January 19, 2023
Chengdu, China: Pandas! Spicy Food! Amazing Hotel! More Spicy Food!by Randi / August 23, 2017
After our lovely time in Chengdu, I said a tearful goodbye to the Fraser Suites and we headed towards Xi’an for four days. We knew we had to see the Terra Cotta Warriors, and we were super excited for a change of pace foodwise. Xi’an is in a section of China that is heavily Muslim, so there would be mosques to see instead of Buddhist temples, and the city has a famous food stall market in the Muslim Quarter that was supposed to be amazing. And it was, although the rest of our time there left us a little less than thrilled. Like I’ve been saying for a month now, we cannot get used to the lack of awareness for other people – the pushing, the walking into others and having no one bat an eye. It’s not like Chinese people are trying to be rude or pushy or anything! It just is. Like we watched a woman on her phone walk straight into another person and neither of them flinched. We are definitely the weird ones here being like WHY ARE YOU PUSHING ME and we will never get used to that!
Aside from that though, I guess we enjoyed our time in Xi’an. To get there, we got on – you know it – another sleeper train. It was PRAISE BUDDHA cleaner and slightly nicer than the last few have been! It was still a K train, so the same style and overall look, but our bags actually fit under the bunks, the sheets weren’t noticeably stained with the residue of Other People, the sink drained into a pipe and not onto the floor, and there was actually soap in there! Also, the strangers we shared with were fine. There was one lady who stayed in the hallway the entire time until sleepytime, and then there was an older couple sitting on the other bottom bunk until the man went to sleep in another room. I was nervous that they were gonna be sharing the bed (as we’ve heard some couples do to skirt buying two tickets) and we’d have 3 adults with us but luckily that wasn’t the case. And luckily, it was the man who left us, because a) it’s always better to room with women (sorry it is true from all these months of train travel), and VERY MUCH BECAUSE b) the man was farting all evening. It was SO BAD! Old man farts! I had to wear my mask it was nauseating. His farts were worse than smoke oh my god it was atrocious. When it was apparent that he was the one leaving us we finally breathed out of our noses and shouted BYE FARTY DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU IN THE ASS OR MORE FARTS MIGHT COME OUT.
Xi’an Train Station
We got to Xi’an and headed to our hostel, the Seetang Youth Hostel. Um, our room didn’t have windows. That’s not good. Well, it did have one piece of wall that opened, but it opened into the hallway, which does not count as a window and also WHO would use that and let strangers look at them in bed? Weirdest. The walls were extremely thin, and we heard all the usual hostel noise – people shouting at all hours, people listening to music at all hours, people stomping about like they are trying to break through the floors. It was loud, is what I’m saying. And people were smoking everywhere! I asked the main staffer if smoking was allowed everywhere and she looked horrified and said no but guess who did nothing about the rampant smoking everywhere, that’s right she and the rest of her staff. Blargh. She also said they had laundry on ‘the fifth floor’ and I spent a long while searching the big building for stairs that led anywhere to a fifth floor but couldn’t find it. We later learned that the fifth floor was actually THE ROOF. I did not do laundry.
why would i photograph that room this is the view from the roof /’fifth floor’
The bed and bathroom were fine at least and relatively clean, so it was overall fine. The turn right before it was a trash alley so that stunk (lolol) to have to walk that every time we came and went. But was good to stay in a place we didn’t want to actually stay in all day I GUESS. So we did more in Xi’an than we did in Chengdu – which also means we were out in the crowds most of the time. By now, we have zero patience left. We’ve been in China for a month, with more to go, and we are soooo done with the pushing and shoving and lack of regard for anyone else’s personal space or even person. A small boy jumped off a ledge and landed ON Z’S LEGS. Like a monkey. Z was like WHAT THE F IS HAPPENING and the boy just ran off like it was nothing. I CANNOT.
the road our hostel was on
We arrived in Xi’an covered in sleeper train residue and ready to eat some good Muslim food. We took a taxi to the hostel (it was easier than navigating the subway or buses in our state), which caused us a great deal of anguish as all taxi rides here have. Every time, the driver either yells at us in Chinese or overcharges us or does some miscellaneous stupidness that we can’t do anything about and it’s so frustrating. But anyway. We got to the Seetang, showered in the windowless room, and went out in search of food. Our hostel was about 10 or 15 minutes walk from a big mall, which is always promising, and we found exactly what we wanted on the top floor – a food court! Now, Chinese mall food courts are unnecessarily complicated affairs. In Bangkok, I remember we had to purchase little credit card type things in advance and put a certain amount of money on them and then go to the different vendors for food and pay with the card. It was a little complicated, but it was clearly laid out and we figured it out. In China, a lot of food courts do similar things as far as prepaying goes, but they make no sense. No signs, no visible station or person selling the cards or even just taking money. It’s all very confusing, and no one is willing to work with us by using nonverbal communication to try to figure it out. NO ONE POINTS. We try to use clearcut hand signals while trying to say Chinese words and 100% of the time Chinese people will just continue to shout at us in Chinese with no attempt at meeting us halfway, or even 10%. Seriously, how do Italians stand being in China? NO one will use their hands. For instance, like with numbers. If we ask if there are 1 or 2 of something, it’s pretty easy to guess what we are getting at using our hands, and very easy to give the correct answer. But instead, they will just say the Chinese word for 1 or 2. Ahhh.
