IT is not often that the same restaurant is visited twice in a matter of weeks to be reviewed. But when a place gets taken over by new management just days after a miserable eating experience, it seems churlish to publish and damn a whole new regime with the inglorious failures of the previous one.
So back we went to the Borough Hotel restaurant this week to see if much had really changed.
A fortnight ago I had high hopes, given that the place had in the past been lauded by no less a person than Ian Rankin as a "an oasis on Causewayside". Un
fortunately the place was more of a culinary and service desert.
A table had been booked for 12.15 – the time the restaurant is advertised as opening for lunch. But that, it transpired, was optional. So were staff.
There was no-one at reception or behind the bar or in the restaurant (although there was a mop and bucket), so I eventually took to peering through the kitchen hatch to ask the chefs if there was a table available. They didn't know, but there was supposed to be a guy in a checked shirt out front.
He duly appeared and offered two menus. We were apparently not eating in the restaurant itself, but at a booth in the main lounge/bar area, and at least it wasn't the one with what looked like a stab wound in the seat. There was no-one else eating and it's at that point that we should maybe have cut our losses and left.
The menus were "bar eats" and a la carte, although that description was probably pushing the definition too far. There was no sign of the lunch menu as advertised on the hotel's website. But, as the bar menu consisted of everything fried, we plumped for the latter.
Things started well with the canapes – two espresso cups full of warming and tasty cauliflower soup and two mini crostinis topped with creamed brown Dunbar crab.
But then the kitchen's "passion for food" ran out. The starters should have been simple but the king prawns and scallops were dry and the pesto dressing in short supply, and as for the duck liver pate, my dining partner said she'd bought better from Asda. It went back mostly uneaten.
The mains arrived quickly, with the sneaking suspicion they had been keeping warm under a hot lamp - confirmed by the gelatinousness of the mild curry sauce that swamped my lemon sole and braised potatoes. It was food only fit for a nursery or a hospital. It went back, slightly picked at.
Two dishes hardly touched, and yet no queries from the staff. On the bright side the 100 per cent beef burger served to my companion was perfectly acceptable. But if you can't do burger and chips well, then really you should be looking for a new career. But that was then. There was panic when we called to organise a photo. Oh, we've just taken over, appealed the person on the phone. So to be fair we waited, and went back this week.
It would be great to say it was a revelation. That the whole place was revamped. That it was the culinary oasis much promised. Except it wasn't.
The same staff were in evidence – except this time he wore a black shirt. The domestic appliances had changed and this time rather than a mop there was an iron sitting on the bar and a pile of dishtowels next to it.
Again, though, we were not seated in the actual restaurant – although our photographer was ushered straight in there for the picture.
Apparently it's only open on weekends, but you'd be hard pressed to find that out anywhere – they certainly don't tell you when you call to make a booking in the restaurant for lunch.
So again we were in a bar booth, and this time we did get the one which looked like an LRT bus seat circa 1976. And the table was dirty. In fact the whole place could have done with a good wash.
The menu had changed, though. Obviously the chef has realised his limitations and so it was pub grub all round. We opted for chicken chilli wings, which were tasty, and soup of the day, which after he'd asked, the waiter discovered was cauliflower and broccoli. Except it wasn't. It was curried lentil. At least it didn't appear on the bill.
Mains this time were chicken fajitas and a steak sandwich, and both were absolutely . . . adequate.
Unfortunately the Borough is just not good. I don't know why anyone would choose to have lunch there when there are so many other places in Edin-burgh with more atmosphere, better menus, better food and who give you the dining experience you expect when you make a booking.
And they still spell Causewayside wrongly on their receipts.
The Borough Hotel, 72 Causewayside, 0131-668 2255The full article contains 836 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
