Pickle & Custard

Pickle and Custard, and it’s predecessors, have a great location on Lothian Road, however I’m not sure I am that enthralled with the place. Online, the menu looked awesome, but when we reached the place, it was a lot shorter and lacked the options that me and my hungry friends had picked out. I ended up plumping for a soup/​sandwich combo. The tomato and courgette soup was a winner, but my roast vegetable wrap was barely warmed through. I opted for a tea (Active) which came in the largest teapot… but so strong I had to pull the waitress over for hot water to dilute it down. Waitresses who really were not appreciating my many requests (hot water, tomato sauce, salt) and grew a little huffier every time I asked for something else (there is a great solution to that — asking if we have everything we need rather than dropping plates and scooting off like a scalded cat).
The meal was surprisingly more expensive than I had anticipated and whilst it was nice, I am not sure I was overly impressed. it’s a shame — it showed more promise than it delivered.

Pickle and Custard is as prime a spot as any for people watching, plonked at a busy crossroads in a locale that sees suits and tourists jostle for space with some grubbier characters. I had a perfectly enjoyable visit the other day and am surprised to see ol’ Pickly has taken quite a slating elsewhere.
Starbucks aside, it’s usually slim pickings if you want to find someplace to have coffee and a cake after five but the Pickle welcomes caffeine-​deprived punters with open arms well beyond sundown. We wolfed our beverages and choccy cakes down with no complaints and the staff were unusually chirpy in a city where dour-​faced dismissal is standard practice.
The soundtrack was maybe a bit banging for a place that advertises afternoon tea, but at least it stood out from the acoustic landfill you’d hear elsewhere as your trembling, clammy hands reach for that third double espresso.
Delivered everything I was looking for. Full marks.

Didn’t think much of Pickle & Custard, I’m afraid. The newly refurbished café looks quite attractive and welcoming from the outside, but I felt completely ripped off. And I only ordered tea and a breakfast roll. Not a difficult thing to get right.
My tea came in a small cup, with a teabag plonked in the middle. No tea pot. I think I drank it all before my morning roll even arrived because there was so little liquid in the first place. Total rip off. What kind of café that advertises itself as a hot drink stop serves tea like this? I took a look at the counter and couldn’t find a teapot anywhere, so I get the impression this is the way they serve tea all the time.
Ordered a breakfast roll with link sausage. When it arrived I was disappointed to see my roll with one and a half sausages… Again, stingy. Again, felt ripped off. I won’t be back!

Decided to try the still relatively new café on the way to town — a quick sausage roll and coffee just after 12 midday was the plan.
The décor is fine, certainly fresher than Espresso Mondo that used to inhabit the premises, and they were still serving breakfast.
My partner ordered a pot of tea with her roll, only for a not-​very-​large cup of tea to be brought to her with a small jug of milk. Would it really break the budget to provide teapots?
We then received our sausage rolls — leek and apple — discovering each one had 1 and a half sausages.
1.5 sausages? 3 sausages between 2 seems extremely stingy — what would they have done if just one person had ordered a sausage roll, hold back half a sausage for another order? At £2.50 it was hardly a good deal.
It tasted nice enough, but by that point I was looking forward to leaving.
All-​in-​all an extremely disappointing breakfast, clearly done on the cheap. I won’t be returning to this place.

I ordered the smoked haddock, poached egg, hollandaise sauce and paired with cappuccino. Delicious! Very gracious service, nice and clean atmosphere, lovely background music.

Pickle & Custard is a recently opened café/​bistro/​bar on the corner of Lothian Rd. and Morrison St. I’d passed it a few times, it looked like a comfortable spot and always seemed busy. I checked out the menu online and stopped by on a Sunday afternoon for lunch.
It’s a nice space; clean, bright and warm, if a bit sparsely furnished. The menu reads well, there’s a good selection of breakfast/​brunch options and lighter bites as well as some tasty sounding open sandwiches.
I ordered the Chicken Souvlaki. It was very tasty, the chicken well flavoured and moist. Served with a pitta, a rather watery Tzatziki and some unwashed leaf that didn’t match the quality of the souvlaki. We also ordered the Turla Turla (Turkish ratatouille) sharer. The ratatouille itself was pleasant; a mix of roasted veg in spices. However, at £12.95 offered appalling value. As nice as it was, the ratatouille barely served one, there was half a pitta each and it came the same watery tzatziki and a distinctly bland hummus.
Service did’t fare much better. It was slow and the staff were inattentive and disorganised. We had to order our second round of drinks at the bar, only to never receive them yet still be charged (apparently they’d gone to the wrong table)
Pickle & Custard is still in it’s infancy and teething problems are expected so hopefully they’ll improve. I’ll look forward to trying some of the appetising sounding sandwiches but won’t return in a hurry. With so many great places to eat around Lothian Rd./Tollcross it has a lot of work to do to match the competition.

Enjoyed reasonably good service here one afternoon a few weeks back.
Where the place has a slight issue is the size of its sharing options. The option we ordered (the Turkish one) didn’t look a great deal bigger than what I’d have hoped to receive if ordering the one person option.
Otherwise it’s a pretty comfy and spacious place to relax for a while.

My bus route takes me past this corner of Lothian Road all the time. But for some reason while I was out today, this cute purple café/​bar caught my eye for the first time – I’d never noticed it before then, and was aptly charmed by the name. My husband and I decided to drop in for lunch. A champion move as it promptly began snowing buckets just after!
The inside is cozy and relatively spacious and clean. Everything (except what might have been our rather dingy old table) looked relatively new and shiny, and purple too! The menu isn’t too expansive, but my husband and I (both vegetarians) managed to find several options to chose from. And they ended up being lovely! The tartines (open faced sandwiches) were delicious, and we added a tomato and mushroom soup that I honestly wished I had a recipe for. Even better, the prices for the tartines were pretty cheap, and came with a side salad and small bowl of crisps.
Not a bad place if you’re looking to meet up with friends, or want a quick bite before going to see a movie at the Odeon, or fancy a coffee. The bar looked somewhat well-​stocked too, but that’s a venture for another day. :)