Hello! Dr HH here, filling in for Ms HH with tales of a recent solo adventure.  How would I fare without the meticulous meal planning of Ms HH? Was I doomed to wander the streets forever hungry?  Or could I work this all out for myself?  Read on to find out…

I was recently back in Nottingham for a whirlwind 24 hours of rock and roll mayhem!  In between zig zagging the city to catch with up some old friends and loud ear splitting music, I managed to sneak in a couple of meals of note.

Upon arrival at the train station, I fired up Happy Cow to see what my options were for a quick and easy lunch, and Doughnotts was the clear winner.  Vegan doughnuts have been popping up all over the place and I couldn’t resist the chance to get my fix here.  I battled my way through the hordes of slow moving Christmas market gawkers and found the secret (actually, it was very clearly signposted) staircase down to Doughnotts.  It’s quite a small place with some long tables for sitting in and eating your sugary doughy treat.  They have a glass cabinet split into standard (£2) and premium (£3) doughnuts, with about 8 different varieties in each half of the case.  They had 2 vegan options in the premium half, and 4 or 5 of the standard options were vegan.  I went for one of the premiums that was topped with a peanut butter glaze, a couple of Oreos, a drizzle of chocolate, and some more crushed Oreo bits for good measure. Sadly, I cannot remember the actual name and there appears to be no reference to it on their website.

As you can see, this thing was a beast and made for a pretty filling lunch.  The icing was delicious without being too sweet, and I’m always going to be happy with some extra biscuits on top.  The doughnut itself was a bit dense and chewy compared to our regular doughnut fix from The Donut Shop, but on the whole it was a good tasty treat and I don’t regret my decision at all.  The one downside for the place was that there were no non-dairy milk alternatives for the coffee, but the lady behind the counter gets a plus point for referring to dairy milk as “cow’s milk” rather than “normal milk”.  With a belly full of dough, I set off on the rest of my adventures.

My next meal of note did not come until the following morning. This is one I had been looking forward to for a long, long time.  Long time readers of HH will have seen me writing about the great Annie’s Burger Shack before. I had tried and failed to book a table there the previous evening, but I was determined not to miss out completely.  I hauled myself up in the wee hours of Sunday morning, escaped from my awful hotel room (I didn’t realise hotels with smoking floors were even a thing anymore), and shambled my way across Nottingham to Annie’s to finally investigate…THE BREAKFAST MENU!

The menu is split up into sections based on different regions of the US, and each one has 4 or 5 options in it.  There is also an extras/sides section so you can top up your breakfast plate with any of your favourites.  As always, everything can be made vegetarian or vegan too, so there are no limits to your ordering.  I took a while considering my options and ultimately landed on the lumberjack to sate my hunger and fuel me for a day of travel. This breakfast was described as ‘hearty’ on the menu, and it consisted of 3 pancakes, 3 eggs, 3 slices of bacon, a sausage patty, and a choice between home fries or hash browns. I went for the hash browns.  In an exciting twist, I was offered an option on how I wanted my tofu eggs cooked: fried or scrambled.  Having eating all the tofu scrambles ever known, I went for the lesser trodden path of fried tofu eggs.

I sat sipping my coffee eagerly awaiting my breakfast feast and when it arrived I was a little surprised at just how big the whole thing was. I had not expected my pancakes to occupy so much space on their own separate plate.  After I overcame the initial intimidation of it all, I set to work in true Dr HH fashion: I tried everything with everything.  Ms HH would no doubt have been appalled by me using my maple syrup covered pancake as a toast-esque base for my sausage and bacon [Ms HH: disgusting!], she would have wailed as I melded crunchy salty hash brown with sweet soft pancake [Ms HH: an abomination!], and I’m sure she would have averted her eyes as I stacked up a little bit of everything and created a full breakfast pancake sandwich bite [Ms HH: *shudder*].

I did my best to work my way through the whole plate(s), but I was defeated and could not find room for the last pancake.    It was big, it was filling, but the components were a little hit and miss.  The sausage patty was great, well flavoured, good and crispy outside and quite soft on the inside.  The pancakes were fantastic, a great fluffy texture and not too sweet.  The bacon was pretty typical facon, so pretty uninspiring compared to the quick and easy smoked tempeh bacon we make at home.  The hash browns were good and crunchy, but a little flat for my liking.  The eggs may have been an exciting choice, but they were the wrong choice.  I was not a fan of the texture at all, the outside was kind of crispy but the inside had a weird soft stickiness that I did not like. I give credit to Annie’s for offering something other than the typical scramble, but it certainly was not for me.  I left with a full belly and a lighter wallet. This massive breakfast came with a hefty price tag of £9.30 but it did keep me full for about 7 hours.

After gathering my things and checking out of the hotel, I still had about an hour to go, so spent most of it sipping coffee at 200 Degrees Coffee.  The coffee was great with plant milks available, and they had a selection of vegan sweet treats and sandwiches, but I was far too full for any of that.

My last meal of my flying visit was in Pret at the airport.  I settled on the falafel, avo, and chipotle flatbread, accompanied with a packet of chipotle crisps because all sandwiches are of course better with a packet of crisps.  It was a well flavoured wrap, but, as is often a danger with wraps, there were parts where it was rolled and folded in such a way that the bread to filling ratio was about 95:5.  With a full belly I drifted off to sleep on my flight comforted by memories of doughnuts, pancakes, and crisps.