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Don_Simon

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Hello Boys and Girls!

 

Off to Edinburgh this weekend for a couple of days R&R, any hints / tips on things I should do and places I should go drinking? Never been to Scotchland before, so quite excited about this! (Im not as enthralled as to the journey there and back however, a serious Spotify playlist will be required!)

 

Cheers.

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ghost walk, learnt more about the history of the city from doing that than i did from the castle and hop on / off bus

 

drinking i spent one night down rose street (parallel to princes street) and there are tons of rough looking but really nice pubs / bars and then one night by the castle, the bit down rose street was better IMO

 

dont get up early and try and hit the shops or do much, its a late rising city, most places seemed shut till 10am

 

if you walk from princes street towards leith (think its called leith walk) there are 3/4 record shops that were good, the road gets progressively rougher but more interesting 

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The Camera Obscura is brilliant fun. I went there with Mrs The_Rev and the kids, we had such a laugh inside, the views from the top are amazing and the camera obscura itself is an impressive bit of tech considering it's age. 

Edited by The_Rev
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Used to go there loads. just wandering round, going in bars and drinking was great. Royal Mile area, Rose street and many others. There's a kind of tour you can do as well, of the underground vaults

 

Obviously there's the castle and that, and not far from the city you can wander about in the hills. It's often pretty cold, though.

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  • 3 years later...

Thread resurrection!

 

I'm off to Edinburgh for the Easter weekend. I'll be there Thursday until Sunday.

Any advance on the above for stuff to do?

 

I've got a walking tour booked which includes a tour of the castle. Plus I was going to do a ghost tour too (seems to be a good "free" one rated on tripadvisor so we'll probably do that)

Not got much else planned though apart from eating and drinking. There with the OH so couply things preferred. Plus our holidays usually revolve around where our next meal will be, so any restaurant recommendations are also very welcome.

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On ‎02‎/‎04‎/‎2014 at 22:40, The_Rev said:

The Camera Obscura is brilliant fun. I went there with Mrs The_Rev and the kids, we had such a laugh inside, the views from the top are amazing and the camera obscura itself is an impressive bit of tech considering it's age. 

I'd second this  , great for kids but you don't really need to have some to enjoy it , perfect for when it inevitably rains whilst you are there

we walked up to where the greyfriars bobby statue is and just behind it is a cemetery , I think that's where the ghost tour will take you , whilst most of the people buried there aren't household names there are a few you might know and it was still quite interesting ... if your OH is a Harry Potter fan then they will point out the back of the café where JK wrote the books ... you'll know the front entrance by the hundreds of Japanese queuing up to go into it :huh:

Grassmarket seemed a good area for drinking and eating  , there is a row of pubs including the smallest pub in Scotland * , The Wee House  I think it's called  , it's amusing as it holds about 12 people but they still had live music on when I was there  ... also has a hog roast take away  just around the corner ....Mmmmmmmm hog roast   , but yeah Scotland you'll find pubs everywhere

 

Didn't go there but if memory serves Britannia is moored up there and is supposed to be worth a look around if that's your thing

 

 

* there are a lot of pubs claiming this title , so dunno how accurate the claim is

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Ive done it again since with a weekend away with work, its an expensive city to have a proper drinking session in!

Restaurant i did hard rock which i always like and then on the royal mile there is a place called burger and beer grille which is like a better version of the handmade burger company with some great flavours and quality 

Drinking / night out on the windy road off the royal mile i seem to remember an irish bar with live music on which wasnt dropkick murphys (which was nothing special) and drinking around the grassmarket which was ok on the night but for day drinking i prefer rose street

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Got back today. Had a great weekend.

Did a couple of tours. A walking tour of the Royal Mile and the castle by a company called Mercat Tours which was very good. 
Also did a free ghost tour last night which was quite shit. Well, it was a good tour, it just didn't really do anything for me. I didn't believe half the stories (obviously because ghosts aren't real) and some of them we'd already heard on the previous tour. So it would probably do it for some people.

Castle was really interesting. Could have stayed there longer but it was pouring rain and **** freezing.

Weather was ok rain wise, but it was freezing all weekend. The walking tours were testing in that.

Tried to do the Real Mary King's Close which looked great, but they were fully booked all weekend.

Did the Camera Obscura. Not gonna lie, thought it was shit. Probably great fun for your kids if you have them, but for a couple on their own it wasn't up to much. Some of the stuff was interesting, but being surrounded by a thousand kids while I was looking at it just pissed me off.

