If there were half star ratings on Yelp this might get 3.5 but the one thing I was really unhappy with was quite a big thing, so I can't bring myself to rate them 4 just yet - I'll need to go back and try it again. After seeing a couple of friends posting on Facebook about the breakfast here, we thought we'd head in on a rainy Sunday morning and give it a go. First niggle was that the music was shocking - they were actually playing Celine Dion doing the Titanic theme when we went in, and it didn't get any better from there. Normally I can tune out background music but it was just too loud for that and there were 2 or 3 songs I actually hate, which didn't help. However, that's purely personal taste so not really a big deal.
They do a big breakfast for £5.50 or a full Scottish breakfast for £4 - the main difference is that the big breakfast has two of everything while the full Scottish has one. We were pretty hungry so we both ordered a big breakfast. You can choose your eggs fried, scrambled or poached, and they ask how you like your eggs cooked, which is a nice touch. When you see how much you get for your money, it is actually seriously good value.
We ordered large cappuccinos and got white coffees with no foam on top at all - really just a latte. This isn't a big problem as a lot of places in Scotland still don't know the difference, but this is an authentic Italian and I was surprised they couldn't make a real cappuccino. The coffee was nice enough though.
The breakfast was mammoth and mostly really tasty - bacon, sausages, black pudding, potato scone, eggs, beans, mushrooms. The toast looked lovely, it was thick- cut crusty bread, but that's where it went horribly wrong. I have no idea what they spread the toast with but it tasted rancid, seriously like something was mouldy. I actually spat a mouthful of chewed toast out onto the plate, it was so bad. Him Indoors didn't think his was as bad although he wasn't keen on it and left most of his too. When I asked the waitress, she said they had run out of butter and the chef had gone next door to the newsagents and bought some "you'd never know it's not butter" margarine or something. She was really apologetic and offered to make me some more toast, but I said it was okay and just finished the rest of the breakfast. I did try the toast again after she said it was definitely fresh margarine that was on it, but I swear to goodness I couldn't eat it, it honestly just tasted mouldy and like something had gone bad. She was really nice about it and I wasn't in the mood to make a fuss, although I did joke with her that I could definitely tell it wasn't butter!
However, it left a really nasty taste in my mouth (literally as well as figuratively) so I was glad that she brought a couple of mints with the bill, as I really needed it. That's why I can't bring myself to rate them higher - I've never spat food out in a restaurant ever before and I don't think much of them thinking it's okay to put cheap corner shop fake spread on their toast instead of real butter. And I'm not convinced it was just that - even cheap margarine doesn't taste mouldy and off. The lovely waitress did knock 10% off the bill for us (she said she'd taken off 20% but I did the maths and it was only 10%; however still appreciated) and said that she'd send somebody up to the Co-op to buy real butter immediately (don't know why they didn't just do that in the first place) so we left on good terms with the place and I'd definitely go back to give them another go. read more