Urban Angel
121 Hanover Street,
Edinburgh
(0131-225 6215, www.urban-angel.co.uk)
THE Bill
Lunch for two, £50.80, excluding drinks Cunningly disguised as a café, Urban Angel is easy to breeze right past. I've walk
ed by this ethical eatery numerous times, stomach rumbling, unaware that down those stone steps and through the back of this former bakery are two large dining spaces. Why doesn't it attempt to make itself more conspicuous? Because it doesn't need to. It has a happy clientele who love its organic, GM free, fair trade and locally sourced food and they're happy to spread the word to other potentially interested customers.
This, unfortunately, means that those loyal diners often fill it to capacity and you, the person who's been walking past (thinking it's a café), have to hang around for ages, waiting for a table to become free.
Anyway, we were willing to endure, despite the fact that after the 40 minutes it took to get a seat we were so weak with hunger we would probably have eaten neat handfuls of aspartame and monosodium glutamate. Instead, I exercised my self-control and went for a healthy main course as a starter – the poached pear, Isle of Arran cheddar, pistachio and mixed leaf salad (£7.95), while Rolf went for the swede soup (£3.90).
When our starters arrived, around 30 minutes later (we were warned, they're very busy and have a tiny kitchen), I was instantly cheered. My salad was a taste and texture sensation – the pears, sweetly saturated with red wine, contrasted perfectly with the salty shavings of cheddar and a sprinkling of pistachios and pumpkin seeds. It wasn't a filling course, as they'd been Spartan with the cheese, but it was a clever, considered salad.
Rolf was a bit grumbly about his wholesome soup, which he declared to be "boring". Still, the sourdough and rosemary bread selection that came on the side were delicious and made in-house – as are all the breads, cakes, chutneys and jams at Urban Angel.
We knew it was going to be a bit of a wait for the next course so we settled back to peruse the Sunday papers that had been thoughtfully scattered around (adding to the laid-back feel of the joint) and glugged Chegworth Valley organic juice (£2.30 each). As we were seated in close proximity to a shouty table of six, we also had a good neb into their story of a botched Caesarian section (don't ask). Which did make me feel a little queasy about ordering the ribeye steak with portobello mushrooms, roast vine tomatoes, potato wedges and red wine jus (£19.95) for my main; but I was on a mission to sample a good organic steak.
This, when it arrived, was, I have to say, the very best medium-rare steak I've ever had. It was seared on the outside and beautifully pink in the middle with a barbecued flavour. It had also been properly rested, so it didn't have the tightness some steaks do (when they look as if they're about to spring off your plate and dash back into the kitchen). The traditional accompaniments were fab, too – the fresh tomatoes came still attached to their charred vine and the mushroom (just the one, unfortunately, so not quite as billed) hadn't absorbed half a pint of grease. Just fantastic.
I was feeling rather like Desperate Dan with his cow pie at this point, especially as Rolf had chosen the comparatively demure organic Summer Isle smoked salmon with tattie scone, rocket and Caesar dressing (£13.50).
I think the addition of a tattie scone had nudged him in the direction of this main. However, the version of the traditional scone that arrived on his plate was more like a dainty melba-toast hybrid. A posh-totty scone.
Perhaps that's what ruined the main for him, making him comment that it was a little "tasteless". The blandness might have also been because the glisteningly fresh smoked salmon wasn't as salty as other varieties and the dressing was a little too subtle to perk it up.
By this point I was absolutely stuffed, but we just had to try a pudding, as I've heard from Urban Angel fans that they do amazing cakes. And so, after swithering over the sour-cherry cheesecake with berry ripple ice-cream (£5.50), we instead went for the lemon and poppy seed cake with spiced butternut squash ice-cream (£5.50), two lattes (£2.40 each) and two spoons.
Again, Rolf (who was starting to annoy me with his negative vibes) thought this cake was "lacking flavour". Well, I thought it was lovely. It wasn't indulgently sweet, just naturally lemony, and the homemade ice- cream had a rich, buttery texture that wasn't granular like other, less well made versions.
In fact, I liked the cake so much that, although I couldn't finish it, I wrapped it in my napkin to polish off later. Well, if I'm being honest, I ate the rest of it at the bus stop just after we left.
I'll never know if this was all in my mind or not, but after our meal I felt energised and light, not sluggish as I'd usually feel after consuming a huge slab of beef. Perhaps it's the power of eating fair trade, organic, lovingly produced food. Or, maybe it was just a caffeine high after the latte. Whichever, I'd like to eat here again. I'm just not telling anyone else about it, or I'll never get a table. sm
The full article contains 938 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
