Silver Bowl

I’ve never been too into thai food — until I discovered this place! The online ordering system is simple and they have the food ready in good time. A few times now I just walked into the place on Leith Walk, ordered at the counter and left with fresh, hot, amazing smelling food.
The Pad Kee Mao Mu has become my go to order. Delicious rice noodles, packed with veggies and a good serving of pork — an overall very generous serving size at that. Fantastic value for money. My partner has had their veggie Pad Thai a few times now and seemed happy with that as well.
Desert wise, their sticky coconut rice with mango is to die for and I might have a slight addiction problem there now. It’s especially good cold out of the fridge the next day.

Nope. I don’t get it.
I had a week or so where I was a veritable couch slug on account of being sick and by day six, I was more than a little sick of canned soup and tom yum at home so I opted for thai take-​out. However, because I had spent most of the day falling in and out of sleep, I failed to realize that this sudden and inexhaustible thai craving hit at exactly 11pm… on a Sunday.
My regular thai take out joint was closed, so I took to the Unilocal app to find an alternative. I was hoping for just something other than pizza at such a late hour, but to stumble upon a thai food joint that was open until 11:30? What joy!
I ordered the vegetable tempura, vegetable spring rolls and pad thai (don’t judge, I survive on left overs). There’s two major hat tips i’ll give here, the first being for the easy peasy online ordering system and the second being the aforementioned late night kudos… but it generally stops there.
And don’t get me wrong… the food was ok. Not great, not «i’d ever order this at an earlier hour», but if I found myself in a similar 11pm pickle, i’d probably give it another go but it definitely won’t make the regular rotation.
Here’s the quick run down:
The pad thai was decent. A good portion size with lots of prawns. The noodles were really… sticky (?) though? And they turned into a big block of noodle rather quickly. But of the dishes, I’d do this one again.
I’d pass on the veggie tempura. The only saving grace is it’s a CRAZY huge portion for the £3.50… SO MUCH FRIED THINGS! But I was expecting a light batter and this came with a full blown, heavy arse onion ring style batter. It was heavy and greasy and I made it through about 3 pieces before I felt a bit off. I threw most of it away.
Same to the spring rolls — decent portion size for what you pay but they felt like the frozen spring rolls you buy at the shop. They were rather forgettable.
I think next time, i’d keep a closer eye on what people before me have ordered and go with that but my current consensus? Until a night owl moment hits, i’ll pass.

What do you call those days in between Christmas and New Year? Is there a name for them? Whatever they’re called, I doubt anyone can really be bothered cooking and so the hunt for an excellent takeaway is on!
Now, it probably says something about how good Silver Bowl is that my sister ate from here two nights in a row. The second night, my boyfriend and I joined in on her recommendation. Unsure of what to have, partly caused by my reluctance to order Green Curry (I make this all the time at home) meant we ended up playing it safe and choosing to share some Pad Thai and Green Curry between the two of us, with my sister going for the prawn Pad. And we threw in a starter platter too.
The food took about an hour to arrive, longer than we’d have liked, but not so long to warrant a complaint. When it arrived we were delighted by the very generous portions. So big were they that we couldn’t finish! The Green Curry was delicious, although bear in mind it is also fairly hot. The Pad Thai was huge! And really tasty. But I was so full from eating the curry (we’d ordered rice to accompany), as was my boyfriend, that I’m afraid we ended up wasting about ¹⁄₃ of it. I reckon you could easily share it, throw in a starter, and be satisfied.
Our order — starter selection, prawn Pad Thai, chicken Pad Thai, chicken Green Curry, rice and garlic noodles — came to just over £40, so really very reasonable.
I can see us ordering from here again!

Ring in the new year. Bring out the Thai Take Away from Silver Bowl. On our day of post NYE celebrations (i.e. tired, lethargic, lust-​less.) it was decided that we let some other do the cooking. Unfortunately our ‘normal’ Thai place was closed on this day. Alternatives were needed. We found an old takeaway menu and we logged in online to see if anything had changed. It was still the same.
We ordered for delivery at 5 online, however it came to our attention (only later when we called) that only open at 5 but they already started on our dishes. And sure enough those arrived 20 min later.
My personal favourite is the Tom Yum — this time with Gai (chicken). It was so packed with flavours and proper ingredients. I could have had 3 more and called it a meal.
My other dish was a spicy chili beef and cashew, side order of beansprout soft noodles. I was less impressed with this dish (I contribute this to the Tom Yum I had only finished minutes before). It was tasty, but not as flavour or spice packed I wanted it to be. — Oh well, nothing that cannot be saved with some chili oil and white pepper.
In all they are now firmly in my top 3 for ordering Take Away.

