I know you are all wondering if I was able to eat paleo while in the UK. Well, I’m hear to tell you that it is completely possible to do so. Although I was not able to visit any paleo specific restaurants on my trip, the country was covered with places eager to serve you something that helped you with your personal dietary needs whatever that may be.
For most of us eating for health, whether it is paleo or vegan, gluten, dairy or soy free, or any assortment of avoidances and eliminations, we have to balance our diligence with the amount of effort needed while not at home. For me, I often hold gluten-free and vegetables as the highest standard while traveling and do my best with the rest. This is because it seems to be the thing that throws my gut flora off the most and is the hardest to recover from. Achiness I can deal with, upset stomach, headache and IBS not so much. Anyone with allergies or things like Celiac’s Disease, of course, must be 100% diligent all the time. And it is important to remember that just because something is gluten-free, for example, does not mean it is healthy.
I will say now, I had some the most amazing gluten-free food I have ever had while on our trip! And for some reason, the pictures that turned out the best are of my favorite foods. Let’s see if you can guess which that might be…
Warning: there is way too much sugar and dairy in this post. There were a few things I had to try based on treats a few of my fellow bloggers from the UK had mentioned on their blogs before my trip. But one of the things that made eating out a challenge the most was choosing places both my son and I could find something to eat at. Traveling with a 21-year-old male who eats like well, a 21-year-old male makes things difficult. You can only eat out separately so many times.
Taking a cue from fellow blogger Katie over at Fatty McCupcakes who, also, recently traveled to the UK and whose post I read before my trip, I’ll give you a run down on the dishes I enjoyed (or didn’t) while abroad. Katie did not have the same food restrictions I imposed upon myself but I may have fared only slightly better.
There were no paleo designated restaurants along our travel itinerary in the United Kingdom but most of the grocery stores were paleo friendly, so just like at home your best is to pick up food along the way. I share more about that at the end of this post!
Our Arrival
We started our trip in Gatwick and Horley, arriving at 7am after being on the plane about 10 hours. I had packed healthy snacks like nuts and carrots but planned to shop at the grocery store upon our arrival. I had, also, brought a cold storage bag to keep food items in the car, with all good intentions. We stopped at Lidl’s in town (pronounced “little”) and were able to pick up some relatively healthy foods like apples, oranges, grapes, bananas, olives, rice crackers and cold prepared meats to help me eat paleo in the UK.
This was after figuring out how to use the shopping carts which were all locked together and needed a coin to operate which we didn’t have as I had nothing but the bills from the cash machine at the airport. It’s a thing to charge a coin to use them, I guess, but a cashier took pity on us. That, or she just didn’t want to go get me change.
Note: if you haven’t been to a Lidl’s before and click on the link above, don’t think you will be shopping in a store that is near as fancy as what the website might want you to believe. At least not the one in Horley, just a fair warning.
My son got a huge bag of individually packaged Lays chips Walkers crisps set to last the ten days we were there, he wasn’t feeling very hungry after the flight. I think he was a little anxious about the trip in general. We had each brought a water bottle but I was hoping to find some kombucha, flavored seltzer water or a gallon jug of just plain water. That was a big fat NOPE. Nada. Not to be found anywhere.
I did pick up a 6 pack of what I thought was plain flavored water but turned out to be something similar to Propel. Not a win but the bottles turned out to be helpful later to fill at the hostel with tap water and have in the car. There simply were not as many water fountains in the UK as the US, nor big gallon bottles available at the grocery store.
England-Horley
After the grocery store and a trunk full of edibles that didn’t need much refrigeration, we stopped at a cafe suggested in a Rick Steves guidebook, Cafe Manger. All I have to say is, DON”T GO HERE. Unless you just want tea and bacon. The tea was okay. This was definitely not a good introduction to the proper “English breakfast” and my son was put off from trying another one for the rest of the trip. I’m pretty sure the “ham” he had come out of a deli package and I’m not sure what the sausage was made of but it was not meat. Or very little, anyway. It wasn’t even up to SPAM standards. I was a little scared for what I was going to eat paleo in the UK based on this meal, maybe all the rumors were true? The mushrooms and bacon were okay but I vowed to do much better.
