I have just spent 2 days in Belfast!  I did spend most of that time in the office but managed to see a little of the city centre.

I left home on Wednesday and caught an early flight to Belfast.  I arrived before my colleague so I had a soya milk latte and bag of popcorn at the airport for breakfast while I waited. The office is on the edge of the City with nowhere nearby to grab any food so I had lunch in the office canteen.  A really good vegetable soup with wholemeal bread.  Today for lunch I just had 2 large servings of the soup. But back to yesterday, I had a large mixed salad with my soup which was very reasonable. Before heading out for supper in the evening, I checked in to my room at the Radisson Blu It was a bit bland and corporate but very comfortable.Having checked in, we set off in to central Belfast, armed with a map and directions to the oldest pub in Ireland. We found it!  The Crown Liquor Saloon is actually owned by the National Trust and the outside and the inside are stunning.  My little camera does not do it justice but we really enjoyed gawping at the decor and trying to capture the essence of the place, as well as enjoying a Guinness. Look at the inside !!!! It has booths 🙂 .  I do love sitting in a booth. Cheers 🙂  Having enjoyed a Guinness we set off for a vegetarian restaurant called Home. We walked past the Europa Hotel, which is unfortunately famous for being the most bombed hotel in the world; it has been bombed 28 times! We found Home and went inside.  The front half of the building is like a coffee shop and is used during the day and the other half is a restaurant. I had an Irish whisky with a splash of water.  Absolutely perfect.  I could have enjoyed several of those but stuck to one. They had a vegan menu – yippee. I had the Vietnamese style salad as a starter and it was so good I wished I had ordered it as a main. The cauliflower and chick pea curry was good too. Instead of rice I had it with mashed potatoes which were excellent.  Super soft and no lumps. We walked back to the hotel past this extraordinary building – City Hall.  Isn’t that stunning? We enjoyed our evening in Belfast but were astonished at how quiet it is.  There were very few bars or restaurants and most were closed and the streets were deserted.  Apparently it livens up during the weekend. Today began with a hotel breakfast of fruit and grapefruit  juice. Then toast with tomatoes and potato and toast and marmalade.  Plus tea.  Everywhere seems to offer dairy free alternatives to milk which is excellent. Off to the office. This was the view from my desk; across the City and to the snow capped hills in the distance. I had 2 portions of vegetable soup for lunch and at the airport a bag of Taytos and a flapjack.  You have to check the back of crisp packets; salt and vinegar had whey and another flavour had egg white!  Who would have thought. It was good to get home and I had a bowl of gnocchi with pesto and cherry tomatoes.

I enjoyed my visit to Belfast.  The highlight was the Crown pub and I would love to go there again.  I did well with food on Wednesday but did not make such good food choices today as I ate some poor quality food.  I am working from home tomorrow so I can eat ultra healthily.