Twitter has been an incredibly useful resource for us, since we started on our questing ways. Not only has it helped us to build a readership and publicise our reviews, but also we’ve become part of an excellent community of friends and followers. One of the great things about this is that the ongoing conversation means that you get to hear about good new places to try from people whose opinion you trust. Today’s lunchtime choice was motivated by one such recommendation, from John, who has previously joined us for quests to The Mulroy and Karen’s Unicorn.

As the rest of Europe deals with more snow than they know what to do with, Edinburgh has been bathed is clean, keen sunlight for a couple of days, now. Through these rosy-cheek-inducing conditions, I wandered down to the foot of Broughton Street to investigate French Fancies, a little French café, which opened its doors in the middle of last year.

The place is incredibly cute, an Aladdin’s cave of deli products, preserves, and other tasty treats. Their cake counter, featuring some beautiful macarons, looked like the kind of thing that would set my Cake Questing buddies all aflutter.

I asked the friendly counter assistant what the soup of the day was. It turned out to be a creamy leek and potato, which sounded grand to me. I asked her advice as to what would be good with it. From the option of a croque monsieur or a baguette, I opted for the latter (although I’ll be back to try the former, soon). From a couple of options, we settled upon ham, goat’s cheese and pesto.

Returned to the ivory basement that is my office, I paused to consider my selections. The soup had an excellent aroma, but was set aside for a moment, as it was plenty hot enough. The baguette was truly lovely. I regularly moan about over-crusty baguettes bringing scraping torment to my dainty gums, but this was just perfect. The outside was crusty, but not tough, with the bread proving soft but with a nice firm substance to it. The filling was equally satisfying, with really good quality ingredients coming together to form a succession of flavour packed mouthfuls.

The soup was really good, as well. It had a rich creaminess to it, with a light hint of leek letting the butteriness of the potato really shine through. I was very happy with it, indeed.

Overall, French Fancies, whilst not cheap compared with neighbouring takeaway options, offers extremely high quality. I have a feeling that their sit-in prices compare very favourably, something I will certainly be testing, as I can imagine myself popping back here on many occasions in the future. I’d recommend you pay it a visit soon, too, as I have a feeling you’ll find it as richly rewarding as I did.

Scores
Blythe scores French Fancies:
4/5 for food
3/5 for presentation
4/5 for service
4/5 for setting
giving an overall 15/20

I ate: ham, goat’s cheese and basil pesto baguette; creamy leek and potato soup

I drank: the soupy goodness was moisture enough

I wore: red, black and grey striped www.tieclub.co.uk tie

Total bill: £4.90