England-Brighton
I don’t have a lot of food pictures from our first few days as I mostly subsided on the food I had picked up at the grocery store. Mostly because we were on the road a lot and I was so tired when we got to the hostel at night I had no desire to go find somewhere to eat out. Plus, like when I take fresh food on my backpacking trips, it has to be eaten first. Our first hostel in Brighton only served toast, cereal, tea and coffee so my son was happy anyway. I had coffee and fruit from the car.
England-Penzance
Things got better by the time we got to Penzance. Here I was able to find my first gluten-free fish and chips and man, they were amazing! I ended up with fries chips because I asked for fresh peas (turns out the classic mushy ones aren’t gluten-free) but didn’t specify peas instead of fries. Oh. Well. Fraser’s was a lovely seaside shop and I do love the sea. They are a local family offering local and sustainable foods.
From a local farm…
Seriously, these were the best and freshest peas I have eaten in a looooooong time.
My favorite part of this meal? I had left a nice tip for our waitress, what would be considered one anyway in the States. I had read tipping wasn’t the same in the UK but habits die-hard. I was a waitress in my younger days and I know how a good tip feels.
Any who, we were walking back to the car about two blocks away when my son sees her running our way. She comes up to us all our of breathe holding my money out to me. She thought I had accidentally left it on the table! I told her it was her tip and she shook her head and said it was too much. I told her, no it was hers. I think what confused her was that they had a tip jar on the counter and my son had, also, thrown some coins in as we paid the bill. As she walked away I was second guessing my generosity as it may just be too weird to leave a tip like that here. But the next day we had the coincidence of seeing her out walking with a friend near our hostel and I took it as a sign that all was good and I just needed to do what felt right to me.
Okay, here I have to mention Cadbury Chocolate. I have a blogging friend who LOVES Cadbury and wrote about it before I left. Now, here in the States, I don’t think Cadbury holds the same status as it does in the UK, mostly because of those darn creme filled eggs. However, I had heard that Cadbury was different in Britain (at least before they were bought out) so I thought I would do due diligence and check it out for myself. I only needed a bite or two so I picked up this small bar from the gift shop at St. Michael’s’ Mount. Apart from not being sure what the frog is doing, it did taste pretty much like Cadbury’s does here. So sorry, my British friends. I can see why you are upset.
England-Cheddar Gorge
Okay, from Penzance we were headed to Wales and I decided to drive through the town of Cheddar to see Cheddar Gorge which I had heard was a pretty drive. Deb’s World wrote about her connection to the town and had me wanting to visit! The town was small with a shops and of course, we had to stop and check out the cheese. How could you not try cheddar from Cheddar? I had read reviews before going so my expectations were not high but I found it similar to visiting the Tillamook Cheese Factory here in Oregon. Smaller, of course and we didn’t have time for a tour but we sampled some of the different flavors and picked up some snacks for the road.
Walking back to the parking lot I saw there were options for a gluten-free cream tea at the Mousehole Cafe and Restaurant, which I hadn’t had yet on the trip. The timing was off for stopping in (we had a long day ahead of us) but it was a good sign that I might be able to find one later in the trip!
Oh, and the drive really was beautiful (and short)! More beautiful than my roadside snap.
Wales-Conwy
If you read my UK Hiking and Backpacking post, you know that Chicken Tikki Masala is the national dish of the United Kingdom. There seems to be some controversy about its origin but both boil down to an Indian influence either directly or via an Indian restaurant in Scotland. So, you know I had to try it while I was there. In the small, walled town of Conwy I found this lovely place. It was crowded on a Friday night and the interior was so dark but the food was delicious. You will have to imagine as the pictures are quite dark.
Garlic sautéed mushrooms, yum!
The tikki and rice came separately, this is my attempt at making it look appetizing for the camera It did taste good, trust me!
The next day in between castles in Wales and before heading towards the Lake District, my son decided he had to have pizza. Now, he had already pizza once and I have trained him well to not eat foods while traveling that you can eat at home. He had, also, already asked to stop one time at McDonald’s to see if there was a menu item he couldn’t have at home. Which they really didn’t. But, since I was able to find a place that said it offered gluten-free crust, I agreed to visiting Johnny Dough’s.
