getonwithitnow's Qype profile

This place came recommended so I was really looking forward to trying it out. So disappointed! Service was fast and fried rice was good but pepper and chilli pork was more than 50% fat. I'd have returned it but it was bucketing rain out. There are plenty of other, better, chinese food places in the fountainbridge area!

Just had a great cut and colour at Level Up - I tried highlights a few years ago and they just never looked how I wanted them to and one evening at Level Up and I'm delighted! Could not recommend the place more :)

Staffing levels are on the short side and you do wait a bit for drinks. BRILLIANT garden out the back for the rare sunny days here, and more space out the front which is good. The water in the taps in the ladies' loos is ferocious so stand out of the way when you turn them on! Food is grand - standard pub fayre. They also have a smaller dining area which is good if you don't want to be in the main bar. Only weird thing is the disco that we saw starting in the main bar on the Friday night - very odd indeed! Grand if you're out and about in the Grassmarket.

oh dear. How I would love to get my hands on this place! Each and every time I have been in the Merlin I have stood at the bar waiting for a drink while the bar staff stand round the glasswasher and chat. When they finally do decide to serve, it is inevitable that the person next to me (who arrived later) will get served first. They are also well known for what I like to call the ‘Merlin Look’, which describes how each and every table will have empty bottles/glasses/plates on it while the staff, you guessed it, chat around the glasswasher. I continue to pop in every now and then, on the off chance that it has changed, but 3 years down the line and it’s the same old story. Shame…

UPDATE June 2012
Popped in here last night for some food. The service has definitely improved which is a plus but the food has gone massively downhill. I ordered a veggie burger which was served with a rather suspect salad garnish and was cold in the middle. My partner had a chicken thing – the potatoes were microwaved (he could cut slices off them!) and the chicken was really dry and a bit forlorn. It took 3 sachets of HP sauce to eat it, even though there was gravy on the plate too. I did say to the server who cleared our table about the burger (a N. American guy) and he was really good about offerring soft drinks/coffee to make up for it. Speaking of coffee – they have those stupid Illy coffee cups that you can’t hold properly! And I also got charged 2 different prices for the sme size of juice/soda water combination. We’ll be avoiding this place in the future.

This place has been transformed! No longer an 'old man's pub' it is a spacious and comfortable place to have a drink, coffee or a meal and perfect for having a catch up with your friends. Fountainbridge has long needed somewhere like this. And the ladies loos are the bext I've ever been in :) Prices are reasonable and selection of drinks is great.

It's nice to have a place to go to for drinks/food in Dunfermline which isn't a chain pub, has a good selection of drinks and where the food looks great.

I was there last night. I had the worst daiquiri I've ever tasted and there seems to be a penchant for serving every martini-style cicktail in a champagne glass. The service was ridiculously slow - we ordered the first round at the bar and it tooks about 15 minutes to prepare (the bar tender kept stopping to chat to his colleagues) annd the second round we ordered at our table and took a full half hour to be delivered. Apparently this isn't an unusual wait for a drink in this place.

That said, the atmosphere was good. I'd not be going back any time soon though.

We went here for lunch the other day. Service was good – we waited a wee while for food (40 minutes) as the server had sent the wrong order – but otherwise it was grand. Food was lovely – good portion sizes and very tasty. In agreement with the above review it would be good to have some heating in the place – I wore my coat the whole time!

We stopped in here as we were thinking of eating there (having eaten several times in the rest of the Dogs and this being the one I’d not tried yet). The kitchen is closed between 4 and 5pm. The girl who served us was a bit…vague. Yep, I think that’s a good word. The service wasn’t great at all which was a shame. The ambience of the place is wonderful, lots of mismatched saggy sofas and spindly tables, and if I ran a place like this I’d make sure the coffee was good which, unfortunately, it wasn’t. The modern cups on old-fashioned saucers were a let down, as were the contents which tasted like cheap cafetiere coffee rather than fresh ground espresso. Good coffee isn’t hard to make and if that changed I’d consider going back there.

My brother was here a few weeks ago and recommended it to me. Thank bro! The food was excellent; we shared some dishes and the waiter didn’t bat an eyelid. The service was inconspicuous unless required which is the way I like it. The ambience was lovely, this is a little gem in Edinburgh and well worth a visit. We’ll definitely go back.

I’ve passed this place a few times and decided to pop in for lunch today with a friend of mine. There were a few tables in, but after 5 minutes of sitting and being ignored by the girl drinking juice behind the bar I went and asked for menus. The staff were very pleasant, but a futher 10 minutes went past with no-one at our table so I went to the bar to order – at which point I was asked ‘do you want to order here or will I come to your table?’ I opted for the bar.

I went for the macaroni cheese with smoked sausage, which was alright but sadly lacking in smoked sausage (in that it wasn’t there – and I paid £5.95 for a bowl of cheesy pasta). My friend went for the burger which looked pretty good and was cooked to order. We had to wait quite a while for the table to be cleared, then again I had to approach the bar and request the bill.

My friend went to the toilets and said that there were 3 cubicles in darkness due to broken lights and another cubicle that was unusable – and this was in the middle of the day!

I’m not saying this was a bad experience – I’ve had far worse – it was just disappointing. I maintain that if you are going to run table service in a bar, train your staff well and offer good service!

UPDATE I went back here at the weekend and what a difference! Excellent, EXCELLENT, table service provided, good food, the table was cleared quickly after we’d finished, we were offered more drinks/tea and coffee, and the bill payment was easy peasy. It was a really great experience, it’s good to see they’re getting it right! The extra 2 stars on my previous review are a reflection on a much improved experience.