Everything’s Hunky Dory in Newport
An account of a visit to the vegetarian cafe, Hunky Dorys in Newport, Wales.
I’ve been following Shaheen’s vegetarian blog, Allotment2Kitchen, for a few years now. I first knew her as MangoCheeks when she was living in Glasgow with her productive allotment and creative vegetarian cooking. Somehow, despite having a full time job, she managed to blog almost daily.
She now has less time for blogging because she is running a vegetarian cafe in Newport and is having plenty of practice in putting her creative culinary skills to even better use. The cafe is Hunky Dorys. If ever you are in the vicinity of Newport, I strongly recommend you hunt it out.
Newport
Back in April when we were in Wales for my cousin’s wedding, I was hoping we would find a bit of time to slip away and pay Shaheen and Hunky Dorys a visit. Luckily we did and a had a quick tour of Newport into the bargain.
We slipped off after breakfast on Saturday morning and arrived in Newport bright and early, too early for Hunky Dorys, which didn’t open until 10:00. This actually worked out really well as we had a chance to explore the city.
The highlight for us was an impressive mural of the Chartists in an underground passage in the town centre. We were rather horrified to learn later from Shaheen that it was going to be knocked down to make way for a new shopping centre. Apparently feelings in the city were running high as a demonstration to protest against its demolition was going to be held later that day.
Hunky Dorys
So to Hunky Dorys. I knew the food was going to be good, but had little idea what else to expect. Needless to say, I was delighted with what we found, we both were in fact. Now I have serious cafe envy and wish we had something like it closer to home.
The style was informal and friendly with wooden tables and chairs, cushions if you wanted them and various blackboards listing the scrumptious fare on offer. Now that’s what I call a proper vegetarian cafe. Breakfast and lunch are served as well as coffee and cake of course.
I was impressed by the wide selection of speciality teas which included some particularly unusual ones. The menu changes regularly, so customers don’t have a chance to get bored and vegans have plenty to choose from. Some of the fresh produce is home grown adding resonance to the name Allotment 2 Kitchen, or in this case Allotment 2 Cafe.
I would have been very happy to stay for lunch as there were several things that sounded specially appetising and Shaheen’s pies in particular are legendary. She has recently written a post about the first one she made, garlic mushroom parsley pies. My photographs, sadly do not do it justice, but they are the best I have.
Having ordered our cake and cups of chilli and ginkgo tea respectively, we sat down to soak up the ambience. Cakes? Yes, even after a massive breakfast at the hotel, we could not resist the array of tempting treats laid out before us. CT went for a strawberry chocolate cake and I had an Oreo chocolate one – both vegan and both absolutely delicious.
Hunky Dorys Chat With Host
We were soon joined by Shaheen, who managed to spare us a few minutes from her busy cooking schedule for an impromptu chat. CT thought she was absolutely gorgeous (which she was), so I had to remind him she was already taken. Corroboration came in the form of her husband D, who I was really pleased to meet as he is often mentioned on the Allotment 2 Kitchen blog.
After a longer chin wag than she’d intended, Shaheen had to get back to ensuring her customers had something to eat for lunch. D had to go into town and we had a wedding to attend. It was with some regret that we had to leave so soon. It was a joy to meet Shaheen and finally get to see her excellent cafe. We both wish her every success with it.
Update 2016
I was lucky enough to meet up with Shaheen a few years later at this vegan cookery workshop in Manchester. Sadly she’d had to give up on Hunky Dorys.
Other Food Blogger Meet Ups
- A day at River Cottage
- A food blogging fest
- Food, drink and fun weekend in Dorset
- Hot chocolate in a glass jar
- Riverford and The Field Kitchen
- Whites Oats and an organic farm
Keep in Touch
Thank you for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you ever visit a good vegetarian cafe similar to Hunky Dorys, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Do you have any recommendations or advice for vegan cafes?
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Choclette x
We Should Cocoa
Shaheen is hosting this month’s We Should Cocoa and has chosen a particularly appropriate ingredient. Do take a look.
Should I ever go to Newport I’ll be looking this place up.
A lovely review of Shaheen’s brilliant place. I hope so much to go there myself and meet the lovely lady in person, you lucky thing for already having done so. That menu looks fantastic and she worked so hard to get this place up and running.
I hope she is being thoroughly supported by the locals.
The cafe sounds amazing, just what I would expect from Shaheen. Thanks for sharing your visit with us
Thanks Janice, just wish we could have stayed longer.
Awww, it sounds wonderful! I enlarged the menu photo and I want to eat everything on it. She is so inspirational. Such good and varied ideas, she puts the rest of us to shame with the huge variety of dishes she makes. I’d love to meet Shaheen and her hubby to. I was so sad to miss them before they left Scotland 🙁
Thanks Jac, most of the photos I took weren’t up to much which was a real shame because it was lovely inside. The variety of dishes available is absolutely astonishing – no wonder she has so little time for blogging these days.
Oh how wonderful that you got to meet Shaheen and try out Hunky Dory’s. I am very, very jealous. x
It’s always fun to meet up with fellow bloggers Kath, but when they have a fabulous cafe, it really is a joy 🙂
I have cafe envy whenever I ready about Hunky Dorys and now I have envy that you got to visit and sample and chat – what joy – it sounds like a lovely cafe and I too have followed Allotment 2 Kitchen for years – it is filled with such good food and generosity that I imagine they are there in her cafe. And that sounds a real shame if they knock down that mural.
I was really pleased to be able to visit, I’ve been wanting to for ages and it was even better than I imagined it would be. I just wish we’d been able to stay longer and eat more! And I was lucky that Shaheen was able to give us a bit of her time.