The Dogs, Edinburgh.

“Borderline pretentious but does itself justice!”

After booking, cancelling, rebooking and then cancelling another restaurant already for our first night in Edinburgh we hoped that our indecisiveness would eventually pay dividends as we plumped for 'The Dogs' after the interesting description in the Lonely Planet guide.

The night that we were there had that feel of a balmy midsummers evening (even tough it was the start of April!), the kind of night where you can smell the tarmac if it happens to rain. This gave 'The Dogs' it's first negative, it was so hot in there! After sitting down on a table for four (I never like this, you feel like your sat at your gran's) we were given the menu for our perousal. From first glace it looked as interesting as the guidebook and website had made out, interesting and thoughtful dishes made from sources of fish and cuts of meat that in another world would be used as bait to attract the bigger fish or smashed into pulp and used for burgers.

For starter, as my G/F and I are due to go traveling soon, we decided to share the starter of hot smoked salmon and piccalily salad. After no more than a matter of 5 minutes the starter was on our table, complete with a fantastic few wedges of crusty granary bread with hearty, salty butter. The salmon was well cooked and extremely tasty and was well-matched with the rough and ready piccalily which basically consisted of large flourets of cauliflower. For a salad dish it was a real treat and the flavours matched up perfectly.

For main my G/F opted for the Hake on smoked fish potato cake and I opted for the Coley on spring greens. I would have to say from the outset that both dishes were superb. Both pieces of fish were cooked to perfection, not easy with such brittle specimens and were seasoned well. The potato cake and mustard sauce complimented the hake admirably and although the Coley dish lacked any carbohydrates the caper dressing and mountain of greens packed underneath gave it the flavour punch it deserved.

For desert I opted for the merangue and ginger nut parfait which, despite being far too dense, tasted unbelievably good. The orange sauce and ginger nut reacting perfectly together to create a symphony of taste against the coolness of the parfait, top notch. My G/F opted for the uber-lemony posset which was so lemony it could have taken the face off a badger. Despite this it was also devine and we both reacted in the same way as you do after expereincing taste on that level.

Even though I have obviously rambled on for a while now I am not one for writing reviews, in fact I have just finished writing my only other one for 'The Cellar Door', another Edinburgh establishment. The reason is that we were there for 2 nights and experienced two great meals in two completely different restaurants, hence the excitement. The big difference wasn't so much the food, as both were exemplary but it is the little touches which make something perfect. The Dogs, although I think I understand the feeling of the place just felt a tad on the 'trying too hard to be cool' side. Pretty staff, post-modern decor, interesting and varied menu, yes. No music, lack of warmth (atmospheric, not temperature!) and the feeling that the staff could tut at you for choosing the wrong thing. Other than thjose minor faults, awesome....