 

Went to the National Museum of Scotland as well which was brilliant, especially as it was free (suggested donation aside)

 

Lots of food and drink was had as well. Deacon Brodie pub was good but expensive. Jolly Jester was a better bet for a pub on the Royal Mile.

Edited by Stevo985
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  • 4 weeks later...
On 02/04/2018 at 19:22, Czechlad said:

Wish I saw this sooner, and I could have given you some tips. My wife is from a town right outside of Edinburgh. I loved my time there. 

I'm going in a couple of weeks, so feel free to share! :D

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  • 4 months later...

I'll put some information up and maybe add to it from time to time - mostly about food, with some pubs.  I'll try to mention the things that are worth your money but which may be less obvious to short-stay visitors and easily missed.

Like other tourist towns, the main tourist routes tend to have high rents and therefore high prices, with lots of chain and franchise outfits, and don't need to build up repeat business because of the constant throughput, so you will find better places slightly away from the main drag.  First, the main streets which most tourists will see.

Old Town - Royal Mile - lots of interesting closes and vennels leading off the main road.  Lots of shops selling tartan tat.  Good for wandering round, but less good for eating and drinking.  Grassmarket - stag and hen parties, crowded pubs, loud and lively.  Cowgate - pubs and clubs, including the Brewdog pub.  Closed to traffic in the evening after about 10 because of the number of people staggering drunkenly in the road.

New Town - Princes Street - most famous shopping street, past its best, lots of turnover of shops in trouble including big names.  Lots of phone shops, chains, things like Primark, Boots, Starbucks.  George Street - more upmarket shops, some restaurants and pubs.  Rose Street - basically about pub crawls, with a few shops and restaurants.

Various places just off the main streets: worth a small detour to get something better than if you stay on the main streets.

Old Town: Edinburgh Larder, cafe with license.  Salt Horse bar.   Swedish pub Hemma near Holyrood.  Hanam's near the castle, Kurdish food, hookahs on the terrace.  No. 15 tiny Korean cafe and takeaway.  Blue Blazer pub for a selection of real ales - gets busy.  Navadhanya Indian, looks like the newly relocated place that was in a poor spot in Haymarket, if so it will be good.  Mother India, great tapas-style Indian, and next door the Royal Oak pub, live folk music Fri/Sat evenings, people just turning up with a fiddle or guitar and playing - can get rammed, tiny space with few seats, though also space downstairs.

New Town: Escargot Blanc, quality French with an owner into the Slow Food ethos.  P'tite Folie, classic French restaurant with separate wine bar.   Cafe St Honore, modern Scottish bistro, seasonal, local food from a Slow Food chef who loves what he does.  Henderson's, an Edinburgh institution, salads and hot food, veggie only, licensed.  The Oxford Bar, as in the Rebus novels, as spartan and old fashioned as it gets. 

Other areas, with places to eat and drink.

Tollcross: a mile south of Princes Street, down Lothian Road and before reaching the Meadows.  Cameo cinema is here.

 Tuk Tuk  Indian street food, BYOB, good food, lively, best to book.  Trenchtown for West Indian food.  Good food and cocktails, sometimes service can be forgetful. 

Lupe Pintos  deli for Spanish and Mexican supplies and wine/beer (some other stuff like Thai as well).

Bennetts Bar and Cloisters Bar are decent.  Also Brauhaus .

El Quijote, small Spanish restaurant and  Ong Gie Korean  are good.

Lots of other cafes, pubs, restaurants, small indy shops like Global Foods for a wider selection of fruit and veg than Tesco, Real Foods for health foods, Hex for mobile phone repairs...

Forest Row/Teviot Place/Potterrow/Nicholson Square: half a mile south of the royal mile, at the end of George IV bridge, past the Greyfriars Bobby thing.  It's very close to the university, so there are lots of studenty places.

Union of Genius for soups and salads, Tupinquim for Brazilian street food.  Some other street food sometimes in George Square.

Sandy Bells and Doctors are reasonable pubs.

Ransacked Black Oven has a daft name but does good Middle Eastern food.  The Mosque Kitchen has a big restaurant, but also the original little place hidden from the road, tables and bench seats under an awning outdoors, accessible via the Mosque grounds entered through Potterrow or Nicholson Square, or via a passage from West Nicholson Street.  Basic home-style curries, no alcohol.

Lots of other little cafes, restaurants all round this area, including MIddle Eastern, Indian, African.  Too many to name, but Palmyra is good for a falafel-hummus wrap to take out and eat in the garden opposite.

Dalry Road: near Haymarket, about as touristy as Erdington, but has acquired several really good places to eat.

