Soul Vegan — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

Fill your face with a big bowl of Soul …

I’ve lived in Malaysia with locals for several months and this is as authentic in style and flavour as you’ll get anywhere. Posher … but very much the same.

Menu. It has a small but great selection of authentic cuisine including the famous Rendang and a Specials board too. We shared 3 dishes. Starter, Noodle and Main …

Starter - Salt and Pepper Lotus £6.50. Light crispy fried but not greasy sliced lotus root crisps one a bed of warm pepper and red onion salad. Lovely on the own with damn good flavour, but really elevated when dipped in the Laksa ….

Noodle - Laksa £11.50. A huge bowl of noodle soup made to absolute perfection. Being Malaysian it’s not hot spicy, but instead it has a depth of complexity, richness and smoothness you don’t find in other eastern noodle soups. It’s distinctive Malay taste stands out flavouring the noodles, vegetables wantons (what a treat getting these in it) and seitan. It’d be unfair not to comment on this - best seitan I’ve had in a noodle soup yet - honest.

Main - Soul’s Special Deep Fried Tufu £11.90. Tofu which has been mixed with eastern veggies then reconstituted into logs before being crisped up and served with a delicious glutinous gravy, tender stem broccoli and a garnish. I adored it. Crispy, tasty and like I’d never had before.

The place is chilled, nice music in the background, informative and tentative waitress, a great experience.

Would I go back? Yes and I’ll be booking in advance.

Would I recommend? Yes. It authentic, imaginative, well cooked Malaysian...

Great vegan restaurant with some options lacking value. I recommend for vegans and non-vegans alike to try at least once.

Me and my friends all got rice with mains to share (£16.9 each w/o starters). The flavor and taste of all the dishes were amazing! I thought the special deep fried tofu and mapo tofu were quite awesome with minimal complaints. Other aspects, not so much. The green curry tofu, was a nice pot of curry with lots of vegetables with only 3 blocks of tofu. The yam abacus was similar; a lovely dish with few yam pieces. The rendang had lions mane mushroom shredded and limp, which was dissapointing.

One friend got a char siew noodle bowl on their own, which was quite big (looks tiny in the photo from zoom!) and they happily enjoyed. I may come again and try the rice/noodle options.

They had specials written on the wall (off menu options) which looked interesting. 2 friends got taro pancakes, which was beautifully presented and very tasty.

I recommend booking for larger groups over a week in advance. We booked for 7 2 days prior and although they were packed, they were still very accomodating. The space may seem cramped for larger people, though they were very busy when we came in. Because of the booking, we only had an hour to order and eat. This would be fine if they told us when we came in instead of 15 minutes to the hour. Again, they were very busy so I accept this. I hope they do let customers know terms of their stay...

A MUST TRY Asian cuisine. A place definitely worth visiting. Price is moderate; £10-20 per person. Food is fabulous. Great customer service. It's tucked away at a quiet street but surprisingly it gets very crowded during lunch and dinner. Accessible via Bus 14, 1 min walk from alighting bus stop to restaurant. We walk-in 30 mins right after restaurant opens (5.30pm) and was advised by staff reservation is highly recommended. As we are still early from dinner crowd, we managed to secure a table with a grace period of 1.5 hours meal duration. Restaurant has limited tables. Cozy ambience.

If you like spicy food, recommend Laksa Noodles (Spicy creamy gravy with rich coconut milk). Katsu Curry rice (short grain rice) with King Oyster Mushroom is less spicy, slightly on a sweet side. King Oyster Mushroom is thick and juicy, coated with crispy crust. Gan Lau Mee aka dried noodles comes with a special chill sauce mix is awesome; not very spicy. They use the same noodles for both Laksa Noodles and Gan Lau Mee and both comes with gyoza and char siew (mock roasted meat - awesome taste, crispy, a tint of sweetness and BBQ taste, not gluten texture). Not alliums free. Do request to omit alliums garnishings if you abstain...