The best vegi breakfast in Dublin...?

If you’re looking for a great vegetarian or vegan breakfast while in Dublin, Cornucopia on Wicklow street ( just off Grafton st) is the place to go.

They do an array of options including their homemade baked beans and sausages, crepes, scrambled tofu, eggs, pancakes and more.

Served from 8.30 am to 12 pm.

www.cornucopia.ie/food/breakfast/

Vegan in Budapest

I went to the beautiful Budapest with my mum for a few days in August. It is an amazing city and has plenty of vegan and vegetarian restaurants and cafes.

I got a map of Budapest and marked out on the map where all the vegi/vegan restaurants were. I did this with the help of searching 'Vegan' into google maps and of course with happycow.net. This is a very handy way of knowing what restaurants are near by. There was always options nearby the major attractions!


Breakfast was the only tricky part. I'm not much of a breakfast person as well. So breakfast consisted of bread, Starbucks and some fruit. Eden Vegan restaurant on Buda Hill do a vegan breakfast, but we didn't make it over for breakfast.

I stayed in the amazing Corinthia Grand Royal Hotel, Which was amazing! I never get to stay in very luxury places but we got a good deal so why not! The room service menu and the various bar/restaurant menus were very accommodating to those with allergies. Each dish stated if it contained eggs, diary etc. This was great to see. I had pasta on the first night.

Now down to the food. We were luckily located a few blocks away from Napfényes Étterem vegan restaurant. I had a great experience here and the food was great. The menu is available online so we were able to have a little look before. They have loads of vegan pizzas but I had a horrible cheesless pizza that day that was enough to put me off pizza for a while. I wasn't that hungry but I over ate anyway! Don't think I had ever eaten in  100% vegan place before. I went for the ''Fried Pancakes Filled with Vegetable Cream served with Mashed Potatoes and Onions (spelt wheat pancakes filled with spicy vegetable cream served with fried, mashed potatoes and savory tomato sauce)'' and finished it off with some sugar free choccy cake!   

Located at the foot on Buda hill is Edeni Vegan Restaurant.
The location is quite great, it's located right beside the Batthyany Terace metro stop which is on the red line. It is also located at the bottom of buda hill which is home to many many attractions. It's about a 10 minute walk up to the hill. So very convenient, you can grab a vegan breakfast before setting off to Buda castle or you can enjoy lunch after a morning of exploring. Down to the food, I'll be honest in saying that I can't really remember what I had but there was a great selection to choose from, including desserts and smoothies.

      

We ate at Hummus Bar  few times. There are a few located around the city and 2 of which are fully vegi. We never made it to one of 100%vegi ones! But we ate a couple of times at the other locations. They have a wide range of food to offer and lots of vegan falafel options. Seriously handy and very cheap. Also great if you're travelling along with non vegi friends! Each purchase comes with a shot of delicious lemonade which makes you want to buy a whole glass! We opted for the falafel wraps the few times we were there. There is one restaurant located around the corner from St. Stephen's Basillica and also on the same street as the Jewish synagogue. So close to the major tourist attractions, if you're visiting them!

  

    

Lastly we took a trip a Govindas. There are a few in Budapest. Govindas tends to guarantee delicious and filling food. We went to one located near St. Stephen's Bascillica. 

If you're travelling to Budapest as a Vegan, I hope you found this blog post helpful!

An Eco Dublin Guide

I just finished up a 6 month internship with the Visit Dublin team in Failte Ireland. I was working on the www.VisitDublin.com website, which is the official tourism site for Dublin. Just before I left, the newly designed and updated Insider Guides went up. One of which is an Eco Dublin Guide which features lots of tips for  vegetarian/Vegan dining in Dublin. I was happy to see such a useful resource being implemented.
You can download the handy guide here. And check out the rest of the guides too, they're great.

Being a Vegan while holidaying in Spain.

I took a trip to Pals in Catalonia, Spain for a week with my friend Naomi. Her parents have an apartment there and while her Dad was over for 3 weeks, we decided to head over for a week.
The area itself is beautiful and is surrounded by acres of farms with sunflowers and other various fruit and vegetables. I've been to the area many times before but I think I only apreicated how nice it was this time.

I was kind of worried about eating while there. I don't think vegetarianism is generally common in the country side. However, it turned out to be just fine! I packed a packet of falafels and some nakd bars to keep for going for a couple days. I bought fresh bread daily in the bakery around the corner, Heinz baked beans, fresh vegetables and fruit and LOTS of dark chocolate and fruit. I used to spend my time eating fresh chocolate croissants from the bakery, they were sorely missed this time.