After a very longtime studying the menu for something nightshade free and waiting for our order to be taken, I was told they were out of the gluten-free crust. Ugh, and no real salad options. Since I wasn’t starving and there were snacks in the car, I just let my son order and figured I could use this as leverage later when I wanted to go somewhere he didn’t think he would like. The ginger beer was good, though, if a bit sweet. My kiddo tried the IRN BRU that Katie mentioned in her post. And like Katie, orange bubblegum flavored soda is an acquired taste. Sorry no pic, check out Katie’s post if you want to see for yourself.
England-Twice Brewed
Our next memorable meal was in the tiny town of Twice Brewed after visiting Hadrian’s Wall. At this point in the trip I had learned about the one thing I hadn’t heard before heading to the UK about dining out. Almost every establishment not in London is closed between the hours of 2pm and 5pm.
If you are here for castles which all open around 10am and you spend any length of time there, you are out and driving to your next destination within that window. Or at least it seemed like every time we decided we wanted to stop and eat, the place we decided on was closed!!
Thankfully, we lucked out and the Twice Brewed Inn was open for Sunday lunch/dinner. The menu was limited as far as selection but everything was labeled so you could choose based on your eating priorities. This was were my sacrifice at pizza the day before paid off. My son was sure that he didn’t want anything on the menu but we both ordered the same thing (mine was gluten-free) and he now says this was one of his favorite meals from our trip. I can’t remember the last time I had a proper Sunday dinner and it was SO good.
I didn’t have to share any of these perfectly cooked vegetables with my son, as you can imagine. It was such a delight to find some veggies out in the middle of nowhere!
The Yorkshire pudding if you were interested, the kiddo says it was tasty. Looked a bit like a mini Dutch Baby if you ask me.
On a side note, there really aren’t a lot of non-sugared beverage choices beyond water at the small gift shops. I did have a few that I didn’t think I could have back home like this one. My son’s take away from the UK was that all lemonade should be carbonated and he is now on a mission to find some here in the States.
Scotland-Edinburgh
Okay, on to Edinburgh. Turns out Scotland was a mixed bag. And I don’t mean some food was good and some wasn’t. Meaning, I had quite a variety of food while we were there.
We arrived late Sunday night and looking for a place to eat was a challenge (only surpassed by the time it took to find a place to ditch the car overnight). The first place we decided looked good for both of us to eat (The World’s End) promptly informed us they were ALL OUT OF FOOD. What? Nothing? I can guess why. Not only was it 9pm but it was 9pm on September 1st. September 1st being the day after the entire month of August. And if you know Edinburgh, you know August is a HUGE touristy party month. Evidenced by the traffic cone you see on the statue above. Everyone must have eaten all the food before we got there.
So with my son’s anxiety kicking in, we ended up eating at a place called Byron’s that touted “proper burgers” mostly because they were open and still had food. Think a quieter Red Robin. I was, however, pleasantly surprised at the salad options and ordered one with the word “superfood” in it and added grilled chicken. It surpassed my expectations and my son was quite pleased with his burger. Did I mention how cute our tall waiter was? No pictures but think dark hair and Scottish accent.
And before you think I must really have an amazing willpower, we ended the meal with spiked milkshakes. Must be the subliminal messaging of this glowing sign in the window next to my head.
Yep, it was delicious. I had to try some Scottish whiskey while I was here, right?
The next morning while my son slept in, I took a walk to find Sean Connery’s childhood neighborhood. Yes, I can be that kind of tourist. I must have been a proper Sir Sean fan, as I did know it was pretty much torn down and it was raining just like it would be back home. And I was only half way certain the right direction.
The perk of my little jaunt to see plaque on the wall of a Hamilton hotel was that I discovered a lovely shop with gluten-free scones! Yay, my first British scone! And because I had studied up on proper scone etiquette, I knew that there is quite a debate on how to eat them. So, in an effort to not take sides I tried it both ways.
My testing has me thinking that the clotted cream must go first. Look how messy it is to put the cream on over the jam?
My next food surprise was actually while we were in the Edinburgh castle. Since my son really hadn’t eaten much for breakfast, we decided to see what was available in the castle café. He found a sandwich and drink and I was pleasantly surprised to see some gluten-free options and a cafeteria style food bar. I opted to go with something called the “Scottish Platter”. I am not entirely sure what some of the foods were on the plate other than they looked like real food. And the platter came with two sides and I was able to get some tasty salads. I do know that nothing on the plate was haggis and I’m still debating if I am sad about that or not.
