Super-fast tomato and carrot soup (cheaty)

Tonight's dinner, cooked by self.

Boil 500 g of sliced/chopped carrot (this is where the cheating comes in: I bought a bag of peeled and sliced carrot. Wouldn't have cooked otherwise.) in approx. 500 ml of vegan vegetable stock add Herbes de Provence, chilli flakes and ground paprika, all to taste. Also add approx. 2 tablespoons of tomato pure, one clove of garlic, crushed, and 1 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar**.

Boil until carrot is done (anything from 5 to 20 minutes, depending on how old and big the carrots were and how finely they're chopped), pure, grind in some black pepper. I also shredded (you can chop, if you've the time) in some fresh basil from the windowsill, and added two teaspoons of good extra virgin olive oil, for flavor and good fats.

Eat with a good book, and perhaps some nice bread. There's enough to share if you must. I didn't.

*Due to effort involved, this wasn't going to go in until I asked myself "what would Nigella do?". Grate in some garlic with that nifty little grater of hers is what she would do, and as I don't have a little grater, the garlic crusher was the next best thing. You can also finely chop the garlic, but that'll take longer and be more work and washing-up. Won't be as nice completely without, though. Having said that, had I had some garlic pure or paste in a tube, I would've gone for that.

**Careful here - I overdid it slightly, you don't actually want to get the flavor of the vinegar as such, I just find it can round tastes up nicely, especially in tomatoey dishes.

Sinners, Dublin

Sinners Lebanese restaurant on Parliament Street in Dublin doesn't seem to have a website. We were in town on the Saturday evening, after our day in the Botanic Gardens, looking for somewhere nice for dinner, and ended up at Sinners, the very existence of which was news to me.

The restaurant was relatively busy, it being late dinner time on a Saturday, but we managed to get a table without a booking. The staff were very friendly and cheerful, but, it quickly became evident, not very professional at all, or in any case quite inexperienced and, as is the case in many restaurants in Dublin, their use of English wasn't as strong as it could have been.

Nevertheless, we managed to get our order understood: For a starter, we shared an omnivorous mezze, as it came with enough vegan items to satisfy my starter needs: hummus and tabbouleh, with flatbread. The hummus was quite nice, if a little sharp, and the olive oil drizzled over it was very nice. The tabbouleh was lovely and fresh, and very tasty indeed.

For a main course, husband had more of the mezze (it was divided to a starter set of things and a main set of other things), and I went for the main course version of the falafel. They were ok, with plenty of fresh coriander in them, but they also had rather more cumin than I'm used to in falafel, so it took a while for me get used to the flavor. They came on a bed of fresh iceberg lettuce with some olives and slices of pepper, and I devoured the salad rather more quickly than the main item.

The carnivorous mezze, I gather, was good indeed, if a tad large; there wasn't even a mention of dessert afterwards.

The restaurant makes a big deal of their live belly-dance shows, and one was inflicted on us in the course of our meal. The belly-dancing was ok, though she wasn't particularly good - what really put us off was the backing tape, which was played at a club-level volume. I wasn't able to finish my food, and as soon as the floor was free of shimmying womanhood, we asked for the bill.

Twice. In the end, we went and paid at the till, as neither of the waitresses we talked to managed to remember to actually bring us the bill. The proprietor, who spent most of the time we were there either standing outside his restaurant, smoking and talking to acquaintances passing by, or checking in with his patrons, came and spoke to us, as well, and had my leftover falafel packed up for me. They made a very nice lunch the next day.

Sinners gets a full six falafels for its interesting name, two and a half for service, minus three for the entertainment, and four for food. Go there for lunch, an a very early dinner, and you may be saved the bellydancing. Unless that's your sort of thing, of course.

Cafeteria, National Botanic Gardens, Dublin

I often go to Dublin's Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin, usually just to walk around and enjoy the greenery. This particular visit was a Saturday, a week after the Bloom festival, and the weather couldn't have been more different. We had a blissfully lazy day, stretched out on the grass, reading, and decided to treat ourselves to a lunch at the cafeteria in the garden's Visitor Centre.

The cafeteria is quite large, relatively new, and nice and airy - and generally really quite busy. This Saturday wasn't an exception, but we'd dawdled until the very tail-end of lunch time, and so managed to get a table without too much trouble.

Husband went for the traditional roast, pork and two veg with apple sauce, followed by a strawberry and apple crumble. It was all good, filling and wholesome, in the usual standard for the restaurant.