Anyway, I was getting very hangry and had just pointed to some vegetables in the food court and they wouldn’t let me pay because I had to have paid beforehand (not a card thing, just paying a random lady in advance). HOW DO YOU PAY BEFORE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WANT OR CAN EVEN GET. FFS I hate stupid systems. Luckily someone took money out of my hand and walked to another end of the hall to a random woman behind a counter just like all of them, and then came back with my change and a receipt?? How was I supposed to figure any of that out? Oh China why do you HATE ME.
Luckily, they had easily identifiable bowls of vegetables and I ate them and it was okay in the end.
Little random bowls – a broccoli salad, cabbage in soy, some kind of mashed green with a couscous sort of thing, and a bowl of steamed pumpkin or sweet potato that was TOO MUCH PLAIN but eh whatever, vitamins.
Next door to the food court was a Coco Bubble Tea so I was happy!
The mall of course rewarded our struggles with some nice signage:
LITTLE PRETTY UNDERWEAR
the mall in the middle of everything that has vegetables and bubbles
After eating, we walked around town and saw the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower, the two big sights of the city center that are nicely visible from most of the city center. We visited them both another day (and walked around them 10x every day), and I like that they face each other across a little expanse of crazy busy city, like two pillars in the face of modernity, amid the chaos.
So, the Bell Tower is smack in the center of everything – on like an impenetrable traffic island surrounded by the main roads and separating everything important from each other. Meaning, to cross the main roads in the very center of things (which we did 100x a day), you have to go underground and use this enormous underpass circle of hell. It was always packed and hot and loud and PACKED DID I SAY PACKED and just kind of annoying to have to go up and down, up and down (I will lead them up and down, I am feared in field and town…can’t help it) all the time and around and around. One bend of this circle of hell is the metro station, one is the exit to our favorite little street that led to the Muslim Quarter/Market, and one is the Bell Tower ticket window and entrance, which at all times of day and night had a super long line of tourists waiting to buy tickets. BIGGEST TIP FOR VISITING: Go to the Drum Tower first, because you can buy combined tickets for both towers there, and thus can skip the crazy underground line for the Bell Tower. The crowds inside both actually seemed the same, yet the line at the DrumT was maybe 3 people long, so I guess the ticket sellers and takers at the DrumT are just more efficient than the BellT. We felt like SUCH BADASSES walking past that endless line of Chinese domestic tourists at the BellT and flashing our combined tickets and just strolling right through.
Drum Tower
Both towers date from the 14th century but were renovated or reconstructed in different subsequent centuries. The Bell Tower would ring its bell at dawn, and the Drum Tower would beat out dat rhythm on its drums to mark dusk. Cute. I like the Drum Tower more, maybe because it was coverd with drums, LIKE IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE, while the Bell Tower had ONE MEASLY BELL.
…till you try?
LOVE that they painted the security camera so cute!
The view of the Bell Tower (and Xi’an) from the Drum Tower
The Bell Tower
the one bell
I liked these sites though because they were quick and easy to navigate, leaving ample time for more important things – exploring the Market food and getting sooo many fun drinks. Okay, we will save all that for the end because it’s the best part.
Another day, we took the metro (again, completely identical to every Chinese city’s metro) to the Big Goose Pagoda, also known as the Wild Giant Goose Pagoda, also called (by me) the HEHE GOOSES Pagoda. We went on the hottest day, and it was a 30-40 minute walk from the nearest subway station so it was rough (there’s actually a station literally on its grounds, but google maps didn’t know about it you stupid pos I hate you I HATE YOU). The pagoda is apparently Xi’an’s most famous landmark, which seems like b.s. to me but that’s probably because of the crowd. It was bad, guys. See there’s a lot of shit happening at this pagoda. First of all, it’s another of those double ticket ordeals – you buy a ticket to the grounds and then find out it doesn’t include the pagoda. When you walk a little more, there’s another ticket office for the pagoda itself. i hate that b.s. No one is entering these little bits of grounds and not going to the pagoda. It puts me in a horrid mood. Anyway, fine, two tickets needed, got it. But no. In all of China, there’s been preeeeetty decent set ups for tourist sites with stairs specifically for going up and then another set for going down, to help the crowd flow. Even at the Bell and Drum Towers they had this. But the Pagoda was the first place I can remember that not only didn’t, but only had one teeny tiny thin winding stairway AND didn’t control the flow of guests. So we climbed up seven floors with the worst of humanity. There were children pushing through legs with their parents doing nothing to stop them; men pushing you from behind to what, make you go faster?; and overall just horribly behaved people. It was terrifying and terrible, trying to climb these stairs. It was also very hot, 98 degrees outside, and at least 15 degrees hotter in this unventilated narrow building. As you may have guessed, it was not my favorite visit.
I liked that the pagoda, from the 7th century, is situated among all these modern office buildings, but you can see that from outside. Inside the only benefit was exercise. There was nothing else going for it.
A site we absolutely loved was the Great Mosque, hidden behind the crazy busy Muslim Quarter’s Market. It’s very centrally located and yet provides a drastic change to the chaos outside its walls – it provides calm and peace. It’s a beautiful mosque, mixing Islamic traditions with Chinese architecture to make a very interesting and pleasant space. The Muslims working there and praying there made us feel very welcome, smiling at us and shaking Z’s hand. It was a necessary respite from the craziness of the city and was really beautiful. It felt nice to visit this sacred spot before eating ALL OF THEIR FOOD outside in the market.
