MIRIN — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

It's westernised Asian food, at very high prices too. They claim to be a casual place but they're charging damn near fine dining prices, so it's rather confusing.

Wild boar dumping filling was not flavourful at all, skin was overly chewy, Kaffir lime broth is quite good tho

Monkfish skewer was well executed, a solid twist on a classic with nice flavours, however for fine dining standards the flavours don't harmonise enough. (And don't say oh but they are just a casual restaurant, they shouldn't be judged by fine dining standards. This single skewer was 16.5£, that's fine dining prices)

Hand ripped noodles has a lot of chew but no bite, the noodles aren't as good as pomelo's, and for this tiny portion 19£ is crazy. What's worse is that the meat sauce is not Asian at all, it's a stereotypically sweet gooey pulled pork sauce of westernised Asian food.

Suckling pork skin was quite good, but way too much like gel that covers everything else, and tonkotsu broth was tasteless. Tiny portion for 16£

Octopus fried rice, being a new item was actl quite good. You can't taste any octopus bits tho, and it's definitely not cos it's too tender. Instead there's some fish flakes. The crunchy bits were quite good

Panan cotta was quite tasteless and not very good for the price

Pineapple cheesecake was literally just whipped cream and pineapple

I think it's way overhyped, and that's from someone whose favourite type of food is elevated classics. The food objectively is not particularly good, and the prices are just ridiculous. Not to mention the reservation is difficult to secure, although I have no idea why. (I heard they used to be quite good when they didn't do this overpriced small tapas things, and focused on ramen)

Kaffir appears way too often in the menu, at least 3 of our dishes have Kaffir which is strong

You can't have it both ways, pick a lane and get some decor if they're GG to be a fine dining place, or actually go casual and...

Now MiRiN - Nice food & cool vibes. Really friendly but slow service - made to wait outside for some reason even though we arrived at the exact time of our booking and there were empty seats inside - we had to stand on the pavement until one table had finished eating... good thing it wasn't raining yet. Later there was a walkin that got those same empty seats right away. Maybe they have a system but we were confused. Didn't get water until all the other tables that had arrived after us did. I'm not really one to be too fussed about service but was left feeling quite uncomfortable.

The crispy duck with cherry and black pudding was amazing. The katsu slider was small but pretty tasty. Chicken yakitoti was decent even though it was ￡5 for a single stick but was actually quite large. The charred cabbage with curried butternut squash was better than expected but the flavor was quite overpowering. Rice was incredibly small (possibly the tiniest serving I have seen in a restaurant) and wasn't brought to the table until all the other dishes almost got cold despite having asked for it a couple of times. Perhaps they thought some people eat plain white sushi rice on its own. I don't know - maybe they were busy but it really could've been better 🙃. There were seats for 14-16 and 2 waitresses - one's a social butterfly who immediately forgets what you've asked for after enthusiastically nodding, leaving you waiting until you ask the other one for the same...

Sharing our experience for other diners with dietary requirements.

Whilst ordering our food, I spoke to the waiter about my veganism and lactose intolerance and repeated that the dumplings and noodles we ordered should be vegan. I even told him about symptoms I get if I eat dairy. Despite this, we were still served dumplings with milk in, and I ate the whole dish before we were alerted to the mistake.

The waiter was obviously mortified and apologetic. We were given the correct dish and the rest of our meal was fine. The dumplings were free, but nothing else was taken off our bill.

Afterwards I emailed to explain how serious this kind of mistake is, and how sick I would be in the days following. The owners replied with an apology that was below par considering the pain and discomfort I experienced due to consuming lactose. The free dumplings were a nice gesture but I felt like it wasn’t enough considering the gravity of the mistake.

Having worked in hospitality for over a decade myself, I completely understand how easy it is for these accidents to happen, but the way it was resolved by the staff and the owners was very disappointing.

Avoid if you have dietary requirements...