• February 1st, 2011mr meanerdublin, more restaurants (not LA)

    Perhaps the most famous thoroughfare in Dublin is Grafton Street. Immortalized by James Joyce, Christie Moore, U2 and (more lately) the touching musical romance movie “Once”, this eclectic street stretches from verdant St. Stephen’s Green in the south to Trinity College (one of the world’s great seats of learning), and the River Liffey to the north. A few steps west of Grafton St. lies Wicklow St., the heart of Dublin’s historical arts district, and home of Cornucopia, one of Dublin’s few vegetarian and highly vegan-friendly restaurants.

    We visited Cornucopia on a warm autumn evening, and immediately fell in love with the place, despite being initially disappointed with a loooong queue of people waiting inside the door. You see, Cornucopia is counter service and buffet-style, so one has to stand in a line, order from a server and then take a tray to a vacant table – if you can find one. I personally find places with this setup a little stressful – I mean, when you arrive you have no idea how long it will take to get served, and when you’re being served you’re worried about if you can find a place to sit and eat – otherwise you’ll be left standing with a heavy tray attempting to rush to a vacant table, trampling other human beings like some post-apocalypic feeding frenzy.

    OK, I got carried away there, but you get the idea. Let’s now talk about the food.

    Sweet Potato, Pea, and broccoli Dahl with organic brown rice, garden greens, and sprouted beans. €12.95

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  • November 29th, 2010quarrygirldublin, more restaurants (not LA)

    i’m a huge fan of cafe fresh in dublin, ireland…an all vegetarian restaurant with light and healthy food, and plenty of vegan options.

    the portions at fresh are enormous, and the food is simple yet very high quality. we ate so much when we dined there, and felt surprisingly energetic afterwards. i wish we had places like this in los angeles, where i could eat a massive quantities of food and still feel like a million bucks.

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  • October 31st, 2010quarrygirldublin, 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
    42 Drury St
    Dublin 2
    (01) 6719552

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