David Bann Vegetarian Restaurant & Bar, Edinburgh

This was a birthday meal, none the less. David Bann's is on Mary St, a few minutes downhill from The Royal Mile, past a few more ethnically oriented restaurants, at least one of which had a board out to advertise the vegetarian nature of some of their food.

This may have been in order to lure in the overflow from David Bann's; we were after an early dinner on a Sunday evening, so hadn't thought it'd be necessary to book. How wrong we were. We were lucky to get a table at all, and after only a short wait - they were turning more people away as we waited. Later on there were a couple a larger groups of obviously pre-booked people, one of which may have been that scourge of Edinburgh, and indeed Dublin, a hen-party. Despite the amount of cocktails the young ladies consumed, however, they did behave themselves admirably.

The interior smacks somewhat of those boutique hotel type places one sees on interior design programs, but the atmosphere was nevertheless pleasantly intimate and the tables far enough apart for privacy.

The food. Vegan and potentially vegan options were clearly indicated on the menu, which made my job of picking two courses *and* dessert much more difficult than I'm used to (my usual experience of eating out in non-specialist restaurants is along the lines of "well can you do a green salad, then? no, no cheese, please."). Omnivorous spouse had even more trouble.

For a starter, he had a dish of mushrooms and polenta, and some parmesan. I gathered there was not much that could've made it better.

My starter was their smoked and marinated tofu. I'd never tried smoked tofu before, which I'm sure makes me a bad vegan, but I've never been that fond of cooking with tofu. This may well have been my loss, as the tofu was wonderful, firm, and with just the right amount of smokiness. In fact, it must've been the first time I tasted anything smoked since I stopped eating animals, and I quite used to like smoked fish. In any case, smoked tofu will hopefully appear on the family menu before long, spouse has certainly mentioned that trying to cook with it might be an interesting thing to try.

For the main course, spouse had a mushroom, smoked cheese and ale strudel - again, I didn't get to try it, but judging by the pleased sounds from across the table, it was, again, very good.

I, on the other hand, went to town with the new and exciting tofu experience, and had ordered a tofu main, as well: "Home smoked tofu with udon noodles. Tofu smoked with aromatic spices, pan fried and served on udon noodles, red pepper and pak choi, konbu, miso dashi (kelp, soya soup) with sesame paste, lime, fresh ginger and spring onion. Topped with cucumber, nori and mizuna."

Now, I like Japanese food as well as any other, and this tofu was, again, lovely. The noodles were not bad, nor was the miso dashi, but I just didn't like the taste. It did sort of grow on me as I worked my way through it, but still somehow wasn't quite right. I suspect this was purely due to it being a new taste I hadn't encountered before, and that I might well come to like it with more exposure. Still, the experience could have been better.

For dessert for me, there was vegan chocolate "ice cream", presumably the usual soy-based thing, though they don't specify. Three scoops was more than enough, and spouse was free to finish my portion. The ice-cream was sweet, and cold, and chocolate-flavored, but that was it, I fear I've had better soy ice cream from a supermarket. Additionally, the balls of ice-cream were set on top of little, thin discs of biscuit, which to me tasted a little stale - spouse was happy to scoop them up, though.

Spouse had rather more choice on the pudding front - there was just the vegan "ice-cream", sorbet, and one potentially vegan item for me to choose from, whereas he had the width of the menu. Choice fell on a rhubarb cheesecake, which I understand was, again, gorgeous.

Service at David Bann was what you'd expect from a high-end restaurant, despite the place being full. They were sufficiently attentive and didn't leave us sitting there with empty plates, or indeed without plates, for a noticeable length of time at any point.

In a "pulled out of my sleeve right at this minute 'cos I didn't know at the time I'd be reviewing the place" scale of Tiwinaku stars, David Bann Vegetarian Restaurant & Bar in Edinburgh gets 4 for location (nice and close to our rented flat for the waddle home), 4.5 for service and 4 for food. It was all very good, but I don't want to be carried away just because I'm not used to eating in proper, nice, vegetarian restaurants.