Yesterday, I came back home to Dublin from a university trip to Newcastle, Malta and Bristol. I think it’s safe to say that Newcastle WINS at catering for vegans.

It may not be entirely fair to say that actually, because I didn’t really give Bristol much of a chance, but Malta certainly left a lot to be desired when eating in restaurants.

So! We found a place called ‘Scrumpy Willow and the Singing Kettle’ on Clayton Street in Newcastle first, and I’m pretty sure I would live here if I resided in Newcastle. They catered for meat-eaters, vegetarians and vegans, and they did not produce anything half-heartedly. 
Here are my two friends; Sarah and Niamh, being eager beavers and waiting for the place to open!  

The lady was incredibly nice to us while we were there and the interior was so quirky and unique. Now, to get to the food part - I got a berry milkshake and my vegan friend John got some sort of banana milkshake as far as I can remember. Um, they were sort of amazing.

A few of us ordered the ‘vegan traditional breakfast’ and it was by far, the BEST breakfast I have had since becoming vegan EVER.
There were baked beans, puy lentils, tomatoes, mushrooms, amazing toasted bread with soy butter and a potato bake. Everything was beautiful.

I wanted to try everything, obviously, because I live for food, but I couldn’t afford to try ALL of the food! But I tried this chocolate chilli cake, I didn’t know there was chilli in it (not a huge fan of chilli) but it was still pretty nice.

The lemon cheesecake angels must have made this one though. WOW:

And so that concluded our visit to Newcastle, next up was Malta, which I wasn’t TOTALLY impressed by as far as vegan food was concerned. I asked one waiter if he had anything vegan and he offered me pork, so I kind of gave up on that one. They did have soy ice-cream though, which made me look like a really happy 5-year-old. I bought vegan chocolate drops in a health food store nearby, (there were a lot of those!) and added them in. Here’s the place!

I noticed that a lot of stores in Malta sold soy/rice milk, but I didn’t come across anywhere that offered soy milk with their coffees. Disappointing, considering I got about 8 hours sleep in the 4 days we were away!

In Bristol, we didn’t get much of a chance to explore, but I had previously looked up Arc Cafe which looked promising. Next time!

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised. It was the little things like finding soy ice-cream and small health food stores that made the trip that extra bit lovelier. :)