Blazing Salads (Dublin, Ireland)

Blazing Salads is a cross between deli and well stocked health food shop. Within a minute's walk of Cornucopia it's a good option if you're pushed for time or want takeaway.

I picked up a slice of pizza and piece of apple pie from there the last time I was in Dublin. Both survived 9 hours in a laptop bag admirably - the pics below were taken just before shoveling them into my gob and going through security at the airport.

The pizza was great, but much more quiche like than pizza. How it didn't get mashed to pieces in my bag I'll never know, but it's a testament to it's suitability as excellent picnic food.

The apple pie didn't look so great (which I'll put down to my handling rather than Blazing Salads' prep), but also tasted good.

I'll definitely give them another go when staying in Dublin next - I may even push my luck further and buy the day before for breakfast at my hotel.

Pizza Face (Brighton)

Whilst on a pizza posting spree, it's only fair to mention Brighton's vegan friendly takeaway also.

Pizza Face is an omni pizza chain with branches in Kemp Town (Brighton) and Hove. They stock Redwoods vegan cheese, which can be substituted for normal for £1 extra. They've a separate vegan menu available on Mondays & Tuesdays (with fake meats as well as cheese) - it's too bad they don't do this on a weekend.

We visited at 10.45pm on a Saturday evening in November, towards closing time of 11pm. We ordered a couple of pizzas, garlic bread and tub of Boho Gelato sorbet to eat at our hotel nearby. We've heard rumours that they can deliver directly to the beach, but it was a bit chilly for that!

I'm not entirely sure why the garlic bread came with rosemary and it needed about 10x the amount of garlic on for my taste, but the bread itself was really good:

The pizzas however we're so good. With all the rave reviews about Pizza Face from people we know, hopefully we just got unlucky. Either way, the amount of toppings on both our pizzas was pitiful:

Having paid extra for vegan cheese there was hardly any on there, with a good few inches around the edge completely bare. Even the amount of tomato sauce was stingy. Compare this to somewhere like Mr Singh's where you get toppings right to the edge (not to mention two 12" for £13.49) and you'll understand why we felt a bit short changed.

We left half our pizzas each to move onto dessert. We often do this and eat the other half the following morning (pizza improves with age!).

I love Mojitos - they're easily my favourite cocktail. For a drink with so few ingredients it's impressive how badly people manage to screw them up however - they typically range in bars from mediocre to undrinkable (with exceptions - I found a stunningly good mojito bar in Leith last year). Sadly Boho Gelato's mojito sorbet falls into the inedible camp - we managed about of third of the tub between us before admitting defeat and leaving it to defrost. I don't know if the ingredients had been mixed wrong or what, but it tasted disgusting.

I want to love Pizza Face, but it's all a bit to 'meh' for me - the halves we kept went in the bin. I hate giving places a bad review and it's possible that towards the end of the shift we got unlucky. I'll try and give it a go on a Monday / Tuesday night some time - hopefully on vegan night things will be a lot better.

Mr Singh's (Handsworth Wood, West Midlands)

The Handsworth Wood branch of Mr Singh's shares the same menu as West Bromwich (formally Oldbury - click here for review), but is larger and has a proper seating area.

It's awesome to see a vegan friendly pizza restaurant, especially one that's full of customers - even mid afternoon on a Saturday. Pizzas are served in black pans similar to Pizza Hut's - they've really gone all out for that authentic experience.

We've had takeaway from there a few times now (there's free onstreet parking round the side), but haven't dined in yet. The quality's been consistently good and I'd definitely recommend it:

(this time you get not only the steering wheel but my fat belly and leg too!)

If I'm being totally honest though (which I always am!), we have been slightly put off returning recently, due to an unfortunate ordering mix up. I *always* say vegan (several times) when ordering - often to the point of looking like a bit of a freak. Mix ups are rare and do happen - I'm also good at spotting non-vegan things before eating them and politely questioning whether they're sure. In the case of Mr Singh's they've claimed several times (at both branches) that the garlic bread can be made vegan using vegan cheese, which we've ordered several times as a result:

Last time however the cheese on it clearly wasn't vegan and when questioned was told it was vegan (several times), then that it wasn't but it was my fault because I hadn't specified vegan when ordering (I had, and the pizzas I ordered at the same time were made correctly). Whilst they reluctantly agreed to remake another member of staff (the owner?) was tutting and the whole situation was rather awkward. I'd like to say that they've not lost us as customers, but equally I'm not sure how quickly we'll be returning.

Mr Singh's (Oldbury, West Midlands)

You know you're terrible blogger when places close down before you write the post.... Luckily in this case it's because they're gone up in the world (well, The Midlands anyway) to a new, smarter looking branch in West Bromwich. Whilst Oldbury is more convenient to get to (a mile from M5 J2) and had easy onstreet parking, the branch there was more than a bit shabby looking (see above!).

Mr Singh's is a vegetarian pizza chain with an unmistakable Indian twist - dhania pizza anyone? More exotic menu items (Tandoori Paneer etc) aren't suitable, but they've 8 vegan pizza options include Vegetarian Supreme, Pepperoni, Coriander and Sausage. Prices are reasonable, waiting time around 10 minutes and service friendly.

Dips are free and there's a slight discount if you order 2 pizzas the same size and remember to ask for it - they won't prompt you if you forget!

(yep, that's a steering wheel - classy I know)

The cheese and pepperoni they use appears to Redwoods - if I had to guess the sausage I'd go with Linda McCartney. Several other items on the menu are marked vegan, including hotdogs, nuggets and burgers (I assume Fry's given the description, but haven't tried them). The rest of the menu is vast - it's too bad some of the other choices aren't marked as vegan too.

I turned vegan before I had the chance to eat much takeaway pizza, but @cherrivalentine assures me that their bases are pretty much the same as you'd get from any takeaway - more spongy than glutenous, almost like they're raised with bicarb rather than yeast. If it were my choice they'd use a more Italian bread like recipe.

Like all good pizzas the flavour of their's improves with age (i.e. it's perfectly reasonable to eat the leftovers for breakfast!). The pizzas look the part (even the box they come in gives that true takeaway experience), but the toppings could be more varied - most of the options are variations on the same theme / set of ingredients. I recommend starting with something like their pepperoni and adding extra toppings (pineapple etc). They also don't mind if you ask for less chilli (the default is HOT).

I would recommend the Oldbury branch, but it's too late now ;-)