And, before we get to that part, we of course have to talk about the #1 thing to do in Xi’an – visit the Army of Terra Cotta Warriors. You know these guys, you’ve seen pictures. Honestly, the pictures are better. The TCW is the biggest shitshow in all of China. Everything else that I’ve said is ‘so crowded and so pushy and so demoralizing’ PALES in comparison to this situation (except the Big Goose Pagoda in the height of summer; that was indeed shit). People push and walk into you with no regard for any of your space even between your toes just RAM right into you no matter where you are.
Anyway. To get there, we walked 45 minutes to the train station to get a bus for 8 yuan that goes to the site. Even though the bus has ‘terra cotta warriors’ painted on the side, it still made some stops along the way. The book and the lady who directed us onboard said it just took an hour but because of the stops and stuff it was closer to an hour and a half. Okay, fine. But noooo. This POS bus driver dropped us down the road from the entrance, and across the street. And not some suburban little road either, oh no, it was a highway. That we had to walk along and cross. WTF, STUPID F-ING BUS. I’m still livid at them. Other buses were clearly dropping off at the entrance. We crossed with the rest of the passengers for safety in numbers but it was still ridiculous and terrifying. Finally we go inside, and we can’t find any signs for ticket office. We see endless rows of stalls and kiosks selling food and crappy crap and drinks and lanterns and string and stuff and NO TICKET OFFICE. We walked for more than 20 minutes and finally saw a sign for the ticket office. Inside that building was a long line, and tickets cost 150 yuan, around $23 each. After you exit with tickets, you walk ANOTHER 20 minutes through a maze and a park to the actual site. By this point we had cursed more than we ever had in our lives. There are several buildings on the grounds – all poorly signed, of course, and nothing in English. We figured out from a map which buildings were Pits 1, 2, and 3, the main things to see. This of course after we went in a building that was a worthless small museum. Most people do the pits in order, but DON’T. It will make everything even worse. We did 2-3-1 and I recommend that, or do 3-2-1, but whatever you do, save Pit 1 for last. It’s the only one that’s actually cool. Pit 2 is the most boring, with most of it just surrounding an excavation site that is mostly sand with nothing to show for it really. Pit 3 is slightly less boring, with a few things actually visible. Pit 3 seems to be the army headquarters, and many of the greatest warrior finds are army officers, generals and such, who are encased in glass around the perimeter. Pit 1 is where the real Army is. Pit 1 is the best, but it is the pits in terms of crowds and pushing. I’m sorry I’m such a broken record so here are pictures.
Pit 1
Pit 2
Pit 3 at least I think
It was definitely the right choice to do it in this order, to be able to end on a high note. Well, on a Middle C, considering how…underwhelming it all is. The warriors are scattered in different pits and rarely can you catch a glimpse through the throngs of people where they actually look as cool as they do in pictures. Okay, don’t get me wrong, I sound ridiculous, I know. It is a VERY AWESOME architectural site, it’s just that it has been hyped beyond what it actually is. If you haven’t seen pictures taken from just the perfect spot to make it look like it goes on forever with intricate statues, then you will be impressed. Or, hey, if you just DON’T GO IN THE SUMMER, you’ll have a better experience (honestly if you go any place in China NOT in summer, you’ll have a better experience than I did in said place).
There aren’t really signs explaining what’s even going on – I didn’t see any in Chinese either, but people could have been blocking them – so I learned from our guidebook. The Warriors are more than 2000 years old, and there are thousands of them, still being excavated. They stand as guardians to the tomb of Qin Shi Huang (his actual tomb is illegal to visit), China’s first unifier. They were only discovered in the 1970s, which must have turned the world upside down.
I know you are probably shaking your head at me like ‘girl do you just complain about everything, this site is amazing’ and it really is, it’s just that a) if it wasn’t hyped to high heaven it would have been more enjoyable and really b) if we didn’t have to fight tooth and nail to get a look at any of it, I’m sure we would have loved it. CHINA IN SUMMER IS NO JOKE. There’s a reason they tell westerners not to go now. OH OH AND C) if the grounds were designed as a labyrinth meant to claim 90% of visitors as victims to its non-navigable twist and turns and impasses and OMG JUST HAVE SIGNS AND NOT AN HOUR OF BULLSHIT TO GET TO THE TICKETS.
Getting back to town was even worse.
There were no signs ANYWHERE for buses. We walked for ages through a maze of parking lots and random buildings and kiosks – still on the grounds – before we found signs for buses. They went to Xi’an North Station, which is quite far from the downtown and isn’t the main station. All we finally saw for the main station – for getting freaking to the city from this huge site – was a hand-written piece of printer paper taped to a pole that said ‘Xi’an Station’. So we followed the arrow drawn on it to the street and found a lady who said ‘Xi’an?’ We said yes and she dragged us onto a PACKED bus, with no seats. We said nah we will wait for the next one. Then that bus pulled ahead and stopped a bit farther along the curb, and she yelled go go go! and forced us to get on the same exact bus! The three of us were in the aisle trying to figure out if maybe there were seats and then before we could get off because there weren’t, it was too late! Ahhh we were freaking out. The crazy lady – who was ALSO onboard now – starting pulling random kids out of seats and putting them elsewhere, like putting 3 kids in 2 seats, to make seats for us. And we couldn’t tell her to stop so it was just soo embarrassing. And then it cost 10 yuan instead of 8! I was so mad about it all but then it got us back faster than the bus there so whatever. Oh what a mess EVERYTHING we try to do here is!
OK. FOOD TIME.
