Taste Cafe Deli

Taste is a deli and café in Linlithgow. Perfectly located on the High Street, it looks tiny. At first glance, its a deli counter and a couple of seats but there is a decent sized café area at the back. The deli items look fresh and tempting — all sorts of meats, cheese’s and dips for taking away and sitting in.
I ordered a Caesar Salad. They had no GF bread left (sounded promising that they have had at some point). The Caesar Salad was a sizeable portion — lots of chicken, and mine also came with grilled prosciutto which was lovely and crispy. I held off on the croutons as they weren’t GF but anchovies and parmesan cheese was spread over my leaves. My one complaint was there was perhaps too much dressing (nothing was spared) but this was a matter of personal preference. My dad enjoyed his pulled pork ciabatta but my mum was less impressed saying it was lacking in comparison to Oink.
Decent sized menu so probably something for everyone here with friendly staff and clean enough toilets. Not sure when I’ll be back in Linlithgow but I’d definitely pop in again to check out the deli items as I noticed they had special Italian GF pasta and some different types of GF biscuits.

Was in here in Nov ’11 and really enjoyed it. Took a group of 20+ in, everyone was very impressed. Teas, Coffees and Cakes all excellent.

Disappointing.
There is always a queue for a table here and the layout and appearance are airy and appealing.
Staff were enthusiastic and pleasant and the menu was comprehensive if tatty.
The orange juicer (and attendant bin and crate of oranges) by the entrance felt more like it had been dumped there than placed and the repeated thumps it appeared to require to make it work were not encouraging.
My «Tuna Nicoise Salad» turned out to be some tuna on salad leaves in an Italian balsamic dressing; Rather than the more traditional tuna, anchovies, hard boiled egg, green beans, fresh tomato and boiled new potatoes served on salad leaves dressed in a French vinaigrette.
In fairness I was told that they had run out of eggs after ordering (at 11:55am) and offered an alternative in their place, however, even with the egg I would not consider what I was served to be Tuna Nicoise Salad.
The coffee was pleasant, if served in slightly small quantities, and the cheesecake very nice.
From looking at the food served to other tables and to my dining companion my salad was probably not representative of the kitchen’s full repetoire. However, given how simple a Tuna Nicoise Salad is to get right it, feels like a pretty large and fundamental culinary error to be charged nearly £8 for.
As stated at the top I found this a disappointing experience. Some parts were very good but others weren’t and brought the whole experience down.