Seadogs for Lunch Club
The blog has previously reviewed The Dogs and Amore Dogs, so it was inevitable our lunch club trio would find its way to Seadogs at some point. Seadogs is David Ramsden’s fish themed restaurant on Edinburgh’s Rose St. I’m continually amazed how busy The Dogs group of restaurants are irrespective of time or day, so it was no surprise to find Seadogs nearly full by 1pm on a Monday. Whatever your personal opinion about these Edinburgh restaurants, there’s clearly a formula here that has lasting appeal.
Seadogs have an inexpensive daytime menu and a more expensive, but still very reasonably priced evening menu. And despite the Seadogs name there are a few meat and vegetarian dishes available. The menu is, as you’d expect, rather quirky and varied e.g. the fish is available beer battered, grilled or in oatmeal. The “prawn scampi” and chips (£5.20) was an interesting concept, but it proved too rich for my tastes and the five deep fried prawns were a burn risk to the inside of my mouth.
The large bowl of cullen skink (£4.95) was the best value and best tasting dish. It had a great consistency and generous quantities of haddock. The fish, chips and mushy peas (£6.60) is the staple dish at Seadogs and its popularity meant there was at least one variant of this on each table. The batter was just about spot on, while the chips are unlikely to disappoint. Any dish which gets mushy peas served by default gets a thumbs up from me, though the portion size will be underwhelming for many.
Seadogs manages to create a welcoming, social and comfortable feel; this no fuss atmosphere and clean style of service is surely the biggest attraction of David Ramsden’s Edinburgh restaurants. My visit to Seadogs was exactly what I expected - definitely not amazing, but pleasant and enjoyable enough.
The Edinburgh Blog’s lunch club members provided their own one sentence reviews:
A decent lunch, with fresh ingredients used. Price is reflective of portion size. 6.5/10
Reasonably priced, tasty food, but not a stand out. 7/10
Seadogs is located at 43 Rose Street, Edinburgh, EH2 2NH
Telephone: 2021 225 8028
