Leith Grubcrawl

Welcome to August in Edinburgh; the crazy month of Festival joy. We start proceedings in Leith.

After debuting the grubcrawl in Leith just a few weeks back, when the opportunity presented itself to give it another spin we jumped at the chance. We were joined by Our Beer Woman, for the duration, then Craig from Edinburgh Editor and finally Our Beer Man, towards the end of proceedings.

Our first call was at Daniel’s Swiss Bakery in the North Leith Sands industrial units. Owner Daniel Wenk had been along at Scran Salon to showcase his wares. He’d been a big hit so we were both keen to try more of his pastry work.

We tried the very dainty ham croissants (£1.10) with both of our photos reflecting that we couldn’t resist tucking in before remembering to take a snapshot. We shared a slice of lovely apple cake (£2.20) which was a creamy apple delight. This was a jolly fine way to start our adventures.

After a little wander round Leith Market, where we ran into Union of Genius’ Elaine and Bruce, our next stop was at Hideout Cafe for coffee. Their Artisan Roast espresso was very good. It was a good plan before we opened the floodgates on the beer part of day.

Our first beer stop was outside the Constitution Bar, where we ran into some friends of the Beer Woman. We spent a very jolly and sunny half hour sipping Wild Beer’s Bibble and Arran’s Dug IPA, both of which were very good.

We’d built an appetite for some more grub, so we wandered on to Teuchters Landing, ostensibly to give their mug menu a try. Upon perusing the menu, in their conservatory area, we eventually settled upon sharing their seafood platter (£30) which we matched with a couple of schooners of Pilot’s excellent mochaccino stout.

The platter brought together smoked halibut, smoked trout, and oyster each, a good portion of mussels, scallops, a salmon and coley skewer, soused herring and some good chunky chips. This was really pleasing stuff. It was fresh, simply prepared and shown to best advantage. It was a double thumbs up.

With Craig now part of the party, we made beer our next target. As with the previous Leith grubcrawl, we stopped at the Malt & Hops. We found their beer selection typically varied and interesting, and on better form than our last visit. I had a nice refreshing Latitude pilsner.

After a brief stop at Sofi’s for some Broughton stout and Williams’ Birds and Bees, we were feeling a little snackish, so popped into VDeep for beer and doughnuts. As with the previous visit, we enjoyed the beer rather more than the food. The masala doughnuts had an interesting sprinkle topping, but a rather unusual consistency. I enjoyed a nice Thornbridge Jaipur then a Cool as a Cucumber, which was lightly refreshing.

Next stop was the Brig, where we tried some more tasty Pilot, this time the Brig Bar Blond. Opinions were divided on the comfort levels of the booth seating, which I rather liked. I’ll be back to try their food at some point soon.

We were once more plenty hungry enough, so following a failed attempt to try Origano’s new bigger place, which was packed to the gunwales, we popped along Dalmeny Street to Stack Dim Sum. I’d visited ages ago, but we never got round to posting a review of it, for one reason or another.

We ordered seven dishes which were picked in equal measure on strangeness of name and desire to actually eat the particular dishes. This resulted in a good mix of whatnots.

The steamed egg sponges were rather unusual. The char siu buns were really good. The rice and beef with egg, somewhat in the style of Korean bibimbap, which our attentive waitress mixed and stirred for us at the table, had plenty of theatre. It was deliciously filling and moreish, too. For a total cost of £32.60 this was excellent value.

With Beer Man now in tow, we wandered to nearby Tourmalet where German beer was the order of the day. This is a friendly little place that I like very much.

Beer Woman declared herself defeated, so while she toddled down the road home, we grabbed a quick final beer in the Brass Monkey, before carriages were taken shortly thereafter.

It had been a cracking good day out featuring some lovely stuff. We had three dining highlights with Daniel’s, Teuchters Landing and Stack all very worthy of your attention. We had some great beer, too, with the selections at the Constitution, Malt & Hops, VDeep and Tourmalet all very good in their own different ways. We look forward to exploring further and wider on the next grubcrawl, wherever that may be.