Eating out is where it became a little bit tricky.  I enjoyed some fresh vegetables prepared in different ways, Catalonia bread, pizza sans cheese and mainly.

 I came across a ice cream shop that did vegan ice cream!

 Chargrilled vegetables with Basil Oil. Was very very good!

  I found this fairly funny. The chef knew I was coming (he is friends with my friends dad) and he made me some slightly stir fried veg. Fairly unimaginative.

 Catalan Bread. Bread coated in oil, garlic and tomatoes.

 The best pizza I've ever had! This was unbelievably tasty. The sauce was perfect and I got onions on top. This was enjoyed on the beach!

And sorbet to finish!

Another London trip filled with food

I posted about Pret a Manger in my last London post but I ended up here again a couple times. The superfoods salad is always there and labelled vegan! Since there are Prets nearly on every street, it's handy to know you can eat something there.

I couldn't not go back to The Whole Foods Market on Kensington High street. I got lots of tasty treats. Slices of cake from Sprial veggie restaurant in Camden and MARSHMALLOWS!,

This was peanut butter cream tart. So yum!

And Carrot Cake. This was hands down some of the best carrot cake I've ever had. Tastes so good even without the cream cheese. I have been a bit weary about silken tofu, but it tastes great!

All the different flavour marshmallows available! Vanilla, Chocolate, Strawberry, Banana. I got Vanilla and Chocolate and of course they tasted great.

All the fancy vegan chocolates.

I finally came across a orange Fry's bar. I can never find them in Dublin.

Now, who would associate food poisoning with a vegetarian restaurant...? My Mum and I ate here, My Village Cafe in Camden. It's a falafel type restaurant. It was extremely tasty and they did amazing fresh juices. I got the falafel plate. And my Mum got the same but with yoghurt and Halloumi. Bad mistake. My Mum woke up that night at around 2.30am very the worst food poisoning. She was so sick. It was non stop until about 11am. And it's not possible it was from anywhere else. As we had breakfast very early and only had a banana and some carrots and hummus in the afternoon.

Breakfast in Giraffe Cafe on Kensington High Street. And they had a veggie breakfast and it was great! There was vegi sausages, Baked Mushrooms, Avocado, beans and toast.

Mildred s Vegetarian Restaurant. This was a good experience. It was good to be in proper sort of restaurant that served vegetarian and vegan food. I would recommend Mildreds. It's very central in Soho, just around the corner from Carnaby Street and Oxford Street.

I got the Vegi Burger and Sweet Potato Chips. This was AMAZING. It was the best burger I've ever had. I didn't want it to end.

And rhubard and apple crumble with vegan custard for dessert. It was really really good too. I was stuffed after the burger but when vegan desserts are available, you can't say no.

Raspberry chocolate bars and Vegan findings at Howth market.

I had another crack at the vegan baking books I have. I haven't had much luck making cupcakes so far. I decided to go for something no cakey. So I decided to make Vegan chocolate raspberry bars from 'Sweet Vegan'. The recipe involves a coconutty mixture, chocolate, oats and raspberry jam. Delicious combination!

They came out so good as well. I devoured nearly all of it! I'll post up the recipe next time.

Howth Market

Instead of heading to the market in Dun laoghaire, like we do nearly every Sunday. We decided to head out to the Sunday market in Howth and make a day of it. So we headed off on the DART to howth. It was a lovely day as well but freezing. There's 2 sections of the market. The main one is across from road from the seafront area and then there's a small section just beside the dart station. We headed to the main one first. All that was there vegan wise really was falafel. So, I had a falafel wrap..was okay. I really wanted a soya lattee but off all the 3 cafes I checked, none of them had soya milk :(. Unfriendly Vegan howth.

After we headed off for a walk and came back we checked out the other part of the market. There was a vegetarian and vegan Indian food stand! Wish I had seen it before but even better they had Vegan and Vegi cakes! I was so excited. They said they usually had more but because it was late in the day, most had been bought already.

What they had left that was vegan was a slice of chocolate cake and date and walnut muffins. They had a 3 for fiver deal so I was sold! I slice of cake and 2 muffins. They didn't last very long though haha.

I never got the name of the stand either. I've tried to google it but had no luck. The cake and the muffins both tasted lovely anyway! I was over the moon with this find.

