{"id":157,"date":"2011-06-03T13:06:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-03T13:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.leilappetit.com\/blog\/?p=157"},"modified":"2011-08-07T21:02:38","modified_gmt":"2011-08-07T21:02:38","slug":"review-of-the-merlin-morningside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leilappetit.com\/?p=157","title":{"rendered":"Review of The Merlin, Morningside"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This review appears in the June edition of Bite Magazine, <\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
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As the biggest pub in the area and with great outdoor seating, The Merlin in Morningside has always relied on a dependable local crowd. A recent visit reveals that its new owners have spruced it up a fair bit, the zany carpets of yore have been replaced by a more stylish d\u00e9cor of gilt-framed mirrors and a slate colour scheme. <\/div>\n
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On the Tuesday evening when Graeme and I visited, the place was buzzy. Drinks-wise there\u2019s a variety of drafts, well-priced wines (including Prosecco for a mere \u00a314.29) and a short, sweet selection of cocktails at \u00a34.99. The menu was a whopper (pun intended) with pub grub staples including burgers, nachos, baked potatoes and pasta dishes. It\u2019s quickly apparent that the menu does \u2018multi-task\u2019 a lot; I think haggis appeared at least six times.<\/div>\n
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We started with haggis nachos (\u00a34.99); a classic example of \u2018so crazy it might just work\u2019. Before us was a mountain of toasted corn chips, drizzled with melted cheese, and topped with chunks of well-spiced haggis. On the side, little espresso cups with tomato salsa and sour cream. The \u2018small\u2019 portion was so huge we had to stop before finishing to be able to do the rest of the review.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Next, Graeme had a six ounce beef burger (\u00a36.79), and I had the Italian chicken (\u00a37.99). My fella opted for the burger \u2018au natural\u2019 and this was a tasty grilled patty with decent moisture, good seasoning, and perfect bun-to-meat ratio. Graeme inventively described my main course as a \u2018Margherita pizza with chicken as a base\u2019, almost prompting me to pass on the mantel of doing the writing. A tender escalope of breaded chicken was then topped with a herby tomato sauce, and a literal blanket of melted mozzarella cheese. Both dishes came with pub-standard chips, and salad with cherry tomatoes, amped up with a tasty dressing. <\/div>\n
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With the calorie-budget well and truly out the window, we shared a fabulously sweet Mackies honeycomb crunch ice cream dessert, with crumbled buttery brandy snaps and toffee sauce.<\/div>\n
I can\u2019t help but think that if they edited down the menu, they could easily work towards more of a quality gastro-pub angle, however in the meantime, The Merlin lacks just that bit of magic. <\/span><\/div>\n
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   This review appears in the June edition of Bite Magazine,  and can be found online here.  As the biggest pub in the area and […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leilappetit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leilappetit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leilappetit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leilappetit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leilappetit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=157"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/leilappetit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":275,"href":"https:\/\/leilappetit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions\/275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leilappetit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leilappetit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leilappetit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}