The Edinburgh Blog

Fine dining went out the window this weekend, when I gobbled down a satisfying fried breakfast on Saturday and a totally filling roast dinner on Sunday.

First up was Cafe Maria on Dalry Road. Inside this cafe is as basic as the black and white sign outside, but when you’re paying just £4.40 for a full fried breakfast it’s impossible to fault the interior furnishings. It’s a mixed, often thin crowd, on Saturday mornings with some regulars lining their stomach before a day at the Dickens bar opposite or young parties, often staying the weekend in the holiday hires of Dalry Gait/Caledonian Village, eating their hangover curing bout of grease.

Well the grill man in the back never fails to deliver and my ‘All Day Breakfast’ for £4.40 earned me a mug of tea (only three quarters full mind), two decent sausages, a fried egg, 2 slices of toast cut elegantly in half, a fried tomato (that on Saturday didn’t seem to be fried), bacon and, in my case, baked beans. It normally has black pudding instead of the beans, but if you ask for a swap, it seems to get done.

Cafe Maria’s menu also includes a multitude of rolls and a grill menu that I haven’t sampled; but does include sirloin steak, liver, fish and chips; roast chicken and chips.

Cafe Maria wouldn’t win any prizes for promoting good health, hospitality or aesthetic appeal but it does deliver one decent and totally unhealthy fry up!

Next up on Sunday was the Wetherspoons Standing Order pub on Edinburgh’s George St for a Sunday Roast. I had contemplated the George Hotels carvery, on the opposite side of George St, but at over £20 per head for Sunday Lunch the lure of a Sunday Roast, with a drink, for just £6.49 (I think - could have been £6.99 though) proved too strong.

That’s £6.49 for the roast dinner but you also get a free drink with this and the choice includes Pepsi, coffee, chardonnay, bottle of Stella or a pint of Fosters or Strongbow. The meat is a choice between beef, chicken or the vegetarian butternut squash and cashew nut roast. If you don’t already know you take a seat at Wetherspoons, note your table number and order your meal/drinks at the bar. When your meals been heated it’s brought to your table.

Well it’s hardly a home made roast, but what would you expect for this money? The portion size was huge and, with eyes bigger than my belly, I was made to regret ordering extra roast potatoes (60p) with my Sunday roast. I enjoyed the meal, although the roast chicken was a little dry, but overall it was a decent piece of chicken. The roast beef was borderline awful though: evidently heated in a microwave and partly because it was so thin, it had burnt and completely dried out. In conclusion, when ordering the Wetherspoon Sunday club roast I think chicken is the safest option.

The rest of the roast was, for this price bracket, decent and I happily munched away on the roast potatoes, broccoli and mashed potato. The sage stuffing balls were non-descript and the Yorkshire puddings were the cook from frozen type found in every supermarket. However at this price and with such a large serving I can see why the Sunday club at Wetherspoons Standing Order pub is so popular; very few empty tables were testament to this.

So a budget weekend, but an enjoyable one nonetheless.