The Merlin — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

Haven't been to The Merlin in a few years. Used to be our local when we lived in Morningside so decided to revisit for old time's sake.

While it was at first promising that there is an entirely separate Vegetarian/Vegan/GF menu (I am vegetarian), this lead to some confusion and disappointment.

The main menu has a Sunday Roast section- it was on this little flap I saw the option for a beetroot & squash tart, which according to the main menu, comes with "seasonal vegetables, new potatoes, cauliflower cheese and a Yorkshire pudding". I didn't see that there was the same tart available on the vegan menu (only without the cauliflower cheese and Yorkshire pudding). The reason I ordered it was vegetarians often don't get a Sunday roast option, so I was quite looking forward to a Yorkshire pud.

Waited at least 45 minutes for food to arrive (for context, the pub wasn't particularly busy). Imagine my disappointment when it arrived with just the tart, 3 measly boiled potatoes (one was shrivelled) and peas. Apparently "seasonal veg" equates to "frozen peas". Also a bit strange without gravy.

When queried about the Sunday roast, we were told "there is no Sunday roast" and that the bartender "gets this (from customers) every Sunday". If this is a recurring problem, remove it from the menu.

I was offered to choose something else from the menu, but I was hungry and I'm not waiting another 45 mins to potentially be disappointed again.

To add insult to injury, the tart was partly burnt and there was a hair in my food. The food also came with jolly Christmas napkins... Seriously? It's early October.

They have an extensive gin menu, yet their G&Ts come without garnish. Don't pretend to be something you're not. It's not good enough in today's climate not to delight your customers, and definitely not up to Morningside standards.

Further, the loos are a joke. In some of the cubicles, you'd have to stand on the toilet seat to be able to close the door. Thankfully I'm able-bodied. I'd hate to take my mother here.

It's a shame because the food used to be good, with impressive portions. Now it's sad and pitiful. Not making the effort...

Visited with a friend, took him here for a drink with it being his first time in Edinburgh.

My friend goes to the bar, orders his food, all was good. I then attempt to order a drink, but am told by the man at the bar that no football colours are permitted.

I was wearing a grey Hearts retro sweatshirt, with the badging being fairly subtle. I’d be ok with this on a normal day, but my friend was wearing a black and orange Shakhtar Donetsk shirt, yet was never told he did anything wrong.

Whilst I could pass this off as a mistake and assume the bartender didn’t notice my friend’s football shirt (he definitely did), I inquisitively ask why football shirts aren’t allowed. Whilst this may seem rude of me, I was merely confused for the following reasons:

I’ve never had this problem at any other Greene King pub. Football was being shown live in the bar. The bar advertised their screening of live football outside, including Hearts v Rangers.

The only answer I received is because football fans making their colours shown “incites violence”. Whenever I tried to respond, I was aggressively told “Don’t ask any more questions or I’ll force you to leave”. I regrettably kept quiet and stayed, acting like I was ok, but I was shaken. I should have left of my own accord.

So just to make things clear, the bar follows completely different rules from the rest of their chain, expects people to come there to watch football and not make their allegiances clear (which by definition, should mean, no cheering at football, celebrating or showing emotion when two football teams play) in case there might be violence, but continues to advertise showing football… but wait… Shakhtar shirts are allowed?

It doesn’t make sense.

I am almost certain there was a vendetta against me because of the club I was supporting. The rudeness I was treated with is beyond me and I’d never even consider returning unless I’m apologised to appropriately.

Worth noting that Greene King sponsored the football shirts of Ipswich Town from 1995 to 2001 and Wrexham in 2011. If this is something they don’t stand for, then I...

Steak Thursdays? More like Mistake Thursdays. Me and my dad ordered a sirloin steak (both medium rare that came medium with a bit of blood poured over the top, mmmmmmhh) as there is a deal on Thursdays. I counted about 10 chips each, 2 weird tasting tomatoes on top of very sad lettuce, no mushroom add ons that we asked for and my god the sauce. My GOD!!! We both love a peppercorn sauce, but we saw an enticing option of "Merlot and beef dripping gravy" that convinced us to get one of each and share it. I found it absolutely fascinating that the merlot and beef dripping gravy could be thinner than a merlot itself. A Watery, tasteless Reddy brown liquid. Needless to say thank goodness there were a selection of world famous Heinz sauce on the table to add a bit of flavour to the meal. I picked up the bland, plastic tasting peppercorn sauce to pass to my dad and it had a couple pieces of lettuce stuck to the bottom. My dad, in his good humour, said "watch out, half of the salad is stuck to the bottom of that" we had an ironic chuckle after cutting half of the steak (fat) away to get to the non existent "good part" but by that point we had already decided that nothing on the plate was good. I even had a rotten chip (to be fair maybe it was frozen rotten). The only reason I'm giving 2 stars as the service was polite and my mum got the biggest battered fish and chips ever. While the batter was more of a solid brown than golden brown, thank goodness she is the sharing type because after our small piece of "steak" we were both starving! Safe to say we won't be ordering a steak again. Maybe we were fools to expect anything different from a pub steak? No, you don't get that excuse. It was unacceptable in quality. I think it'll be fish and chips all...