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vegan in dublin ireland: blazing salads
6October 31st, 2010dublin, more restaurants (not LA)dublin may be known for its pubs, but it certainly isn’t known for its vegan-friendly cuisine. ireland’s capital city has only 5 restaurants listed on happycow, and none of them are vegan. in fact, all of the vegetarian restaurants are within walking distance of one another. about a month ago, we spent a couple days in dublin and completely exhausted its vegan offerings…i’m happy to report though, that what we did eat was quite good. especially at blazing salads.
i’m gonna work backwards, and post about what we ate for breakfast on our last day before we left town. after being turned away from 2 other local restaurants because food wasn’t ready yet (WTF, that would never fly during opening hours in LA) we settled on blazing salads…an all vegetarian establishment with a vegan salad bar, lots of pre-packaged foods, and a bakery case. we arrived at around 10am on a friday, and not much was ready yet. the salad bar was in full swing, and the pre-packaged foods were still leftover in the case from the previous day, but none of the baked goods were available (including the vegan pizza we were hoping for). we settled on a couple of salad boxes and a ready made sandwich. we ended up having to eat while standing against the window, because blazing saddles has absolutely no seating. welcome to europe!
the pay-by-weight salad bar had a pretty good selection (ALL OF IT WAS VEGAN, weee!) including leaves, sprouts, hummus, pickled vegetables, cous cous, and beans. yum!
when it came to sandwiches, there were several to choose from in the deli case…
we went with the tofu option—a pita stuffed with loads of vegetables and thick tofu chunks for €3.90. to be honest, this thing was AT LEAST a day old and a bit soggy, but that didn’t stop us from inhaling it. while it filled the void, i would advise only eating the fresh options from blazing salads. who needs a day-old sandwich?
as we were leaving (about 15 minutes after we arrived), a fresh tray of vegan pastys and vegan pizzas were loaded into the pastry case…
i almost died, because upon our arrival i asked the cashier if i could order some of their vegan pizza and she nonchalantly told me it wouldn’t be ready for “quite awhile.” WTF?????? IT WAS READY AS I WAS LEAVING. dude, if i wasn’t so full of day-old tofu and salad things, i would have ordered some pastys and pizzas for sure. 🙁 next time.
overall, blazing salads is worth a visit for their great hours and entirely vegan salad bar. points off though, for not letting us know that hot items would be available soon….and also for having stale-ish shit in the prepackaged case.
i will back. and if you are in dublin, you could do a lot worse!
blazing salads
Tags: dublin, europe, ireland
42 Drury St
Dublin 2
(01) 6719552
6 responses to “vegan in dublin ireland: blazing salads” 
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yeah, this place is hit or miss. they are more into catering for large parties than actual food service in the shop.
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Gauri Radha गौरी राधा October 31st, 2010 at 18:05
Good to know there are options in Dublin, Ireland!! Isn’t U2 from there?
On a random off-topic note, Happy Halloween QG!!!!!!!!!! 😀
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Da Data Monkey November 1st, 2010 at 11:54
I’ll stick this on here too for peeps going to Dublin. Gather its really good.
http://www.vegaplanet.org/veganireland/interviews-vegan-cafe.php
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veganyoginimama November 1st, 2010 at 12:52
If you have more time, try Cornucopia! I am from LA, but lived in Ireland for a few years. Cornucopia is still my favorite veg restaurant in the world.
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Sorry you had a less than wonderful experience at Blazing Salads 🙁
I’m from Dublin and have eaten in Blazing Salads many a time. I love pretty much everything except their pre-packaged sandwiches. I’ve never had any problems with stuff not being ready or them being rude or anything, I’m really sorry that you came out with such a negative experience.However, I resent firstly that you think that Europe hasn’t got any seats (!?) and secondly that you think that Dublin isn’t a good place to be a vegan. While it doesn’t have any vegan restaurants, it’s not like we’re the third world! Between the vegetarian restaurants and supermarkets and such we get by quite well thank you very much!
And yes, U2 are from Dublin! 😀
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@Blueberries
As an Englishman who has lived in London, Dublin and the USA I agree with the post’s assertion that indoor seating options for casual dining is rare in large European cities. After all, the property prices and older buildings in Europe don’t lend themselves well to having many seats taking up valuable space.
Also, in most cities, people just buy food and take it away to consume, therefore it’s best to use the limited space for more food options rather than seating which will rarely be used.
The European dining style is very different to America, with massive swathes of land nobody wants to build on. In Los Angeles we have one donut shop that can seat over 150 people. As they say here: “Go figure”!
Also, as I was there on this visit, the staff were not rude, but more distracted and disinterested in us, and the fact that they didn’t tell us the pizza would be ready soon is unforgivable!
odoul October 31st, 2010 at 16:40