KalpnaLabels: restaurant, vegetarian, eating outReviewer: Andrew Date: 20/11/2005 Rating: 3/5 Location: Google Maps Address: 2-3 St Patrick Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9EZ Website: www.kalpnarestaurant.com Kalpna is a humble vegetarian restaurant in Patrick Square, that's just off Nicolson Street. It's very well placed for students. Kalpna is not a luxurious restaurant, with its bare bones tables and layout there is a strong suggestion of a café or greasy spoon. Kalpna is, in fact, the very opposite of a greasy spoon café as it's entirely vegetarian. Just across the road there is the more famous Anna Purna restaurant and so we have a good little veggie stronghold in the centre of the city. This review is based on a Saturday lunch trip to Kalpna. Weekend lunches are an open buffet; £6 to sit down. That's student cheap and fairly good value. It would be better value but the choice of food is quite limited. There were two bread-based starter courses, two choices of rice and three choices of curry. That's that. Even the little boy next to me asked his father, "Is that all?" as he lifted up to look at the mini-buffet. Sweets cost an extra £1 as did the coffee. There was a decent range of drinks; a separate wine list to the drinks list and plenty of teas to choose from. The choice of food is not wide but the quality is good - good for a buffet, anyway. I'm not a vegetarian and frequently find veggie food to be far too dry for my tastes. This is not an accusation I could fairly level against my choice of curry here (largely curried peas and cauliflower). One note of warning on the bill is that Kalpna is cash only. There are cash machines nearby but they're often busy (sometimes empty) during peak hours. Service is relatively easy in the buffet situation but nevertheless it is worth noting that we were offered a table very quickly. We decided not to sit in the window niche as directed as it was a bit of a squeeze and moving tables caused no problems what so ever. I enjoyed my brief lunch trip to Kalpna. I certainly was not blown away buy it. Here we have a veggie restaurant which serves as a good place to pop into when you fancy an impromptu lunch. |