excellent , nice big Cruton with cheese. Good fish with Batter and a good selection of beers. £10 what a deal. Staff very friendly and the bar was just been renovated and very cool.

- Cracking place for lunch, great quality food and 2 courses for £10! Highly recommended lunch spot.

- Excellent value for £10 and one of the nicest burgers I've had.

- Really nice freshly cooked food. Great value lunch deal. Service could have been a bit faster considering we were the only people there.

Ashoka

Ashoka have been steadily building an empire of Indian restaurants in and around Glasgow and have recently expanded out East. The first restaurant they have opened in Edinburgh is of the buffet variety and they offer a very competitive all you can eat lunch option for £6.95. With many oriental themed buffets close by how does it compete?

The drill was pretty simple, on arrival pickup up a plate, fill it with food, sit down and start eating. I decided to structure my plates on a course themed basis. The first plate consisted of mainly deep fried starters, plate two curry and rice and the third plate puddings. There were the usual suspects on offer, including pakoras, rice, naan, various meat curries and tarka daal. Also curiously there were some not very Indian sounding options including chow mein, potato wedges and prawn crackers. Pudding included ice cream, and the more authentic sweet gulab jamun.

The food to begin with is quite addictive and you feel the macho need to out eat your colleagues. After a while you start realise how salty the food and you should probably stop before you start to feel ill... There was also some complaints over the expensive 660ml cobra beers at nearly £6 a bottle, so be careful or you could easily spend more on drinks than food. I however had a mango lassi which was was a good accompaniment to the quite heavy meal.

Ashoka has polarised the members of our lunch club more so than any other option. The scores were all over the place, ranging from 2 to 10 with pretty much everything in between. Some people love stuffing their face with as much curry as they can stomach and others felt that spring rolls and chow mein at a Indian buffet is just wrong. One thing that we were all able to agree on is that it is hard to argue against the value of three plates of curry £6.95.

Quality Food                      5.88

Quality Drinks                    6.63

Value                                  8.63

Service                               6.13

Ambience                           5.75

Overall                                6.50

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Bill: Curry buffet, mango lassi, small tip:    £11

Comments:

- Enjoyed my 4 dishes but I'm totally stuffed

- Good tasty food on a budget.

- Everything pretty average. Can't think of anything more to say. Lost the advantage of the cheap buffet spending the same again on 1 beer !!!

- Watery curry slopped up with dried rice and greasy nan. Just another eat all you can hell hole for the east coasters...

Cafe Marlayne (Thistle Street)

The edge of the New Town has quite strong competition for French food, with four cafes all within two blocks of each other. Cafe Marlayne has an intimate feel to it, with only one waiter and seating for around twenty people. It has a nice rustic feel, with wooden tables and large bright windows looking out on to the lane.

The food menu is simple and compact, with a handful of options for both starters and mains. It is hand written on a piece of paper implying that it probably changes regularly. Starters included a soup, pate and salad all priced around the £4-5 mark. The mains ranged from fish, rib eye steak, pork belly and lamb meatballs all of which apart from the rib eye are priced reasonably under £10.  It was also comforting to get bread to start and a side of potato and beans with main included in the price.

The most popular option on this visit was definitely the Moroccan lamb meatballs. This came in its own casserole dish and contained freshly minced lamb meatballs in a tomato sauce, with shredded carrots all topped with a fried egg with a side of herbed bread. The other popular option was the pork belly with a pea puree and salsa verde. The quality of the food was really excellent, all well cooked with good quality fresh ingredients. The portion sizes were good for lunch, you did not leave stuffed however, still felt well fed. This was all washed down with a decent selection of French wines.

The only small downsize on this visit was slightly slow and inattentive service. There was only one waiter serving however the cafe was only about half full. The mains just took that little bit longer than you would expect and people were asking for more bread as we were starting to get quite hungry. The bill also took close to ten minutes to arrive after requesting it, probably not helped with the waitress being on the phone for a reasonably long period of time.

Cafe Marlayne distinguishes itself from the competition with its outstanding food and small intimate feel. Apart from the small hiccup with its slow service, I would definitely recommend it and look forward to revisiting myself!

Quality Food                                      8.29

Quality Drinks                                    7.14

Value                                                  7.29

Service                                               6.14

Ambience                                           7.00

Overall                                               7.57

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Bill - Moroccan meatballs, glass of house red + small tip:      £15

Comments:

- Thoroughly enjoyable lunch - a lovely slice of pork belly, accompanied by pea puree, salsa verde, pancetta, potatoes and green beans, washed down with a glass of house red. It didn't fill me, but then we skipped a starter.

- Service a bit on the slow side, but compensated for by the food.

- The food is the star attraction here, good french cooking! I would have liked a larger beer menu, service was OK. Would recommend for lunch.

- Really good food. Service could have been a wee bit more switched on.