Large Doner Kebab, Cafe Piccante (London Road), Edinburgh

Offering: Large Doner Kebab

Establishment: Café Piccante, London Road, Edinburgh

Date and time: 17th December 2016 23:29

Price: £7.50

Seating: 3 chairs, 1 window length table

In the East of the city, towards the London Road area, there is a wealth of kebaberies to choose from. One particularly well known feast for the eyes is the legendary operation known as Cafe Piccante. This eatery made its name by being the first kebab zone to offer a chocolate pizza, a live DJ complete with bab-orientated set list and a mean looking bouncer that's ready to eject any of the underfed jakey's that can't handle digesting the chilli sauce. Of course, this Cafe Piccante is the one situated in Broughton Street - next to the hustle and bustle of the Capital's gay-friendly nightspots.

The London Road branch is sobering in comparison. With the DJ long hung, the bouncer (almost) not required and pizza's strictly savoury - other than that, the London Road Cafe Piccante offers an identical product to its more popular big brother. Operating from the former style-over-substance racket that was Picasso; Piccante doesn't really add much to the competing (and somewhat strictly average) babberies of this part of town.

The first thing worth noting is that there Piccante certainly want you to taste the spice and they do this by adding a few sliced jalapenos as part of their salad offering. This is a nice touch and I feel as though all doners should come with this enticing yet mild pepper (or at least something similar). It is the perfect accompaniment to any kebab, even if you like your kebabs creamy rather than spicy as they offer a succulent crunch as part of the overall experience.

...stop making your chilli sauces too sweet - they are called 'chilli' for a reason...

The cuts of the tomato are exactly how tomatoes should be cut for a kebab: quarter pieces to assist with the grandiloquent lift of the pita sandwich. Unfortunately, many eateries continue to insist that tomatoes must be sliced and stuffed into the pita, with no thought as to how a poor connoisseur must ravish such an already deconstructed sorry looking kebab. As a whole though, the salad is well thought out and is generally near the standard of how a doner salad should be, perhaps only lacking any red cabbage.

Sadly, with this kebab, its all downhill from here - the chilli sauce is sweet and adds little to nothing to this bab-nasty exercise. Calling all kebab shops - stop making your chilli sauces too sweet - they are called 'chilli' for a reason. They are not called sweet sauces. Emphasis should be given to creating a sauce that has bite, not a sauce that has sugar.

There's a slightly odd feature of the kebab that may interest some of you and it was also a feature of Turkish Carry Out kebabs too; the box is compartmentalised. If you don't like your kebabs and salads to touch then you might be in luck - for the rest of you though, I fear you may never live this down as it clearly is a slight.

The doner meat is grim and tastes like ultra processed soya morsels; it gives the whole kebab a non-distinct peppered taste with very little else to show for itself. There is no real meaty texture and it quickly becomes apparent that none of this meats imbalanced combination of ingredients concludes in a memorable meal. It feels a lot like this establishment really don't care about what they are selling when it comes to doner and care only for the people that are going to be too drunk to be discerening enough to conclude that this kebab was essentially uninspired. Like far too many places, this establishment is well placed and just outside of zone one to qualify for the prestigious 3PM opening hours, it almost certainly catches the dregs of the late night revellers that were far too pre-occupied to go to a decent kebab place when they came out of whatever hole they danced in. If you are such a person, may I recommend one of their many un-donered pizzas.

Verdict: 5/10

Medium Lamb Doner Kebab, Turkish Carry Out, Edinburgh

Offering: Medium Doner Kebab

Establishment: Turkish Carry Out, Easter Road, Edinburgh

Date and time: 3rd December 2016 16:32

Price: £5.50

Seating: 4 chairs, 2 tables

For quite some considerable time, in around 2008 I turned a bad habit into an absurd hobby - to grab a pizza or kebab shortly after midnight. You see, times were tough - I wasn't working full time and had very few active interests at that point in my life. I was however interested in daily doner from the Turkish Carry Out, it was a long enough walk away for me to feel as though I'd done something productive with my evening but God knows, I was just fooling myself - the kebab wasn't all that. After one too many disappointing kebabs, I turned my back never to return. I was especially put off by a huge amount of charred doner meat I found in my kebab, this piece consisted of around 40% of the actual meat portion in the kebab; I was disappointed and said my goodbyes.

When I returned after seven or so years, I noticed that times had changed; the establishment was now twice the size, they had bought up the premises next door and knocked down various walls, they now served an array of fried foods, foods associated with chip shops, deep fried and displayed in a glass metal counter - aka: heart attack food!

To the left, the familiar man, thin metal glasses, dark, clean shaven, quite short and neutral expression; the type of man that had carved doner for most of his adult life. He was silent. He knew I had returned but he never let on. After ordering my large doner kebab, I sat at the table by the window and admired the spicy onions - I could smell the mint from their sauce and I thought how I never remembered this accompaniment all those years ago - such a delightful touch, the kind no kebab should be without. That was my thinking before I tucked into this devilish delight.

I was also in awe of the size of the box. I always think that when the box is this big, the kebab has to be big enough too as no self-respecting babbery would allow their kebab to be dwarfed by a large box - why would you? So that every customer feels robbed? It just wouldn't make sense.

I lifted the fork and and pressed it deep into the ridges of the thin lamb shavings before me. The lamb was tough, it had developed a slight dryness as it had been rotating for so long without being cut, it wasn't too bad though - it did have a very pronounced peppery taste. I thought how this was something I could get used to.

The slithers were so thin, they made the contents of the pita seem deceptive.

This was something that I missed. As I carried on de-mystifying this doner, I started to sample the salad, starting with those beautiful looking onions, I lifted them to my mouth and was overwhelmed with the mint in a sweet red sauce - what is this? I expected a hot, chilli spicy sauce with minty overtones, not a sweet minty one! It was around this time that the dream took a sharp twist. I again looked at the doner meat, I scrambled some on a fork and it was peppery. Overwhelmingly peppery. The slithers were so thin, they made the contents of the pita seem deceptive. There wasn't much in there at all, it was all being bulked up by thinly structured doner meat. I thought, what the hell, get some of that sauce on there - the chilli sauce tasted of very little - it was extremely mild, again it looked great but this kebab was the equivalent of staring at the cake displays of Patisserie Valerie. It looked incredible but the more I eat, just like the ubiquitous cake shop, the more the illusion was shattered.

Amazed at the large chilli peppers that accompanied this dish, I shovelled all the salad into the deceptive pita - I thought this would would the true judge of it's character, this moment, the moment of truth - the lift. I took one great big bite for mankind, my face covered in the white of the garlic dressing. I was immediately disappointed. I was overwhelmed with bread - the doner meat itself was far too thin to have made any impact and it lead to the complete absence of satisfaction. I did taste the mint from those spicy onions, the big peppers that accompanied this kebab, the mildly peppery sauce but there was no depth. The bread, whilst soft was also soggy steamed up - this was not a great combination but would not have annoyed me too much had it not been for how thin and deceptive the whole experience was. I'm not sure I would return any time soon - this looks like it's for the pub-goers next door and not your average kebab connoisseur.

Verdict: 5/10