This is where I LOVED Xi’an. We went to a few restaurants but mostly ate at the Muslim Quarter market, which was sooo much fun. First, I’ll share the good food we had at Ding Ding Xiang restaurant, a recommendation from our guide book that had good food. A man started smoking and we complained to a waitress, and instead of stopping it, she brought him a bowl to use as an ashtray. Oh ffs, China. We moved upstairs (so many restaurants have so many empty floors) and they protested no don’t go up there! but we were like, we’re either sitting away from the man you’re allowing to smoke in here or we are leaving. So they relented and luckily the food was good. I couldn’t walk away from a place that actually had vegetables! So hard to find in these parts.
From above, we had sauteed sesame spinach, sword beans and roasted eggplant, and cabbage with tofu. All of it was so good! There was a lot of food too, so we brought leftovers back to the hostel fridge for the next day (which was a travel day, so this was necessary). Unfortunately, the shitty Seetang staff didn’t know how to open the room with the fridge when we left the next morning so we lost our leftovers. SO SAD. God customer service here is abysmal. But the food is good!
I also found good vegetables at what we think was Muslim Family Restaurant, part of the Muslim Quarter but a sit-down place instead of only stalls on the street. (They had a kebab counter out front as part of that.) They had a salad bar type set up of veggie dishes, and it was a little hard at first to communicate that that’s all I wanted, and then we learned to ask them for ‘side dishes’ and it was clear! I just pointed to which of the 8 or so dishes I wanted on my plate and it cost like 15 yuan. It was all fine and I went several times to find veggies because there were none in the market.
And then we went to the Muslim Quarter market literally every day at least once, for breakfast fruit and fresh juices, for fun tofu and potato things and endless noodles, and for dessert and incredible fresh coconut milk at night. I’m gonna share a lot of pictures now of everything amazing we ate.
One thing you can count on finding every few seconds is a potato-based stall and a tofu-based stall. I had 3 different amazing kinds of street tofu and they were all excellent, and they all cost 10 yuan each (like $1.50?) for a big cup of it. We also really enjoyed these street potatoes – they were super hot and super spicy but really incredible.
this tofu was one of the spiciest things I’ve ever eaten
that is, until I ate this tofu
…and then this one
The market is also a world-class location for eating carbs. We had noodles! We had bread! Then we had more noodles! And more bread! Luckily, Xi’an famous noodle dishes are often just the sesame noodle variety, so they will be vegan. The noodle stalls that will add meat are easy to clearly see since you watch everyone make your food.
good cheap bread!
But my favorite part had to be all the incredible fresh fruit and the juices juiced from them. Oh man, the fruit in China has been amazing and the market was overflowing with it. I especially loved the cup of fresh jackfruit! In the mad takeover of the cooked-jackfruit-tastes-like-pulled-pork discovery in the vegan world, I’d forgotten that the fruit itself is so good. And pomegranates! Sooo much pomegranate abounded everywhere we looked it was glorrrrious.
The watermelon is sooo good out here! And this fruit in the cup looked like cherries but tasted like grapes so we called them chapes
For the first time, there were actually vegan options for dessert! First up is this glutinous rice patty on a stick that is dipped in tamarind paste and/or other jams (there’s an assortment if you want to dip) and crushed nuts. Pretty good! Although it is kind of bland in the center (it’s a lot of rice!) so I recommend covering it in as much crap as possible. There’s a lot of glutinous rice stuff around, including a big yellow cake-looking thing that is cut into slices – these are literally every 5 seconds around the city center. Fortunately, it’s just more glutinous rice with a slight covering of slightly sweet osmanthus paste (that’s a fruit? I think? that is huge here?), so it is vegan, but unfortunately, it’s just a big slab of unsweetened glutinous rice so is not at all worth it.
Next is the thing I’m prettttty sure is vegan – the persimmon donuts. We showed one of the ladies making them the words for ‘egg’ and ‘milk’ and asked if they were in them, and she shook her head no, and clearly understood, so I am kiiiind of confident that that was the truth. The ones pictured at the pretty stall below are the best ones, with three different fillings – a tamarindish one, a peanutty one, and a maybe jaggery? Who even knows. The consistency is very much like mashed sweet potato, not a bread-y donut, which made me feel better about the possibility of it being vegan. They were really good, especially hot, and especially if you get a lot of the filling in yours.
But maybe the very best thing in the whole market is the fresh coconut milk. Erma p, it was SOOO DELICIOUS! More delicious than the So Delicious brand! Oh man I wish I could get one now.
Honestly the food in Xi’an was the best part of our time in the city! I really had no idea until Jojo at veganinbrighton told me! I’d been worrying about finding anything at all and she was like, um, dude. I never would have thought the food would be so fun and the thing I was most excited for – the Terra Cotta Warriors – would be simply good and not amazing.
I leave you, as usual, with amazingly ridiculous things we saw around Xi’an, including restaurant names, song lyrics as a store name, and the weirdest thing in any Apple store ever in the history of the world.
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Cork, Ireland: Lovely Little City with Great Vegan Food
Apparently Cork is a city; I had to look it up because I was about to call it a little town (it’s a quiet village). But it’s a lovely little place and an easy town (village) (city?) to see when visiting a wider swath of Ireland and especially en route to the countryside (which is the best part of Ireland). I was there for the weekend recently to speak at the Indie Cork Film Festival, an annual autumn event that I recommend going to if you’re in town. Hooray for independent film and lovely Irish people who pronounce it ‘fillum’ (LOVES IT). I was also there three years ago (!) during a visit to the countryside of County Cork and so will be mixing information (food) about both trips herein. Try to guess which info is from which trip! What a fun game!