I skipped the bread and most of the cheese but the meats went well with my salads! The stuff in the cup was like a chutney of some kind, sweet and tangy onions. Didn’t look just right but tasted pretty good.
For our second night and dinner in Edinburgh, I did some searching for gluten-free restaurants and we found an Italian one on Cockburn Street off the Royal Mile and our hostel. It was a tiny place with just a few tables and black and white photos of Italy on the walls. Let me say here, that for the most part I loved the places we ate in the UK just on the general principle that most of them were small hole-in-the-wall places. None with more than 8-10 or so tables. It makes one feel more like a local, I think.
Anyway, you can see how our food turned out. I ordered a seasonal salad without thinking about the fact that being an Italian restaurant that I would end up with a large plate of zucchini and eggplant. Yes, eggplant (and the peppers) are nightshades. Ugh. I ate it anyway and it was SO good it was worth the bit of stiffness in the joints that came later. Of course, that could have been the dreary Scottish weather, too.
They did offer a gluten-free pasta and here was the gluten-free bread that my meal came with. And check out that gluten-free chocolate brownie dessert that I did have to share with the kiddo. It deserves two pictures. I must really love him…
Sitting in this restaurant, across the street was a pub called Arcade Whiskey and Haggis House. I teased my son we should have gone there. I only mention it because right next door was a place called Miss Katie Cupcake! But it turned out to be jewelry, knickknacks shop. So disappointed, as I’m sure I would have been if I had tried haggis while in Scotland.
Before we left Scotland, I stopped by and picked up some more food for the road. Small grocery stores with healthy options seem to be everywhere to help you eat paleo in the UK! It was here that I spotted a small package of Maltesers that my blogging friend, Ritu, has mentioned on her blog several times. Again, not wanting to commit to a whole bag, this was just a few morsels. I have eaten my share of Whoppers as a child and wanted to see if these really were better.
Results? I’m not sure they tasted any different. I’ll admit it could be because they were “buttons” instead of the regular Maltesers or just a long time since I have eaten Whoppers. Or maybe just because I couldn’t get over how sweet they were. Sorry, Ritu.
England-London
After Edinburgh, we were off to finish our trip in London. What I ate here was a mix of finishing up the grocery store food that I was no longer able to store in the car as we had ditched it for the remainder of our trip and dining out.
Here I had the most amazing British breakfast with Bubbles and Squeak, which for some reason is what they call potatoes and cabbage cooked together. They say it is the sound the cabbage makes while cooking but I cook cabbage all the time and I’m not sure that is true. I’ll have to listen better next time…
For our day, we headed over to Windsor. We were there in the afternoon to beat the crowds per advice I had read and it worked out perfectly. As we left, we managed to get in line for royal ice cream from royal cows as they were helping their last customers. How could we not?
That night my son decided he was done with public transportation for the day so I headed out on the Tube to a gluten free place I had found called Niche.
O. M. G.
My friend Mark who is from Ireland had told me given me some advice before my trip. He said not to eat haggis or seafood in Conwy (something about nuclear reactors) and that I should have steak and ale pie. Turns out finding gluten-free pie in the UK is a bit tricky but Niche had it on the menu. Pie, anyway. I can’t tell you how long it has been since I have had a good meat pot pie.
It was worth the three or four tube transfers to get there from Southwark!
England-Greenwich
Two more days! Our last full day in the UK, we rode the river up to Greenwich to visit the Royal Observatory (I highly recommend this). Afterwards, we opted for lunch down at the pier while waiting for the boat to return to downtown. There were not a lot of options but there was another one of the Byron restaurants. Turns out they are a chain, much like Red Robin. My son asked if we could eat there and I decided it was better than a while conversation about eating somewhere different. I opted this time for a bunless burger and it wasn’t too bad. They had a special that included a side and drink for a decent price. Only soda and juice was listed as drink options but the waiter was nice enough to let me have sparkling water.
