After having the Edinburgh Larder Bistro's most amazing sample of chocolate ganache at the amazing Yelp Winterfall Wonderland event, my interest was piqued and I couldn't wait to try the restaurant itself. I was sorely disappointed. First, during Yelp's Brunchy Munchy, I thought my pancakes with bacon tasted ok but were quite overpriced for two itsy bitsy pancakes and a lack of friendliness on the part of the staff. The restaurant was attractively decorated and they did accommodate our large group, but without much grace as many others really didn't like what they were served.\n\nAlthough I really wanted to like the Edinburgh Larder Bistro because of their mission to serve good quality food made from locally-sourced ingredients, I was on the fence after the brunch about whether I liked this place. I wanted to give it a second try, so my boyfriend and I purchased a groupon for a two-course lunch here. Since I work from home and his work is also flexible, we had brought our backpacks with our computers with us so we could work from New Town in the afernoon. When we showed up at our appointed time for our reservation, the staff looked us up and down and led us to the back room (they obviously wanted to hide us in the back!). At our table, the woman looked us up and down again and, after a long pause and looking disdainingly at our bags, said that other customers would be coming in and sitting next to us so could she take our bags to the other room since they would need the space? She could have framed this much more tactfully and asked if she could help us by relieving us of our bags by taking them out of our way!\n\nAlthough things had a rocky start, I liked the simple menu of just a few items that were the fresh specialties of the day made from in-season, local ingredients. We both had the mushroom soup to start. The soup was good and better than a run-of-the-mill cream of mushroom soup but it wasn't too special or memorable. Since we had heard about the Larder Bistro's great bread and thought that bread would be the perfect addition to our starter, we were a bit sad that we weren't served any. Later, during our main course, we were frustrated to see other customers were served bread with their soup while we had not been!\n\nFor my main, I had the fish. While I was expecting a flavourful, locally-caught fish, I was underwhelmed by the dish. Although it scored high on presentation and looked quite pretty, it's taste wasn't on the same calibre. To make things worse, when I was over half-way through my meal I found a hair in my dish. I didn't think it was mine but then again I wasn't quite sure. I ate a bit more from other parts of my plate but that was the not-so-perfect end to our lunch.\n\nEven though the Larder Bistro might had wanted more posh customers and we didn't seem to meet their expectations, they should have treated us just as well as the other customers (the two older ladies sitting a few tables away, or the couple sitting behind us -- and, no, there was still no one actually sitting at either of the tables next to us!). The other customers were welcomed warmly, had their coats kindly taken out of their way and received bread with their soup. We aren't slobs and we were a bit taken aback by the poor service and underwhelming lunch after hearing such lovely reviews prior to our visits here. In the future, I hope that the staff become more friendly and caring and that the quality of the food matches the prices they are charging for it.