Gray and rainy along the River Lee
First of all, arriving in Cork from a city like London, especially a city with a giant mall-airport like Heathrow, is adorable. Cork airport is a wee bebbeh, which means the lines at the car rental desks will probably include your entire plane. And if you are going out of the city, you need a car. So just budget time accordingly.
It’s about a 15 minute drive from the airport to the city center, which is situated on the River Lee, which separates into two channels for a lil bit and creates an island in the middle (like the Seine!) and that island is the busier city center. On the way you’ll pass the tallest building in the Republic of Ireland, The Elysian. No pictures because driving (I mean I wasn’t driving (‘ohhh, I don’t druive’)but it’s hard to get a picture of something when you are moving). Apparently it’s an apartment building and it has an Aldi on the ground floor, which is nice for people who don’t like going outside. NB that it’s not the tallest building on the island of Ireland; that’s in Belfast, which is Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, which is in trouuuuuble.
Pretty colors on a rare sunny day
So now you know about the tallest building and the independent film festival and the Ile de la Cite but of Ireland and you’ve seen pictures of the river which is very nice to stroll along and so apart from visiting a few cathedrals if you want to, you’re done with Cork! I wasn’t kidding. Tis a babe! It’s a very nice place but it’s not exactly a tourism hot spot. And yet I’ve been twice! And yes once was for work but you know what, it’s a pleasure to be there – especially as a vegan. The vegan scene is getting very exciting there, and so we’re going to talk food for the rest of this post. Coming from Philly and London, two beyond incredible vegan food cities, I might seem a little silly for raving about wee Cork’s wittle vegan scene, but it was able to tick all my boxes (ice cream, healthy food, avocado toast) and more importantly it shows signs of a strong base to keep it active and growing.
First stop, the Quay Co-op.
Okay this picture might be giving away what trip it’s from
The Quay Co-op is a vegetarian institution in Cork, a workers cooperative that was established in 1982 (older than me!) to serve as an alternative community project, a collective effort for feminists, environmentalists, LGBTQ, and other groups and people. Like vegetarians! Now, it’s a vegetarian restaurant, an organic shoppe next door, an in-house bakery, but still a place for radicals and rad people in general to mingle and mix and be. And eat!
Assorted salads my favorite thing!
It was a cold and rainy day (naturally) when we went to the Co-op, so we shared soup and bread (classics really) and two mains. I ordered the mix of all the assorted salads (I love assorted salads!) with two mounds of gravy-covered…mounds (probably a nut roast kinda thing) while Husbo P ordered the shepherd’s pie.
I REALLY LOVE SOUP. AND BREAD.
you know like food mounds
that cauliflower is looking at me because I don’t want it unless it’s making a cheesy sauce
Everything was pretty good! It’s not life-changing food or anything but it’s solid and inexpensive and the people were friendly (like everyone in this town really). This is really the place you go because it’s an institution and the vibe is uplifting.
yay inclusion and nice people!
Next up is one of my faves that I wish was my little local cafe, 143V (which I am going to assume refers to the old-school way of saying ‘I love you’ because that sounds nice). 143V may be a little outside the city center for some visitors (it was pretty close to our hotel though (see below)) but it’s worth a visit. I adore the menu, and it’s just an adorable little place. Although it wasn’t rainy, it was a little chilly so we did that thing of sharing soup. It was a simple tomato soup and it was really good! Then Husbo had the Southern burger, which is a seitan ‘chickun’ burger and it was great. I had the Oasis bowl, which is usually a falafel salad but they were out of falafel but I was actually glad because I just wanted a big ass salad but not really falafel, so I ended up getting a big ass salad (they added beans). All of it was great! They also have a lot of fun drinks like actual iced tea (not from a bottle) and turmeric lattes and smoothies. It’s somewhat slow paced so it’s not for you if you’re in a hurry but it’s lovely to sit in for a while.
We got the vegan brownie to take away, which in true UK & Euro form was more like chocolate cake (because it was cakey) but it tasted good and was saved by the inclusion of a little pot of chocolate sauce to pour over it! Yum!
My other favorite place in Cork was Earth Cafe, which is a restaurant that looks like a big black box of a shipping container was plopped on the bank of the river. It’s very close to Quay Co-op. While the Co-op has that old school veggie vibe, Earth Cafe is very much the millennial cool vegan vibe, with all the trendy hot drinks (including pumpkin spice lattes), jackfruit, and avocado toast. They offered pretty much my perfect brunch, which is a salad bowl of zucchini noodles and spinach and what nots and then a whole bunch of avo toast crammed in. I like!
Also in this vicinity is THE BEST ICE CREAM IN IRELAND, and that’s both in my opinion and what seems to be official word. Casanova Gelato had a line out the door and down the street even though it was coooold.
And there was a doggo in line with us!
HEHE DOG
They usually have a half dozen or so vegan flavors. While most of them were your standard fruit sorbet flavors (NO!), they did have two non-fruit flavors that were spectacular. Okay one was great but one was BEYOND. One of the best ice creams I’ve ever had. The great one was dark chocolate.