First Coast, modern Scottish, but every few weeks they research another cuisine and offer eg a Peruvian or Tanzanian evening.  Locanda di Gusti, seriously good Italian, and their offshoot Pizzeria 1926, named for when Naples FC was founded, great pizza, decor includes football shirts on washing lines, big pizza oven with two guys constantly feeding it.  River LIfe, French-Caribbean, good for jerk chicken.  Kebabish, a chain, but the number of Indian families eating there tells you it's good.  BYOB.  Black Hoof, a small tapas and jamon place, BYOB.  Carlos will give a jamon tasting and talk, by arrangement.  He did it for just three of us.

 

Will try to add another couple of areas another time.


 

 

 

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I thought Hendersons was pretty shit, tbh, and I'm its target audience. 

Bland food, cramped, dreadful, slow service, and the portions were so small our next stop was a pub that also did food.

David Bann would be my top recommendation for any visiting vegetarians. Kalpna and Nova pizza were pretty good too.

Edited by Davkaus
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On 16/09/2018 at 20:21, Davkaus said:

I thought Hendersons was pretty shit, tbh, and I'm its target audience. 

Bland food, cramped, dreadful, slow service, and the portions were so small our next stop was a pub that also did food.

David Bann would be my top recommendation for any visiting vegetarians. Kalpna and Nova pizza were pretty good too.

Thanks for the comments.

I agree about Kalpna, was going to include them in a later bit but actually makes more geographic sense to amend what I've already posted.

I'm surprised by the comment about Henderson's.   I've eaten there a dozen times or more over many years and never found the portions small, and I'm a greedy sod.  No, I mean I have a healthy appetite.  The remark about service makes me wonder if you were at one of the spinoffs rather than the original, which is canteen style and doesn't have service as such.  The one down the stairs, on Hanover Street, not the little wine bar in the side street or the new thingy down by Holyroood?

David Bann, only been there once, many years ago.  I didn't hate it, but I didn't like the way that fruit appeared in pretty much every savoury dish.  I found it ok, but unimpressive, nothing to make me want to go back.  In a town with ten restaurants, no doubt I would have revisted, but here, the first visit has to do a bit more than just feed you,  if they want you as a regular.

Don't know Nova, will try to check them out.

Thanks.

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@peterms you're right, I didn't know there were multiple branches, the one I went to was their vegan restaurant.

I'll probably be heading back up there for next year's Fringe, so I'll try out the original one - I assume it has at least a handful of vegan options?

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28 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

@peterms you're right, I didn't know there were multiple branches, the one I went to was their vegan restaurant.

I'll probably be heading back up there for next year's Fringe, so I'll try out the original one - I assume it has at least a handful of vegan options?

It's round the corner from the vegan one, facing on to Hanover Street, and down the stairs.  The two actually connect via an internal stair, or used to.  I see they are now calling it the "salad table", but I just think of it as Henderson's.

The sample menus are on this page and from a quick look at the evening menu, it's about 50-50 vegan/veggie split, and the lunch menu will be a similar split though it's not as clearly marked.  I've never eaten at the vegan one - it used to be called the bistro and was more of a wine bar, but they've clearly rebranded it.  I haven't tried the Holyrood one either, so can't speak for that.

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  • 2 months later...
On 19/09/2018 at 14:50, peterms said:

It's round the corner from the vegan one, facing on to Hanover Street, and down the stairs.  The two actually connect via an internal stair, or used to.  I see they are now calling it the "salad table", but I just think of it as Henderson's.

The sample menus are on this page and from a quick look at the evening menu, it's about 50-50 vegan/veggie split, and the lunch menu will be a similar split though it's not as clearly marked.  I've never eaten at the vegan one - it used to be called the bistro and was more of a wine bar, but they've clearly rebranded it.  I haven't tried the Holyrood one either, so can't speak for that.

Update.  I have now tried the vegan one, by accident.  I'd arranged to meet people in the real Henderson's, they had somehow got confused and looked in somewhere else which had no tables, so went to the vegan one and texted me to say meet there.

The real one had lots of tables, but when I arived my companions were settled so we stayed in the vegan one.

It was ok but nothing special or memorable.  Slow (30 minutes wait for one dish each for 4 people, 2 of which were soup), when we were among a total of 8-10 in the place the whole time.  The "salad bar" is definitely better.

Oh, and the two do still connect via an internal stair.  I assume bscause they can share the one set of toilets.

Looks like the main restaurant could do with better signposting at the door.

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16 hours ago, peterms said:

Looks like the main restaurant could do with better signposting at the door.

I assume it's easier to spot the vegan restaurant because there'll be signs absolutely bloody everywhere telling you it's vegan?

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