No food was labeled either as vegan or vegetarian, though there was the usual good number of evidently vegetarian choices (baked potatoes, quiches, cheese sandwiches) as well as a vegetarian lunch option. There wasn't anything hot that was even remotely vegan, however, so I went for a selection of three different salads and a bread roll. The salads were a carrot and sultana one, a couscous salad with chick peas and fresh coriander, and something vaguely oriental. They were all very tasty, and I felt more than adequately fed, even if none of the pudding were even remotely vegan.

The meal was good value for money, and while the restaurant was constantly busy - mostly with pensioners and families - the staff remained cheerful and were swift about clearing the tables.

I find it difficult to grade somewhere I'm so familiar with, but shall try. On the Tiwinaku scale of mold-resistant roses for cafeterias (as opposed to table-serviced restaurants), the National Botanic Gardens restaurant gets eight blooms for the service, seven for the ambiance (it was still busy and loud, and a creepy old woman was staring at me for at least ten minutes), and nine out of a dozen roses for the food - apparently the pork was a bit dry.

All in all, though, I heartily recommend a visit to the Gardens, any time of the year - don't be put off by little rain, it just keeps the crowds out - and a meal at the cafeteria, especially if you're a vegetarian rather than a vegan, as the food is good and robust, and the pudding selection is to die for.

Taste of India's market stall, Dublin

This was an attempt for a quick spot of lunch midst of a soggy day at the Bloom garden festival in Dublin's Phoenix Park. As a part of the festival, there was a small "food market", with a plethora of stalls, selling mostly artisan cheeses and bakery goods, but also hot and cold snack foods, like Cornish pasties and traditional-type savoury pies.

There was a reasonable variety of obviously vegetarian things, but, as usual, the vegan was a bit lost. In the rain, I gave in to the lure of a hot meal, and went for the vegetable curry - labelled vegetarian *and* vegan! - from the Taste of India stall. The curry was ladled on top of a nearly full plastic container (of the sort you get your take-outs in) of rice, so you didn't get all that much bang for your buck in the first place. And once I tucked in... Bland, except for the burn of too much chilli, the veg was mostly peas and sweetcorn, and there wasn't all that much of even that. Disappointed, I didn't finish, despite being hungry - this is very, very unusual of me.

In conclusion, I should've gone to the Itsa Bagel stall instead, and got myself a bagel with some hummus and other nice things, instead of the overpriced curry. On the Tiwinaku rain gauge, the Taste of India stall at the Bloom gets not a drop.

So there.

Juice, Dublin

Juice is effectively Dublin's only proper sit-down vegetarian restaurant. I haven't been frequenting it much recently due to generally not eating out much, and previous less than perfect experiences, but as there was someone to take me out for dinner on a Saturday evening, I booked a table on the basis of Juice being somewhere I knew would be able to feed me.

Booking the table turned out not to have been necessary; they weren't exactly busy. Our food, his Cannelloni and my Asian noodles in Ponzu Sauce, arrived without undue delay, and our very friendly and solicitous waiter kept our glasses of water topped up while managing to stay unobtrusive.

The noodles were quite nice, the vegetables were stir-fried to absolute perfection, and the tofu was wonderfully marinated. The sauce itself was flavorful and fragrant, if a bit oily, and obviously made with sweet chilli sauce of the bottled variety. Nevertheless, I'd be happy enough to have this dish again.

My dinner companion scraped his plate clean, and commented that this was one of the very rare times he's had spinach - apparently you couldn't really taste it from the cheese and all the other nice things in the cannelloni.

For a drink, I had a freshly squeezed apple and carrot juice, and he one of the lassis on the menu. The juice was nice and fresh, but would probably have worked better chilled, for my palate at least.

So the food was good, but what especially struck me was the quality of service, as it rather exceeded what I've experienced at Juice in the past. As for the interior or ambiance, Juice evidently hasn't been refurbished since it opened, and while the wear and tear isn't showing as such, the decor is starting to feel a bit dated, with the fairy lights at the back wall and the canvas covering the ceiling. Still, it's pleasant enough.

This dinner experience at Juice gets four chick-peas for food, four for service and three for everything else. Worth a visit, if you're a vegan holidaying, or indeed living, in Dublin, and looking to go out for a proper, nice dinner, and not always only because you don't have all that much choice in this fair city.

