Buffalo Grill

TheBoss

Buffalo Thrill 8th August 2009

0 found this helpful

Have been there a few times and the food is always excellent and the staff are always very friendly and courteous.

However, the small size and cramped layout can be somewhat claustrophobic and when busy, makes for a very noisy dining experience.

Would recommend for the food alone :-)

dzr

An Edinburgh institution disappoints 18th November 2007

2 found this helpful

I've lived in Edinburgh for 18 years, and for all of those 18 years Buffalo Grill has been a favourite place for lunch and dinner. Serving very good chargrilled burgers and steaks they source good quality meat and do what they do well, which is basically recreate an American diner experience.

Despite being a very satisfied customer for many years, I'm sad to report a very noticeable downturn in quality of late. The meat is still excellent, but the side orders are just getting worse and worse. It started a couple of years ago, when I noticed that the fries/chips were no longer as good as they used to be. On my last visit, just a couple of weeks ago, the fries were unmistakably from frozen catering pack fries. I thought I had been smart in asking for a baked potato instead, and was frankly horrified to be presented with a microwaved potato. There really is nothing quite as revolting as a microwaved baked potato. Even worse was our suspicion that the corn on the cob starter had been microwaved as well. What could be simpler than popping a corn cob in a pan of boiling water for five minutes? The normally excellent shrimp tempura was also disappointing: more chip shop batter than a light and crisp tempura.

Buffalo Grill used to be the kind of place I'd take friends who were visiting for a weekend on their last night, and more often than not they would vote it the best meal of the weekend in preference to the considerably fancier restaurants we'd been to. Sadly that is no longer the case. If it was just a one off disappointment I'd be willing to put it down to an inexperienced sous chef, or some such. But the downturn has been a recognisable trend for some time now. Besides which, what excuse could there possibly be for a microwaved baked potato or corn on the cob?

With the current wave of gourmet burger places and just about every decent bar and pub offering homemade burgers and steak frites, if Buffalo Grill doesn't smarten up its act it's going to find itself out of business. I really hope they manage to get back to their former glory days.