For those of you that eat like my son, he vouches for this cheese, bacon, hot sauce appetizer. The sauce was similar to Red Robin’s buzzard sauce…
Our “entertainment” while eating was a women and what must have been her mom sitting in a table across from us. Both were drinking shots but it appeared the mom (who had to have been approaching 80 years old) was out doing her daughter. Anyway, somehow the mom was irate with the waiter because she thought he had gotten her order wrong. Something about giving her salad instead of fries like she had asked. She literally almost threw the salad back at him as her voice continued to get louder. Her daughter was silent, neither trying to calm her mother nor confirming to the waiter that her mother was right. The poor waiter was doing his best to pacify her but not doing a very good job. It is one thing to point out an order was wrong, it is another to belittle someone for it. I think she even yelled something about whether he could hear at all and was stupid. We felt so bad for him that I left a tip large enough to cover our tab and what I imagine he didn’t get from them.
England-Horley (again)
We ended our day in Horley because we had a morning flight. My son opted to skip dinner but I wanted to walk to the grocery store for some airplane snacks. There was a Waitrose in town and a pub next door called Jack Fairman where I picked up some tikki masala to-go as takeaway and had a cider before heading back to the hostel. I have to say it was a mighty fine brew (Strongbow’s Dark Fruit) and the masala wasn’t bad either. Their menu was labeled for gluten-free and this was one of the options.
Our Departure
Okay, one more. At the airport, I decided to pick up something more than a snack to eat for lunch on the plane. I had heard that the Pret A Manger was a decent option so I waited in a long line to pick up some salad and coconut milk turmeric latte and yogurt cup. Totally worth it!
The one dining out experience I did leave the UK without was a proper Afternoon Tea. Mostly because of the timing of it and with most having a price tag over more than 40£ it wouldn’t be worth it for something that my picky child would not eat most of. Next time, I say, next time.
Grocery Stores In The UK
You probably noticed that although I did a fair job of sticking to a paleo diet while in the UK, I could have done better if I had eaten out a little less. One thing I loved about our visit to the United Kingdom is that there are grocery stores every where that offered enough that you could most definitely stay gluten-free and/or paleo while on vacation in Britain.
Yes, eggs are non-refrigerated in most parts of the world because they don’t wash them like the do in the United States.
Even in the urban areas, chain grocery stores offered hard boiled eggs and other proteins, along with prepared fruits and veggies. Eggs in a snack pot was my favorite way to eat paleo while in the UK and they always came with spinach! Hard boiled eggs in the States never come with spinach…
I finally started finding seltzer water the closer we got to London in the last few days of our trip. Also, along the highways most of the rest stops where something called a “Welcome Break” which was more like a mini mall with free wi-fi and at least one grocery store. Much better than just a bin with fruit cups like you might find at a Love’s truck stop here in the States.
And just for fun, I have to add these pictures of cakes that you can find at the grocery stores. Maybe it is just me, but in the United States, you usually have to order cakes likes these from the bakery ahead of time. A bakery in the States will have a few stock cakes but nothing like this. The British must take their cake very seriously.
Once in London, the larger grocery stores like Sainbury had quite a bit of gluten-free Free From Foods and other staples you could get to help you eat paleo while in the UK. So, I had to try these because Katie mentioned them in her post, too. Have you ever had a real flapjack?
Very tasty but very sweet. Almost sickeningly so.
Best if balanced out with protein. I smeared it with grass-fed butter, too.
I didn’t try any of these as we were getting ready to head out towards the airport but as you can see, there are plenty of gluten and dairy free options to be had.
One more admission. Based on Katie’s post I was aware of something called a Cadbury Flake. In the UK, they are everywhere. A stick of flaky Cadbury chocolate that “flakes” as you eat it. There is nothing comparable in the States.
Thankfully, they are usually attached to an ice cream dessert which I managed to avoid most of the whole trip (Windsor didn’t have it as an option). However, at my last grocery store stop, they sold them in individual packages. Yes, I bought two. My intention was to try one with my son and save one for home to eat with coconut milk ice cream. I know, silly reasoning since the Flake has milk. Anyway, on the plane as I was opening one and offering some to my son, he shared he wasn’t interested. So I ate the whole thing. No picture as evidence. Again, you can visit Katie’s post to see one in action.
To end, I made the mistake of leaving the second one on the dining room table with my other souvenirs and my son promptly ate it before I could take a picture. I’m actually okay with that because I most certainly didn’t need it after all the food fun I had already indulged in on our trip.
And I am now in search of more blogging friends that don’t eat so many sweets!
What is your experience trying to eat paleo while traveling? Do you stay hard-core or just do your best and enjoy yourself?
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