The Painted Rooster — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

All good places have some bad reviews. This is the one for this restaurant. We got to the restaurant and the waitress with the short hair took one look at us and said there was a 40 min wait and gave us an annoyed look like we should leave. She looked extra annoyed that we decided to wait. Literally 5 minutes later, a table opened and we were sat by a different waitress. 10 minutes after that there were at least 3 open tables.

The same short haired waitress took our order. 50 minutes later, the short haired waitress comes over and said that there had been a screw up and that our order had somehow been lost. She had to retake our order and literally had to write it down again. Except this time , even though at least a third of the menu is grilled chicken items, and their name is the painted rooster, they had no more chicken.

We ended up with a Ruben and a burger.

The only saving grace to what had up until this point been one of the worst experiences of our lives was the food was really good.

The waitress with the longer hair who originally sat us did apologize and she took 10% off the bill.

As my wife is Asian and I look Irish, maybe she was prejudice. It certainly appeared so, but I can only speculate why she treated us...

I have no experience of Polish food before, out of curiosity I ordered both two signature Polish dishes available in The Painted Rooster – Pierogi and Zurek.

There were several choices of stuffing for the pierogi dumplings such as potato with cottage cheese, haggis, sauerkraut and some more veggie options, and we ordered a plate with each of the flavours. Overall they were delicious, softly crispy and sufficiently stuffed, though not particularly outstanding in comparison with dumplings I tried from other parts of the world, mostly Asian. I like the Zurek, a slightly sour soup with sausage, potato and boiled eggs served in bread bowl, you just can’t go wrong with it, a sort of comfort food. The Painted Rooster Burger was okay, the sauce saved it from being an average one.

It is almost a 4-star. However the food at this basement restaurant is a bit pricy (I mean the sit in price on their latest menu, while the one on their FB page has been outdated by the time of this review) in my opinion comparing with other restaurants of similar nature...

Cute little breakfast place. We found this as we were walking down to Dean Village and got hungry before we arrived. We went downstairs where the ceilings are very low (maybe between 6-7 feet), the room is tiny and the space between tables is very narrow. The food and service were ok. I think we maybe should have ordered a more traditional Scottish breakfast (just because I read the positive reviews afterword) as we both ordered bagels (hubs with lox, ham & eggs, me with avocado and eggs) and while they were ok, I think they must use some kind of preservative on the avocado as it had no flavor and the lox was subpar as well. The coffee was good. If I workd there, I don't think I would be super happer either. Somewhat charming, and absolutely adorable rooster decor, but having to wait anytime anyone is walking and/or getting seated is a frustration. Understanding and expecting the space restrictions, and knowing what to order, would be the only thing(s) that would take...