Its December… after a long day of walking round town we decided a pot of mulled wine and watching Home Alone could only be improved by a nice Thai talk away.
After a bit of web surfing we decided Silver Bowl looked like good value. We opted for a slsection of starters. Chciken satay and fish cake nom!
Then I went Prawn Pad Thai and my dining chum went Chicken Pad Thai. Delicious noodles, crisp… lots of prawns… really tasty!
All in all a great evening.

You can ring my booo-​ooo-​oowwwl, ring my bowl.
I have no idea why Silver Bowl reminds me of «Ring My Bell». If music be the food of love, or, er, something. Good food makes me happy. Being happy makes me want to sing happy songs. You do the maths.
I’m still on my Thai Quest to find the best Thai in Edinburgh, and next on the list was take-​out. My previous take-​out Thais in Edinburgh had been sub-​par but Silver Bowl was just… yes.
So, the context. We ordered take-​out for delivery. We were starving. It was soon to be delivered. Then there was a powercut. All lights out. The door wouldn’t open (student accomodation, automatic electric door). We had to get it through the fire escape. But it arrived, we ate it in near-​pitch blackness (no street lights even). And oh it was gooooood. It was so good.
The serving was huge. I had a prawn and veg stir-​fry thing. And the aubergines. It’s probably a good thing I couldn’t see the aubergines as once the lights came back on, after we’d finished, I could see the oily, deliciousness at the bottom of the empty container. But it was fresh, the veg in my stir-​fry was crispy, the prawns were big, there were a lot of them.
I admit, I felt a bit icky after. I think they use MSG. MSG is not my friend. But it was too good I didn’t care.
I’ve given it 5 stars in the context of delivery and take-​out Thai. It’s by no means the best Thai I’ve had in Edinburgh, as that accolade goes to restaurants. But as far as take-​out goes, it’s a 5 star take-​out all the way. Especially considering the prices.
So next time I’m too lazy to cook or leave the house and want food, I’m calling Silver Bowl. Yip.

The Silver Bowl is by far one of the nicest Chinese Take-​aways in Leith, and gets a great rep from loads of review sites and magazine write-​ups alike.
The take-​away itself is nice, clean and looks great from the outside but the thing I love most about the place is that it offers online ordering!
We ordered a Chinese feast one night, and spent an absolute fortune which was a bit of a gamble because we had never had anything from the Silver Bowl before, but I have to say everything was perfect. From the gloopy chicken and sweetcorn soup to the sweet and sour scallops to the chicken and King prawn omelette (my Uncle James is still not sure about this ‘foreign food’) every single thing was cooked well, arrived piping hot and could feed the five thousand, we had so much left.
It isn’t the cheapest take-​away but then when you get food this good, you don’t mind paying a wee bitty more for the quality.

I was babysitting a friend after a root canal on the West-​End, when we decided that instead of going out to see Heartbreaker (I had to sit her down and make her watch the trailer so that she’d understand it just wasn’t worth it), we’d order in and watch But I’m a Cheerleader and Ghost World. Which was a much better option. We ordered a portion of scallops in black bean sauce and king prawns with ginger and spring onions.
My favourite was definitely the portion of king prawns, though I was highly disappointed in the definite lack of prawns. I mean, there may have been about 10 prawns in the whole meal. For three of us. Three sea-​food lovers. The scallops in black bean sauce were also few and far between. The sauces were very good indeed, though I would definitely urge them to be more generous with their seafood.
The service, on the other hand, was prompt and it was the first time I’d ever ordered anything off the internet. So I was surprised it’d actually arrived at all! Each of our portions cost just above a fiver. So, I guess it’s pretty moderate for a takeaway, though I’m certain I’ve eaten better and cheaper.

Silver Bowl are a chain of Cantonese take aways on the east end of Edinburgh that have seemed to pop out of nowhere in the last few years.
I had passed two branch’s (the 3^rd seems to be a fabrication, I still can’t find it!) several times and decided to give it a try during a late night editing session.
I tried calling a few times but I couldn’t get through. So we decided to chance our luck on the online ordering service. Around 20 minutes later the food was at the door, I wondered how many people he killed speeding to get over here this quickly.
I popped open my Char Siu and had a taste, In couldn’t believe how fresh it tasted. The pork was well fired but not burned and surprisingly the black pepper sauce that accompanied tasted brilliant.
The whole order came to about £6 (delivery was only £1!!), but I would gladly pay double for food this tasty.