Cheap food in Penicuik.
I've been complaining to my husband a lot lately about how there are no mid-range restaurants here. So we found some.
Generally in the UK, there are two categories of restaurants. There's the fancy Gordon Ramsay-type three course meal that costs a fortune kind of places. Then there's the take-out places. And not much in between. Now, let me be clear that this isn't necessarily a bad thing. In the US, it's easy to find a place to have an affordable dinner for four, but that place will inevitably be a franchise like Applebees or Perkins. It's all very homogenized and frankly mediocre. When restaurants cost a lot, you tend to cook your own food more and that is healthier. But sometimes I want someone else to cook a meal for me and bring it to a table where I can sit and eat at my leisure.
So we've found some cafes. They don't serve dinner. You have to make it lunch or breakfast. But it is food that someone else cooked. And it's cheap and good.
The first place we tried was called Joyce's Cafe, and it is in the Penicuik town center just between Farmfoods and the newsagent. It's the perfect place to get a full fried breakfast, with an egg, sausage and toast and beans and black pudding (which I shift to my husband's plate). And all of that for about 3 pounds. And that includes tea. We've been there twice, and it's been great both times. It's brightly-lit and the people who work there are friendly and nice. But nothing there is healthy, so it's just kind of a treat every once in a while.
The other place we tried was the Gallery Cafe, which is just off the high street, next to the inexplicable Belgian consulate in the Penicuik town center. It's run by the Penicuik Community Arts Association and there is a vegetarian cafe downstairs with a craft shop upstairs. It's lovely. I had a toasted cheese sandwich and my husband had the soup of the day (a very good split pea and pepper soup, according to him). The shop upstairs had knitted stuff, jewellery and pottery by local artists. And lunch for both of us cost less than 5 pounds. Much healthier than the fried breakfast place too.
So we've found two nice little cafes less than ten minutes away. I'd highly recommend either of them, depending on whether you are in a carnivorous mood or not.
Alana
