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Cork, Ireland: Lovely Little City with Great Vegan Food

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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! 

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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. 

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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. 

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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! 
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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.
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I REALLY LOVE SOUP. AND BREAD.
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you know like food mounds
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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. 
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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! 
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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.
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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. 
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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. 

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This apple’s sticker says “I never fall far from the tree” lololol A TALKING APPLE
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! 
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