Toby Carvery, Edinburgh > Reviews (2)

We used to quite often go to the Harp Hotel in Edinburgh where they had a carvery meal for £6.45 with a starter. Then we heard that it was closing down for refurbishment. A few months later it re-opened as a Toby Carvery and Innkeepers Lodge.

The Restaurant only has one entrance. This is brightly lit and leads you in to a bright Vestibule area. You go through another door and this takes you into the Bar. The bar itself is open plan with a quite a few tables where you can get bar snacks or just have a drink. A member of staff usually greets you here and seats you. At busy times a waiting list is operated. This usually happens on Sunday's. Your name and party size is taken and then you sit in the bar and wait until a table becomes available. They are normally able to tell you how long this will take.

The Restaurant itself is quite large. It has various tables to accommodate all party sizes from 2 people up to about 8 people. These can be tables or in some instances there are booths which are very comfortable and are very private these are used for about 5-6 persons.

As you go in the Restaurant, on the left hand side is a large severy area. You queue at one end where a chef will carve you your chosen meats which can be just one meat or a little of each if you fancy that. The meats are usually Turkey, Beef or Ham. These are large joints of beef which are carved in front of you. Most chefs are happy for you to tell them how much or how little meat you wish them to carve. You don't have to just choose meat. There is usually a choice of Salmon Wellington, Pasta, Chicken and Bacon parcels and various other things. The pasta always looks dried up though under the hot lights. I do feel that it would be better for it to be made fresh. You can also choose to have a sandwich or baguette, with 1 meat inside it instead of the carvery.

You then move on where you can get large Yorkshire puddings and stuffing. You then self service yourself for the Vegetables and the potatoes. There is usually about 6 choices of vegetables. These can be, Broccoli, Cauliflower cheese, peas, carrots, roasted parsnips, turnips, cabbage, and even onions. There is usually 2 choices of potatoes 1 being roasted ones and the other being either mashed or boiled.

My only complaint about the self service part is sometimes the veg and potatoes can be lying there for a long time. They are always a hot temperature, but sometimes it can look dried up and not very appealing. We find that if you go at busy times because there is a high turnover the veg and potatoes, fresh ones are produced a lot quicker making everything look a lot more appealing.

A lot of people also don't know that you have to go past the kitchen doors and you come to a very small bar which contains different gravy's, and the sauces which you would have with a traditional roast dinner such as cranberry sauce or bread sauce and often apple sauce too. I love to put gravy on my meal but my only concern is the lack of space to put you plate on safely without dropping all your scrummy food on the floor.

Quite often as well the plates are hot and they also get very heavy once you have piled your plate high. Also there seems to be no thought to people with milk/lactose intolerance with cauliflower cheese being smothered in cheese sauce and the boiled/mashed spuds being drenched in butter!

You get a choice of starters from Chicken Tikka, Melon, prawn cocktail to pate and Soup. There are also about 8 gorgeous looking desserts if you have space.

If you dine before a certain time you are able to get either Melon or soup or tea/coffee or ice cream along with a Carvery for about £6.99 which is quite a good deal. You can get your favourite pudding or starter for £1 less instead. The Carvery has recently stopped closing for the 3 hours in the afternoon, so if you fancy a late lunch or an early dinner, you can pop along when you fancy it.

Now the staff are usually plentiful, but sometimes when it's busy or a bit too quite it can be a bit a of a nightmare to get a staff members attention as they are either running about daft trying to keep up with all the orders and clearing tables or they are all huddled in a corner chatting! They are usually quite on the ball when you go in and we haven't had to wait long before the drinks orders and the food orders are taken.

We do enjoy going here for dinner and often eat here during the week rather than at the weekends as it gets a little too busy for us sometimes then and when you have 2 young children, having to wait isn't such a good idea. They do provide highchairs and childrens Carvery costs about £3.99 or the other option is Sausage and Mash. No chicken nuggets and chips in this place. They need to revamp this a bit as not all children will eat the potatoes like that (well Murray can't as he is lactose intolerant). It would also be great to get work sheets with a small packet of crayons.

They do have an ok changing unit in disabled toilet but it's not an ideal situation when you are a mum with only 1 pair of hands. The toilets otherwise are clean and I have seen them being checked regularly and cleaned up when unsupervised children have been in.

It is a good restaurant with good food, but a few family friendly aspects to work on.