The PHUH NOM one was called Wanna be my Vegan and it was a finalist in an ice cream contest! I don’t know what ice cream contest or where or how I get to be a judge but man alive if this was a finalist the winner must have cheated because I can’t imagine anything better. It was a chocolate hazelnut base with like everything good mixed in, like cookies and chocolate and love and hope. AMAZING.
i wove you ice cweam
The cherry on top of all of this is that they had vegan cones – and an assortment of them at that! I obviously picked the charcoal cone because if you offer me charcoal in my food I will take it for no good reason.
My “favorite” food experience in Cork was when it was super late one night and we had to find a restaurant for dinner but because we’re in the British Isles everything closes pretty early (and it was Saturday!). But HappyCow alerted me to a pizza place called Milano that was open still AND had a separate vegan menu! Vegan pizza that wasn’t just regular pizza with no cheese? We’re in! I was excited to see what kind of indie Italian restaurant in this little baby town had a separate vegan pizza menu. And I did not laugh harder the entire trip than when we rolled up to Milano and we both instantly remembered that Milano is simply the Irish name for the chain Pizza Express. DYING! But you know what, it’s still pretty decent! I got the new Vegan Puttanesca pizza that uses marinated jackfruit in the puttanesca sauce. And yeah I might have a Pizza Express literally 4 minutes from home and then on every single block in the city after that but you know what? I’d eat that again.
I know but how good were the rest of the food pictures in this post? wouldn’t be right if they were all good that’s not what you come for
Our last food adventure came from the Malaysian noodle bar Malay Kitchen, which is entirely vegetarian and mostly vegan. We picked up a few noodle dishes and a container of deep fried tofu to eat at the airport before our late night flight. It took forever for them to make our order, but it was pretty good. If you like supes greasy noodles like your favorite cheap counter service, then you’ll love this.
On our recent trip, we stayed (courtesy of the fillum fest, a-thank you) at the very nice Hotel Metropol, which we found utterly hilarious because that’s the name used in all our Russian classes when you learn about hotel words. Gde otel metropol? We said that a lot. It means where is Hotel Metropol. I still find this hilarious. Anyway it was a very nice hotel with a big indoor pool (!!) and both a dry sauna and a steam room! I didn’t have much time to use them all so I did a fast run through of all of them in less than half an hour. It was very fun. Hotel Metropol also has a giant gym for a hotel, and I enjoyed all of it even though I actually did the thing where I hit my headphone cord when I was on the treadmill and my phone went flying (it’s okay!) and I stopped the treadmill to go get it but I started walking back before the track came to a complete stop so then I went flying and fell kind of simultaneously if that’s possible and I have a big bruise on my calf but I’m okay and my phone was okay and the dozen or so people in the gym with me did the respectable thing of pretending they didn’t see anything.
The hotel had a water jug and green apples for the taking and big fluffy white bathrobes for the wearing, which I did because that’s my favorite thing about hotels.
This apple’s sticker says “I never fall far from the tree” lololol A TALKING APPLE |
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So that’s my time in Cork! It’s a very nice city with not too much to do but it makes a great stopping point when you are visiting the countryside. And that’s really the thing you do in Ireland; you don’t go for the cities. We will talk about the beauty that you do go for in the next post!
Trump Hates It? It Must be Awesome! We Return to Baltimore!
Are you curious about what ‘living in hell’ is like? It’s pretty nice (and vegan-friendly)!
Recently, Cheeto Mussolini talked smack on one of America’s great cities, and it was embarrassing. For him, of course, because he was wrong (he did open his mouth). Since I have the best readers (‘I use the best words’), I know you agree that if the screaming carrot demon hates something, it’s probably awesome, and this is definitely true for Baltimore, Maryland. Sure it has problems – as most big cities do – but unlike the assclown who has the power (all the power in the world) to fix them, we aren’t going to complain about them and not talk about all the great things Baltimore has going on right now.
benches don’t lie mufucka
Balmore, as they say, is a vibrant, dynamic city with so much more to offer than crime and homelessness and a drug problem (helloo did I say every city because that’s every city). The diverse (in both senses of the word) areas of the city are full of young hipsters living in cool neighborhoods, tourists coming to see one of the first colonies, students attending one of the great schools, and established locals who will defend their city to any orange buffoon who dares, dares, disparage it. Recently, we were members of the second group visiting members of the first and third (and, by default, fourth) groups. We found a Baltimore more progressive and even more fun than our last visit 3 years ago. It was a short trip, but we managed to see and do (and eat) enough to recommend a visit to anyone, except assclowns.
Shall we start with food or activities?? Food or activities. I’m going to flip a coin aaaaaand it’s activities.
Great decision making!
DO
We’ll save my favorite new Baltimore/anywhere activity for last because it’s AMAZING and there’s no way silly museums could compete with it if I share that first. You know I complain about museums a lot (we go to so many museums! they take so long!) but I’m mostly just joking since they are a must-see pretty much everywhere. This trip, we returned to The Walters Art Museum, a free (!) museum in the Mount Vernon-Belvedere neighborhood, housing mid-19th century collections amassed by the Walters family. William Thompson Walters began collecting art when he moved to Paris to flee the beginning American Civil War because he was a Confederate sympathizer and I guess he was at least smart enough to know he should get his ass out of there but also fork that guy. His son later refined his jackwagon father’s collection and made the plans for establishing a way to publicly house it; no word on whether he also was an ignorant racist.
It’s a great museum with lots to see and learn, but that’s for you to discover on your own because as usual, my job here is to share the pictures of hilariously weird things, and dogs. Here are all the dogs in the museum.
