Babelon Cafe

Poor choice for lunch. So many great options around here, but this isn’t one. What style of cooking is «open can and dump here»?? Had a Tuna salad hoping for a nice light lunch. They opened a can of Tuna, brine and all, dumped it on a plate. Added a few pieces of iceberg lettuce, slices of tomato and some French fries. Everything was sitting in the canned tuna juice.
My family was equally let down on their choices too.

From the outside this looks like a pretty decent café, but as soon as you walk in you want to walk right back out. Its dingy and in need of an extreme makeover! I was disappointed by the food too and the staff seemed just as miserable as the décor!

Unfriendly staff, uninspiring food.
Cheap though

A proper greasy spoon.
I was looking for a bacon flavoured hangover cure and I got one.
And a proper builders mug of tea.
Cheap as chips as well.

The owner of Babelon Café messed up big time with the sign, but we could all forgive this if the food and service inside were great. It’s not. I only came here once and it was about two months ago after an exam with some friends. Inside if feels quite nice with a friendly atmosphere. Unfortunately, the service isn’t the best as I ordered a cheese and ham panini and it seemed to take forever to arrive. It was barely busy which made it even more frustrating.
When it finally arrived it tasted fine and the service was friendly enough, although slow. I doubt I’ll be coming back here, but it seems busy during the week so you may think differently.

It doesn’t look like much from the outset, but if you know what you want and how you want it then it’s fine.
Prices aren’t too bad, and the food is ok, nothing special but alright. There are some good places around here that are better than Babelon, but if you’re in a rush then it’s good!

Being quite oblivious to most things I didn’t notice the school boy spelling error that Marj mentions in her review but that is pretty funny.
Although the spelling may not be up to scratch and the place could do with a bit of a make-​over and a lick of paint wouldn’t go amiss but that’s kind of what I like about it. I guess one word to sum up Babelon Café is honest. Not trying to be something it’s not, not trying to attract a certain crowd, it’s just there to offer top notch breakfast and lunchtime rolls and personally, I think it’s pretty darn good.
The breakfast rolls are great and I was in dire need of a sarnie one morning and just happened to stumble across old Babelon and boy was I glad I did. The bacon roll I opted for was as good as any greasy spoon café I’ve visited and it was exactly what I was after in my food moment in need.
Don’t expect too much, but if you’re just looking for a quick bite to eat and a juice box, Babelon is perfect.

It is difficult not to notice that the sign above this café reads ‘Babelon’, and it could be easy to accept that this is what the owners intended the shop to be called, but then you notice the smaller sign in the window calling it ‘Babylon’ café and it seems pretty clear that the owner’s don’t know how to spell Babylon.
Despite these shortcomings, the prices in this café would be difficult to beat with a take away roll costing just one pound — a complete bargain in Edinburgh. Babelon Café serves the typical café food such as cooked breakfasts, sandwiches, hot and cold rolls and baked potato’s as well as tea and coffee. The menu is varied and so there is something on it to suit everyone and the prices are excellent. I had a baked potato with tuna for my lunch which was tasty, but nothing special, but it was very cheap so I would definitely go back.
There are a few tables and chairs inside, but it can get very cramped in the café, especially during the lunch time rush, so most customers opt to take their food away. The outside of the shop is very inviting, with the surroundings painted a bright green, but I find the contradictory spellings of babylon quite off putting.

Babelon Café didn’t exactly have me from hello. A big bugbear of mine is poor spelling — not that I’m the patron saint of great grammar, or anything — but at the very least I would expect a café to be able to spell its own name correctly, or at least consistently! Babylon (or Babelon as she is known at the weekends) has two signs out from with different spellings on them! Unless they breeched some bizarre copyright rule, I think this is just a comedy of error. It’s an absolute fail in sign making and its carelessness is a bit too Carry On for real life!
But if you can look beyond Babylon’s poorly executed signage fail and shabby interior, it’s actually nae bad. It’s greasier than your gran’s cake tin but it doesn’t pretend to be anything else. Its heavily wood panelled interior makes it look like you’re in 1985 when you enter, but it’s cosy and strangely comforting.
I opted for a a very greasy breakfast and I’ve got to admit, I’m with Gavin and wouldn’t brave the healthier options. But there is a family heartiness to this place which is evident in the healthy amount of custom it gets. And even though it’s stuck in its own 80s timewarp, the prices are 20 years cheaper than most places in Edinburgh, too.

As long as you know what to order, contrary to the barrage of abuse below there is absolutely nothing wrong with this grubby little greasy spoon. In fact there is pretty much everything right with it, apart from the poor spelling.
Like a proper greasy spoon should be, Babelon looks unhealthy, smells unhealthy and tastes unhealthy, but that’s the whole point. I had a full breakfast, piled high with sausage egg, black pudding, bacon, hash brown, toast and potato scone. It was around a hundred times nicer than the shite they charge £6.95 for up the Royal Mile, very well cooked and not actually overly greasy at all. It was easily worth double the £4.35 it cost.
I probably wouldn’t risk a sandwich or a baked potato, but for a health-​sapping fry up, it’s perfect.

Upon approaching Babelon Café, I spotted something that frankly made me decide there and then how this review was going to go. Babelon Café cannot spell its own name correctly — yes, thats right, the two signs outside the café read ‘Babylon Café’ and ‘Babelon Café’. Im going to go with Babelon because thats the biggest sign.
Anyway, once inside I really wasnt impressed — in fact I was a bit nausious. I know that greasy spoon café’s are supposed to smell like fried food, but Babelon is over poweringly so, and its really off putting.
I soon found out why though, I ordered a sandwich and chips and it was covered in oily greasy stuff and tasted of fat. I didnt finish it, nor will I be coming back to Babelon (or is it Babylon?).