The Dogs, indeed!
The Dogs is one of those great little finds, someone cooking good food without pretension in a kinda ramshackle and unexpected corner of a city. I’m reminded of Strathvagin in Glasgow. Dogs are a very literal theme, from the front door all the way up the old staircase, and into the bar and dining room overlooking Edinburgh New Town, there’s a truly eclectic mixture of canines in 2D or 3D form. The dining room still gives the strong impression of someone’s old front room, converted into an eating space for thirty or so punters tucked in fair cosily (though not so cosy as to be uncomfortable).
My starter was a wonderful little dish of devilled ox kidneys. Ox kidneys aren’t quite as nice as lamb’s kidneys, and I couldn’t give a stuff because the devilled sauce was absolutely magical; hot, spicy, creamy, boozy, sexy goodness. Maureen had a little salad of pulled lamb; shreds of meat with a powerfully sheepish flavour and cleverly scattered with pomegranate.
Lamb n stuff
Mains were truly heart-warming. I ordered roast lamb but was served the mutton stew. It smelled so good that I was half-way through before remembering that it wasn’t what I’d ordered. Lovely mutton, good dish for a blustery winter’s evening, it’s hard to find words to wax lyrical about a nice stew so I’ll fall back on: mmmmmmm. Maureen’s spelt risotto with beetroot and crowdie cheese was delicious, although to be honest it was such a single-minded dish that it might’ve been better as a starter or – as we enjoyed it – split pretty much 50/50 with another main (my stew). Nice combination of the nutty grain, grainy cheese and earthy beetroot flavours.
Pudding was the only disappointment; an orange posset that was too stiff with gelatin/agar and also lacked enough punch to its orange flavour to be very interesting. I’m going to damn it with faint praise and call it innocuous.
That aside, we enjoyed our meal at The Dogs very much. Even more so as the price is rock-bottom for the very centre of Edinburgh, many of the mains just a tenner and 3 courses being only about £20. We had a couple of decent glasses of wine for equally slight money. Go on, go to the dogs!
Loved these devils