Ocean Bar, Dublin

The Ocean Bar and Restaurant at Dublin's docklands is a "normal" restaurant and bar, i.e. not a veggie place, and boy, did that show. Their brunch menu does have some vegetarian options, like eggs benedict, or caesar salad to be had without chicken (the recipe for the dressing calls for Worcestershire sauce, but the small "vegetarian" contingent of the business lunch didn't seem too concerned about that), but no vegan main dishes as such. This was only to be expected, so wasn't in the least disappointed

I ended up having a green salad of palatably fresh lettuce, cucumber, red and yellow peppers, red onion, etc., with an ok balsamic vinaigrette. The chef had been rather generous with the vinaigrette, and the dregs of the salad were exceptionally oily.

For actual sustenance, I had freshly heated bread rolls with a very nice olive oil for dipping; lovely.

The rest of the 20-strong party seemed quite happy with their share of the food, too, and the Guinness got a favorable mention.

The Ocean Bar sits at the root of a tall, modern apartment block with the waters of Charlotte Quay Dock on two sides, which, with the floor to ceiling windows, makes for a very pleasant surroundings. The furniture is made of stools and armchairs, set around small coffee tables, which isn't really ideal for having lunch, but gives a nice and informal setting for a drink or coffee, I'm sure.

Service was jovial, professional and quick, and they had no trouble keeping on top of a large party of people. There was some humming and hawing over my vegan nature, but they didn't consider it a problem, and the salad and bread rolls was a more than satisfactory meal. For the post-lunch coffee, however, the until then perfectly affable waiter came up with an unnecessary quip of assuming me to have a herbal tea rather than coffee. I may be vegan, and look "alternative", but I'm no hippie. I had a diet-coke, full of nasty artificial sweetness, manufactured by an evil global corporation, thank you very much.

Ocean bar gets four stars for food, purely because they did well enough despite not being equipped to deal with vegans on day to day basis, three for the interior and ambiance, and two for service (would have been a four, had the waiter only curbed his scintillating wit. Tut, tut.).

Haus Hiltl, Zurich

Haus Hiltl, Zurich

Haus Hiltl vegetarian restaurant is by all accounts a venerable Zurich institution and this is their new incarnation which, I believe, has only been in existence for a few months. We went there for lunch on a Sunday on a bank holiday weekend in May, which seemed to be the right thing to do; not only were there free tables (albeit not many), but they were also doing the table service as well as their pick'n'mix'n pay by the pound (or kilogram, as it may be) buffet. We opted for the á la carte menu and table service.

My omnivorous lunch companion had tagliatelli in a creamy tomato sauce with aubergine. His comments on the food included things like "yum" and "I could eat an awful lot more of that", so we can deduce that his meal was very, very good indeed.

Choice for me was surprisingly straightforward, once I managed to decipher the menu - there turned out to be only one vegan main course, artichoke with saffron and couscous. Artichoke was a new acquaintance, other than the unpleasant pickled variety, and had a pleasant, soft texture. Unfortunately it's difficult to say anything about the actual flavour of the food, as the sauce was horribly salty. You could sort of get the general idea of a curry through, but that was it, even if I was hungry enough to nearly finish the average-sized portion. The couscous, however, was perfectly cooked and subtly textured. Best couscous I've ever had, even, but still not enough to make up for the sauce.

For a drink, we both had their freshly squeezed strawberry and apple juice, which can only be recommended.

Now. The menu was in German (there might have been an English version available, but we certainly weren't offered one, despite our halting-to-nonexistent German), and so took some time for us to figure out. Each item on the menu had a list of abbreviations for the possibly objectionable things it contained, like milk, or egg, or garlic (no, I don't really get that one, either), so you could find anything vegan by a process of elimination: anything without Mi, Ei or Kä(*) was ok. This was a surprisingly challenging exercise and it took a while cross-reference and double-check.

No dessert was had, mostly due to time constraints. There may or may not have been a vegan option.

Service was friendly enough, if a touch amateurish. The decor of the vast interior was going for the ever-popular boutique hotel/club style, all patterned wallpaper and plush furnishings.

On the Tiwinaku scale of wheels of Swiss cheese, Haus Hiltl gets a third of a wheel for food, and half a wheel for both service and ambiance. From the completely biased, vegan-centric point of view, the menu gets one small slice for user-friendliness.

All in all, Switzerland doesn't seem to be all that vegan-friendly. The supermarkets (and what supermarkets they are! Dunnes Stores, eat your heart out.) have a reasonable selection of vegetarian things, and of course vast quantities of cheese, but by the looks of things veganism isn't all that popular in Central Europe. Didn't check out any specialist health food shops, though.

(* Milch, Ei or Käse, i.e. milk, egg or cheese)