The Beach House, Portobello

THE BEACH HOUSE, PORTOBELLO

On Monday my father took me for my birthday lunch at The Beach House, Portobello.

The Beach House is right on the esplanade at the bottom of Bath Street, so the beach is only 10 feet away.  It is decorated in a New England style, white and pale blue wood with the same colours on the dainty bunting which hangs in the cafe.  It has old wooden tables and comfortable old fashioned dining chairs.  In better weather they sell nice ice cream and put bowls of water out for thirsty dogs!

We both had soup and cheese paninis.  I had goats cheese and roasted red onion which was lovely and Randall had some concoction of mozzarella cheese.  The paninis were oval, and looked more like fat pitta bread which is different from their usual long flat shape.  The soup was chunky leek and potato and I kept getting bits of leek caught in my teeth, I prefer it liquidised!  The garnish was served on the side of the plate which was wonderful for someone who dislikes parsley, coriander and all the green leaves people put in your dinner to make it look posh.

We washed down our dinner with many cups of tea.  The teapot was so big that we were struggling to drink it all but being a real tea jenny I managed! I always take the teabags out of ordinary tea when it is strong enough.  This stops it stewing.  If you don’t do this, you cannot drink the last of it as it tastes horrible. 

The clientele was a mixture of families with children having lunch, folk like ourselves and a granny carrying 3 pairs of kid’s shoes!  I presumed she was in to heat up, it wasn’t warm outside, and the children belonging to the shoes were playing on the beach.  In the family nearest us the Dad was having coke with his lunch, while the kids were having some healthy drink with theirs.  I thought that was quite odd. The kids were quite sweet but they had to sit on their knees to be the right height for the table. There were also 2 old men who never took off their coats while they ate their posh bacon rolls and drank tea.

The service was excellent, the waitress was very attentive and tables were cleared the minute they were vacated.

It cost about £15 for our lunches so it wasn’t bad value for money but not cheap.

The Beach House also has lots of lovely cakes and scones which I have tried before.  However after eating my very tasty lunch I didn’t have room for their generous portions. 

The Beach House is open from 9-5.30pm weekdays and 9-6pm weekends

57 Bath Street, EDINBURGH, EH15 1HE, 0131 657 2636