This is honestly one of my favorite museum activites. Half the pictures on my phone are paintings with dogs in them from museums all over the world. Anyway now we move on to another favorite activity: sharing all the hilarious and weird shit.
Okay that’s probably enough of that. The Walters is definitely worth a visit when you are next in Baltimore and not just for the dog paintings.
The museum is on the very hip very cool N. Charles Street, about a ten minute walk from husbo’s favorite pub, The Brewer’s Art. Last time we were in Baltimore, we could only have their incredible rosemary fries, but when we stopped in this time, we discovered they had Beyond Meat burgers AND sausages on the menu! I mean! What! (This doesn’t count as prematurely talking about food because we didn’t actually eat there.) So definitely check it out after the museum. The museum is also only a five minute walk from husbo’s favorite restaurant in Baltimore, The Helmand, an Afghani restaurant that is excellent, so that’s also an option. Do one before and one after!
I’m not a huge fan of cemeteries, but your next activity is a quick lil trip to one. Honestly, it doesn’t even really count as a cemetery, just a little tiny garden-looking jawn with some graves. Okay it’s a small cemetery. But it’s a special one!
It’s Edgar Allan Poe’s! Okay it’s not all exclamatey I mean he did die at 40 (in Baltimore, where he spent a good portion of his life). Poe’s grave site is on Fayette Street, at the Westminster Hall and Burying Ground, not too far from the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum, which makes a lot of sense. If you are a Poefiend you should check all of that out but we were in the game for just a quick stroll by the grave. It’s in a very blink-and-you’ll-walk-right-by-it quiet little secluded corner of green, gated but open to the public.
In true Poe fashion, he was originally buried in an unmarked grave. Eventually a man named George Spence added a sandstone block on the site but still, no name and lots of weeds. Reports of this odd grave for such an important figure circulated and eventually reached Poe’s mother-in-law, who wrote some harsh but polite words (probably) to the cousin in charge of fixing this whole situation. Neilson Poe, the two-last-names cuz, ordered a legit marble headstone, but then in true Poe fashion, a train ran off its tracks and destroyed the headstone. After a few years, various benefactors, friends, and students raised enough money for another headstone. The monument was dedicated in 1875, 26 years after Poe’s death. Cremation is a lot easier, I’m just saying.
There are other people buried here, including members of his family and notable historical figures.
Our next activity is a jaunt to Fort McHenry, which I didn’t actually visit but husbo did (I was busy). He’s here to tell you all about it:
Ha I’m just joking it’s still me. Fort McHenry is an important American, well, fort. Or ‘coastal bastion’ as the wikipeeds says. Located in the Locust Point neighborhood, the fort was important during the War of 1812 (not to be confused with the Great Comet of that same year, wow what a year am I right), when it successfully defended Balmore from those DAMNED BRITISH whose navy was attacking from the Chesapeake Bay. It was also used during both World Wars. During the War of 1812, when the larger garrison flag was flown over the Fort, it signaled that the Americans had won the Battle of Baltimore. The sight of the flag waving here inspired Francis Scott Key to write the song that only 7% of performers at sporting events have sung well.
Husbo really enjoyed his visit to the Fort, save for the true ‘mercans wearing t-shirts that literally said AMERICA FUCK YEAH but you know you’re going to see them at military places. Admission is $15.
Our last activity recommendation this go-round is the best one. Like true gentrifying hipsters, we tried the latest and funniest hipster activity that has country folk saying, um, what?
We went axe throwing! IT WAS AMAZING.
Urban Axes on North Haven Street is the shiiiit. Sure there’s a bar with craft beer and wines, which doesn’t seem like the smaaartest match-up. But the axe-throwing is fun enough to keep people engaged and away from the bar for too long. You generally have to book in advance (they can allow walk-ins if it’s not too busy, but don’t risk it) and you get 6 people per ‘arena’ (two targets) and per coach. We were told that since we had 4 people, 2 strangers (stranger danger!) could potentially be put in our lane, but that didn’t happen. (It was a weeknight.)
So you get a coach, an ‘axepert’, who stays with you the entire hour-long session and teaches you how to throw a g-d axe. Our coach was really great. She was so helpful in figuring out our best stances, whether we should go one-handed or two, and giving little tips to improve. I went in thinking it would be fun but that I would be terrible, but even as a first-timer I got a few bullseyes! We all did! IT WAS AWESOME!
It’s literally just a giant warehouse sort of room with plywood targets up. We said to each other, omg we should open one of these in London – the costs are SO low! You just need a bunch of axes and some boards! And then we took a beat and realized how much the liability insurance would be.
You can wear whatever you want, you just have to wear closed-toed shoes. It seems a little scary in theory, but we were reassured that people rarely get injured if they are following the rules. The most common injury people get is splinters from putting one hand against the board while they pull the axe out with the other. Silly people, don’t do that!
Man alive this was so much fun. Urban Axes has locations all over, including in Philly and Austin, so definitely check them out! It’s $38 per participant so it’s a little steep, but for a special occasion it’s pretty great.
EAT
Baltimore’s vegan scene, like that of so many big cities, is popping. We found such great finds over a few days. I mentioned The Helmand and The Brewer’s Art above and you should definitely have them on your list. Newbies this go round included Red Emma’s, Stall 11 at the very hip very popular R House market, and my new fave restaurant L’eau de Vie, which I wrote about already.