Recent food

I am constantly taking picture of food on my phone. Everything is a bit mixed up so instead of doing a load of separate posts I thought I'd throw them all into one.

I went out to the Happy Pear today for Lunch. I went for the pitta and salad. I didn't know the pitta had goats cheese in it though so I had to take it out and eat around the left over bit. I had a lovely coffee and vegan choc fruit and nut tiffin slice. I also love going to The Happy Pear.
I had another attempt at cupcakes but with another recipe. I used the Vegan cupcakes take over the world one. I didn't have all the ingredients really though. It required corn starch but I assumed that's corn flour. It made the cupcakes taste like corn flour though. They were alright though. Still not there yet. The icing was good though!

I came across these in Dunnes Stores and HAD to get them. Orange chocolate is a favourite. They tasted really good.
Here is a salad with a Good Life nut cutlet burger. I love them and they are so quick to cook under the grill.

Linda McCartney sausages. Last week people kept mentioning breakfast rolls and I was craving sausages and beans so bad. I made this for lunch a couple times and really hits the spot. It's a nice change from salad. The sausages are so tasty and only take a few minutes under the grill.

And this is my usual lunch while at home. I eat so many falafels but I don't know what I'd do with out them.

I made more cookies recently with the usual recipe. I guessed the measurements this time as my scales was broken. I added some chocolate powder into the mixture to make double chocolate cookies and oh my god they are dangerously tasty. I eat them all :/. The trick is to almost under cook them and then let them set and you get an extremely chewy cookie as the all the sugar sets but doesn't harden from being heated.

And another 'The Counter' post. As I've said before it's a great place to go for dinner when with non vegis and it's cheap and sooooooo tasty. This is the vegi burger in a bowl with various toppings such as avocado, roasted peppers and grilled pineapples. And you NEED to get the sweet potato fries.

And this is the falafel wrap from Gourmet Burger in Dun Loaghaire. It is very very tasty. It's vegan but you just have to ask for no Harisa. I get guac instead. It is so yummy when they grill the wrap after. It comes with rosemary chips!

Update and Vegan Christmas prep

Food filled day. Went to Fresh Vegetarian restaurant (edit, no longer open) in Powerscourt for the first time in years. I got Red Lentil soup, Chocolate cake and coffee. I wanted to die after the cake, it was so heavy. It came with cashew cream, ew. Soy ish creams so far have been horrible. The powercourt centre is such a good building. Need to go in there more.

I picked up some dairy free caramel chocolates from the sweet shop in George's street arcade and my god they are good. It was good to have some good chocolate again. All the tins of roses are killing me this Christmas. They're 3.50 euro for 12. Quite expensive but good.

I also got a little vegan Christmas pudding by The Village Bakery from The Organic Supermarket to have on Christmas. They also have loads of the Moo Free Chocolate range. They taste real good too.

And here is tonight's late night dinner.

I am going down to Cork for Christmas, so it might be a bit of a challenge. Considering it's not my kitchen. I hope I'm not too annoying about the food. I just hope my aunt will leave me some mashed potatoes with no butter.

Bagels!

I go to Itsa Bagel a fair bit as I am in love with their Kind Veggie Bagel. It never fails to please me but It always promises a messy lunch. There is no way to eat it gracefully without getting food allover your face. I have managed to eat it neatly once, but I was alone so Bring lots of tissue if you are going to eat it. I have talked about it on this blog before but It needs another mention as It is Vegan. This bagel is Vegan and the Vegetable and Lentil soup, which is also unreal. There is an Itsa Bagel in Dun Laoghaire, Abbey Street in Arnottss, Sandyford, Fitzwilliam lane, Malahide. They're Irish, reasonably priced BUT I do not like the coffee one bit.

I tried to make one myself at home, didn't taste as good but still very good.

I started off by making some guacamole. It was my first time and it went as follows:

1 avocado

2 cloves of garlic

Juice of 1 lemon

Half a red chilli ( I made mine spicy)

1/4 of a chopped onion

salt and pepper

 all in the food processor

I then grilled some strips of red pepper and sweet potato.

Layered it up with some of the guac, hummous, strips of veg, spinach and balsamic dressing.

The photo isn't very pleasing but I was in a rush and just wanted to eat!

And another bagel idea, I have posted before.

Bagel with Hummous, sweet chilli sauce, Grilled or roasted thin strips of sweet potato in sweet chilli sauce and a salad on top!