Breakfast Nomination #13, the Water of Leith Café in Stockbridge

 Breakfast Nomination #13, the Water of Leith Café in Stockbridge 

Nominated by our AM, Ally 

(his 3rd nomination for us after having previous nominated Urban Angel and Cross & Corner, both in Stockbridge as well - can you tell that's where he lives?) 

With guest reviewer number 3, Kerr Lawrence Henderson 

Originally reviewed on May 1st, 2016

"Shut up, you stoned cunt." 

Now, I have officially broken my record for latest ever review write-up as we (obviously) did breakfast on Sunday and it is now Friday, whoops. 

You're probably thinking I've been too ashamed to write it up because Gary and myself, two upstanding citizens, did something unheard of and took a manbun out for breakfast, but that is not the case - I have simply been lazy and preoccupied so here is our review finally!

Gary's score: 4/6 
My score: I seriously didn't know they made bagels that size 
Kerr's score: 3.5 Kerr's/Kerr 

Gary ate: poached eggs on toast (£4.50) with added bacon (£1.95) and an English Breakfast tea (£1.80) 
I ate: a bagel with salmon and cream cheese (£5.95) and a tea (£1.80) 
Kerr ate: a full Scottish breakfast (£8.95) and a mocha (£2.40) 
Total cost: £27.35 altogether, or £16 exactly for just me and Gary 

Our pros: really nice area with views of Water of Leith (obviously!) from window; food delivered quickly; quite big portions for some things - seriously did you see the size of my bagel?; reasonably pleasant service, and a very bright and airy café. 
Our Cons: tiny table for three people to sit at; Kerr felt his breakfast was too pricey; stodgy mocha; not very flavoursome tea; clumsy service at points; website info out of date, and café only open for about 6 hours on a Sunday. 

Our experience: The day did not start off great! I stupidly assumed because the café was advertised online to only be open 10am - 4pm that surely they would do an all day breakfast. Surely!  

Well, Gary being the sensible man he is decided to phone them up around 10:30am to find out if that was the case, and of course it wasn't, and they stopped serving breakfast at 12pm. Fuck! We had already arranged to meet Kerr at 11am to head down to the café but with buses being on a Sunday service and there being one single bus to take us to our destination, we were now pretty much fucked for getting there in time unless we could hustle Kerr up the road towards us that much sooner. 

Look at that bagel!

Frantic texts were sent. Was he even awake?! I must Facebook message him so I know if he's reading my messages! "Just phone him" says Gary, "NO! He must reply to our message!!" I reply, shunning phone calls like I always have. Didn't Gary know we all communicate through screens these days!? 

Gary and I rush to the bus stop, mere minutes to spare until the bus arrives. Where is Kerr? Is he on the bus already? Is he meeting us here to get on with us? But the bus is due now! We're just going to have to go on without him! The challenge comes first!! He's not here, the bus is pulling up! We have to go! 


But then, we get on and there he is, sat tired, dishevelled and a little hungover with his manbun on the ground floor of the bus. All was not lost yet. 

We made it to the café by half 11 with plenty time to spare for our breakfast and were sat at the tiniest three seater table we had ever seen. 

After peering over our menus for a while, the waitress came over and asked us if we were ready to order. Gary went to start ordering his food and she simply went "Oh. Hang on." then walked away with the three of us looking at each other like "???" She came back a minute later with a pad, took down our orders then headed off to the kitchen. A little clumsy and unusual but at least we'd got our breakfast orders nailed down. 

When our drinks arrived, Kerr was not too impressed and I can't say I blame him. Despite ordering a Mocha, he appeared to have been delivered a watery latte with congealed chocolate stodge at the bottom of his cup that he managed to scrape up into a big blob with his spoon.  

We all got complimentary shortbread with out drinks which was a little stale but nice considering it was free, however Gary and I were both disappointed with our teas as well. They were those horrible "brew in 2-3 minutes" tea bags that we'd come across in so many cafés before and they were pretty flavourless as tea goes. 

The food arrived promptly and a small game of Tetris ensued to make sure we could fit all our plates and cups on the table and eat simultaneously without items of food falling into our laps unexpectedly. 

how did we even fit this all on the table?

I was happy with my food - extremely generous portions (again, that fucking bagel was the size of my head) and the salmon was delicious. The cream cheese was a bit plain but most cream cheese is unless it's Philadelphia really, but ultimately the price felt extremely fair to me.

Gary was mostly happy with his breakfast, only saying that he would've preferred to have four (FOUR!) poached eggs rather than "just two" as that's what his mum gives him (you spoil him, Louise). 

Kerr was less than impressed with his breakfast as he felt the portions were *not* generous considering the price. Me and Gary, being the seasoned breakfasters that we are didn't think it was *too* pricey for what he got as we had been even more ripped off for less in the past but I have to admit there wasn't a lot to Kerr's "full" breakfast. 

We felt the place lacked a lot of breakfast choices as (after visiting the many breakfast places we have in our time) we have discovered there is actually *so* much you can eat for a good breakfast but a lot of places seem to fall into the trap of basically just doing cooked breakfasts and then smaller variations on that. What about fruit, eggs benedict, French toast, pancakes etc? So much to choose from out there and a lot of cafés would stand to benefit from branching out a little more with their breakfast menus. 


I think the place could *also* benefit from updating their website as it had no prices on it, the wrong opening hours and no info about when they served breakfast until and these are the sort of things that having a website is kind of made for, surely!? 

Gary and I agreed that if you were in that area we would recommend you visit Blue Bear Café instead (the 2nd review on our original top ten review list) as it's just round the corner and this place just felt like a slightly discounted version of that. 

What’s next: Next on our list is Earthy in Causewayside, nominated by one of the former Christmas Temps who shall be remembered purely by his enthusiasm at saying "HIYA!" to every single person who set foot in the store from November-January. He is not missed. And as far as I know, we shall be taking my dear little cousin Amy to this one with us as she booked her spot for this particular café a month or so back.