Before we get to those, let’s talk about a more famous Baltimore tourist destination in case you end up there. One night, the omnivores I was with wanted crabs, which, if you know your musical theatre, Baltimore is famous for (remember Velma Von Tussle was Miss Baltimore Crabs in her youth) (I just realized I haven’t been singing “Good Morning Baltimore” this entire time; am I okay?). We paid a visit to the harborside crab institution Bo Brooks, and if you likewise end up there as a vegan, there are a few options for you!
It’s nothing special, but sometimes all I want is a regular green salad and a regular bowl of bean soup, and Bo Brooks had both for me. In fact, there’s a whole ‘plant-based’ section, and while I hate the phrase, I loved the contents. My soup was a ‘Tuscan white bean’ soup and it was fine! Then I had Nelly’s Salad which was actually quite big and had avocado and avocado dressing. That’s all I really ask for! Bo Brooks also has the Beyond Burger so you should definitely get one of those if you aren’t looking to recreate your own little Olive Garden sitch (saltines were my breadsticks).
Okay, next up is one of our favorite places in Baltimore – Red Emma’s. Yes, it sounds a bit Commie, and yes, it’s for a reason. It’s a radical infoshop, bookstore, and vegan cafe run by a worker-owner collective and yes of course it’s named after anarchist Emma Goldman (which of course should make you think of not one but TWO MUSICALS! EG was important in both Assassins and Ragtime). Given the state of the world right now, we should all be a little (lot) more socialist! You’re not surprised, right, with all the time we spent in the former USSR? You had to expect it to rub off a little. (Or you know by being aware in this society.)
In addition to being like so woke, Red Emma’s has wonderful food. It was one of the hardest menus to order from because everything sounded incredible (and was vegan, as far as I could tell). We decided on the banh mi and the Reuben, with a side kale salad, totally on brand for us.
The Reuben might not look like much, but it was one of the best we’ve ever had. Husbo, an omnivore, sang its praises to such an extent that he actually said it was better than the Reuben at Rudy’s Dirty Vegan Diner in London, which is a huge thing since that one gets so much acclaim (but part of that is because it’s the only legit vegan Reuben in London (except the ones I make at home, obvs the best)). The banh mi was on the wrong bread (too big and too hard!) and needed more of a mayo-y sauce but it was still pretty good. The rest of the menu sounded so amazing, Red Emma’s will definitely be on our to-do list next time.
We also ventured downstairs to the bookshop, which is where we bought Ijeoma Oluo’s So You Want to Talk About Race. Highly recommended!! (And definitely try to buy it from a shop that is not Amazon! Fuck Bezos! Billionaires are inherently immoral!)
Up next is my faaaavorite place and another that’s definitely on my list for a return visit. Man I really need to make a return visit. That’s Stall 11 in the food-vendor market space called R House, which bills itself as an “industrial chic food hall”. Directly south of the Johns Hopkins campus, R House is SO trendy and cool, and Stall 11’s existence in there proves the point. Carving out its own adorable space in the market hall, Stall 11 looks like what By Chloe wanted to be. And the food achieves the same goal. It’s incredible (and better).
We had the loaded mac and cheese OF COURSE, which was fantastic, with a house-made vegan cheeze sauce, nut parm, and crispy cauliflower which was AMAZING.
We also tried the avocado BLT which was great, if completely falling apart on that too-small bread! And it came with great sweet potato fries.
Of course we also tried a salad, the Harvest salad with added tempeh. Everything was so delicious! Here’s a better picture of the salad so you can see all the goodies inside, like chickpeas and quinoa and sweet potatoes.
I love Stall 11 food so much. It’s like my perfect menu – huge loaded salads, great sandwiches, mac and cheeze. All my faves! To top it off, R House had self-serve water stations. I could cry! That’s all I ask for!
Well there’s one more thing I always ask for: ice cream. R House also has an outpost of Little Baby’s ice cream, which I know from Philly. The best thing about Little Baby’s, besides reliably having several vegan flavors, is that they sell ‘Baby’ scoops, one step below regular single scoops, for when you want to have just a little but are really full, like we were!
STAY
You’ll notice we don’t have hotel recommendations this time around because they’re all rat-infested we stayed with friends who are LIVING IN HELL no they absolutely love it. We were in the Canton neighborhood which is quite lovely and close enough to all the attractions by bus (we downloaded the CharmPass bus app, on which you buy tickets and then show your code to the driver, so easy!). The buses were fairly straightforward, although sometimes there was a really long wait. Tourists might want to stay in the thick of things by Harbor East or in Fells Point, which is the most happening for night life. We walked through Fells Point one busy Saturday night and felt very cool and then we kept on walking towards home where we played Settlers of Catan (I’m like a very cool person).
So it was a quick trip to Baltimore, but even with a few days we could see that it is far from the hellscape that assclown would tell you it is. Yeah we walked through some sketchy neighborhoods and you should be careful where you walk at night, and yes there are issues that need to be addressed. But that’s the same for Philly, for London, for really anywhere. Writing off an entire city because it has problems, instead of talking about how to address them, is some ignorant bullshirt. Visiting such a city and contributing to its economy may be a helpful move for us regular people, who don’t have the power to fix everything and yet fix nothing, to make. If you have the chance to visit Baltimore, you really should. And please tell me all the delicious (vegan) things you eat! And sing all the musical theatre songs that relate to your visit! (More about that on my instagram stories! Link at the top of the page.)
Don’t forget to read about L’Eau de Vie!
Want more Balmore? Read about our 2016 visit! (enjoy even worse pictures!)
