Cafe Andamiro

Café Andamiro is such a wee gem of a place. I’d never had Japanese or Korean food before on my first visit – lucky for me that I got to have it in such a lovely place that even my once-​a-​traveling-​man-​to-​Japan-​now-​a-​forever-​bibimbap-​snob husband approves!
Atmosphere-​wise, Café Andamiro is cute and simple. There’s the bare necessities of clean chairs, efficient tables, and a few wall furnishings and that’s pretty much it. Simple and to the point – if you’re going for an atmosphere with more glitz and glam, perhaps Andamiro is not for you. But if you’re looking for food that packs a solid punch right in yer kisser, then step inside and prepare your tastebuds!
The food was Andamiro is seriously delicious. As a vegetarian I was pleased to find there’s a handful of equally tempting offerings on the menu (a perk for someone who’s used to that one token veggie meal often reluctantly given in restaurants). My first go-​round I took a stab at bibimbap and was excited by the still-​sizzling bowl of delight that arrived at my table. Delicious! My second go I decided to branch out and try the spicy ramen bowl. A word of warning here: it’s HUGE. And bring a tissue. If you’re like me your nose will be runnin’, but it’s totally worth it!
Service is always pleasant and prices are fair enough for the quality of the food, but on that note it is certainly worth mentioning that Café Andamiro is not only cash only but BYOB, so consider that a heads-​up for any visits you may see in your future! If you’re like me and have never had a bibimbap, this is your nudge to go stretch your culinary rubber band! Go forth my foodies, and stuff thy face!

Having the word CAFE in the name doesn’t do this little Korean restaurant justice. It is actually a mixture of Japanese and Korean. Sushi is offered alongside traditional Korean Biminbap.
It is always busy when we gohere, which to me is a good sign. The staff are rushed off their feet but always greet you with a warm welcome. Nothing is too much trouble. They managed to squeeze me and David into a small cozy table at the back.
They offer BYOB with no corkage but we were being good so went for one of the super-​duper healthy teas. Each one offering a different healing property or health benefit.
To start we shared the vegetarian Okonomiyaki and Salmon sushi set. The food arrived quickly and was beautifully prepared and presented. The Okonomiyaki was wonderful with nice and crispy edges! The sushi is delicate and well-​balanced.
For main I had a roasted salmon dish and David had spicy pork. Both dishes came with sticky rice and miso soup. The fish and pork were wonderfully flavoured but the rice was quite bland. I felt like it needed another flavour.
I have had plenty of amazing dishes here before including the Donburi and the Biminbap so this is the first time that I had something that was less than excellent!
With the bill coming to £30 it is a great price for a mid-​week treat!
Cheers, Amy

I have been here with Japanese friends and Korean friends, all of whom seem to rate Andamiro pretty highly.
There is a mix of Korean and Japanese here. Korean cuisine is quite simialr to Japanese, but is generally spicier. There are quite a few vegetarian choices which I find unusual for this kind of restaurant. You can also get onigiri, green tea cake and matcha tiramisu, several things which are hard to come by in Edinburgh.
I usually go for the Bibimbap. For £7.99 you get veggie soya «meat», an egg if you want it, vegetables and rice with a side of hot spicy sauce so you can season to taste. This comes in a clay pot which keeps the food hot. This dish also comes with miso soup. The bibimbap is delicious, flavourful and filling. It is also not too bad healthwise.
I do agree with other reviewers who question the name «Andamiro», quite a confusing name, but once you get past this the food is good, authentic and relatively inexpensive.

«Café Andomiro» sounds very much like an Italian name to me, but Italian it is absolutely not. This café is explicitly a blend of Korean and Japanese food, with an emphasis on the Korean. As far as I could discern, all the staff were Korean.
And it IS a café, I suppose. Definitely more that than a restaurant, although when I ate there it was with a large groups of friends and in the evening and in that context it served pretty well in its role as a restaurant, I guess.
There is no alcohol license in Café Andomiro! But it is BYOB with no corkage. What they do have is a pretty comprehensive menu of weird and wonderful far-​eastern teas, with many highly dubious purported health benefits. One will, apparently, «decompose» your fat. Whether that is a good or a bad thing is left to the customer to decide. Another will apparently cure both eczema AND cancer! Wow! Does medical science know about this?
I ordered the Japanese green tea, which came in a lovely cast iron pot that made for great Instagram fodder for the wife, but the tea itself was just in a bag and tasted indistinguishable from plain hot water.
The lady taking our order was somewhat wanting for smiles or courtesy, standing as she did at the end of our long table to take the order, forcing those of us at the other end to form a funnel around our mouths with our hands and bellow our order halfway across the room.
We also discovered that a good 30% of the things that we attempted to order were not available. No dumplings? Ok, how about the pumpkin? No pumpkin? Ok, how about… and so on.
So far so mediocre, «but then why the four stars, Haitham??» I hear you cry. Well the menu is actually pretty great and the food is excellent. I’m one of those insufferable, pretentious bores who has been to both Japan and Korea a couple of times and now says deeply irritating things like «you just can’t get good okonomiyaki outside of Hiroshima» and «this bibimbap needs more gochujang», so I was pleasantly surprised to find both the okonomiyaki and bibimbap to be delicious in Café Andomiro.
Ok, so the okonomiyaki really wasn’t quite an authentic experience, but damn tasty food is damn tasty whether it is authentic or not. The bibimbap, however, was totally authentic and delicious. The portion sizes were good and I felt totally satisfied by the end of my two courses.
The menu has loads of interesting stuff on it and I wish I could have tried more. I’m actually itching to go back and see how good their other offerings are. The veggie options are not numerous, but are totally sufficient for all but the pickiest vegetarianists.
I was also quite pleasantly surprised when the bill came. Ok, so the service could be better but really great, authentic food for a very satisfactory price is a hard to come by in Edinburgh, so I strongly recommend checking Café Andomiro out. They shut up shop by 9pm (not sure when last orders are), so don’t leave it too late!

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Café Andamiro and after reading some of the reviews on Unilocal we decided to pop in. Previously my only expereinces of korean food were in a BBQ places where the menus were very different, so I was well up for something new.
The décor is nice, but the place is a little crampt due to the space betwwen tables. The staff were great very attentive — showed us to our seat, explained the dishes and were always helpful /​polite.
We order a smothie, a chai and 2 bibimbap — one veggie and one beef. This is what didnt work for me. Neither of us liked the bibimbap, I am not sure what I was expecting but the dish tasted like tomatoe purée, raw veg and rice nothing else. The chilli paste condiment really didnt have any effecto the palette other than tomatoe. The other condiments were excellent which included Kimchi, miso and omlette. I finished my meal due to hunger from a massive walk around the festival, but was increasingly aware my missus wasnt enjoying her veggie option. Once we were outside it would seem that she got the beef one and I had the veggie. Although after not eating meat for so long all she could describe it as tasting like iron and that she felt a little unwell. She left most of it.
This wasnt a bad meal persay, its just that my previous experiences of Korean food were so much better and were a similiar price. I will return to give them a second chance as some of the other options looked great going out and the reviews here point to somthing a little more special. I think next time I wont be coming along with a veggie in tow.

I was very surprised by the amount of good food you can get for that prize. Outside it may only look like a regular café, but inside I loved the classical background music. The staff was really nice and for about a bit less than 8 pounds I got chicken teriyaki. It came in a lovely box with rice, a very small salad of lettuce and tomato, and various random things like seaweed and soup. Everything tasted really good and I’m definitely coming back for more :)

I agree with much of what Cressi has said and we certainly had a very enjoyable lunch. I wasn’t so convinced by the food, though. It was in the realm of pleasant and nourishing rather than being a wowing taste sensation.
For a quick and hearty lunch, at a very reasonable price, this is a good option. For a really high quality Korean dining experience, there are better places.
Overall, we said: «I enjoyed our visit to Café Andamiro, but the food didn’t quite win me over. The place is charming, though, so is worth investigating. I hope to come back and try their sushi later in the year.»

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, this was Trattoria Italiana, and it was Really Not Good. It closed shortly after I started Unilocaling, so it was spared the ignominy of my words.
And now, my friends — behold! From the choking ashes of disgrace, a phoenix! From the waxy cocoon of shame, a butterfly! From the… from the grubby skip of dismay, a — er — an armchair of joy! Yes! Go with it! An ARMCHAIR OF JOY!
(Legal note. There are no armchairs, butterflies or phoenixes in Café Andamiro.)
Café Andamiro is good. The fact it was as busy as it was today, just a standard Tuesday lunchtime, is testament to how good. It offers the curious combination of Japanese and Korean food — curious, I think, because I think of these very much as opposites, Japanese food being very fresh and light, and Korean food being quite stodgy and greasy. But for this reason, there’s probably something on the menu that everyone will like.
Blythe R and I ordered the Korean dumplings to share as a starter, joking about how we would fight over the fifth and final dumpling, but when we mentioned that we were sharing, they in fact very kindly brought us six! They were really lovely — fried crispy on one side and very hot in the middle.
My Jap Chae was a riot of colour, which is perfect — nobody wants a mess of brown when glass noodles are involved. It all starts to looks fearsomely biological when that’s the case. But these were beautiful fresh vegetables, and it was sweet and delicious and, for the price (£5.99) HUGE. I was so full at the end that I wasn’t sure I’d make it home…
And now to my personal favourite bit. As you will see from the pictures — adorable china! Such adorable china! The green tea came in these super-​cute floral teacups and a gorgeous matching teapot. The whole set was so «KAWAII!» (They also have a rather lovely Portmeirion Botanic Gardens soap dispenser in the little bathroom at the back, by the way). Even my Jap Chae, while Blythe’s mighty bibimbap came in an ultra-​impressive stone vessel like something from the Round Table, was served in a delicate little dish with a gold rim. Oh, I was so happy.
The prices were fantastic and the service superb too. In fact, the only thing letting this place down, in my eyes, is that it feels ever so slightly on the cramped side. But for a casual lunch, it’s the eel’s hips! I can’t wait to come back and try… all those cakes… :O