The best pizza of my life ft. Dough Pizza Kitchen

Yesterday me and my housemate Alys took a trip up to Manchester to do a bit of research for our current uni project but also to have a little look around. As a southerner the only northern cities I've visited are Liverpool and Newcastle so it was nice to go and experience something new. We got off to a bit of a rocky start - i.e. an hour long wait for our coach at 7:30am in 4 degrees. Not so fun. When we got there we were both so freezing we desperately needed a hot drink and walking out the bus station we saw a sign saying 'tea' and that was enough for us. We ended up in this cute little restaurant/cafe/bar called Tea 4/2 where I had a chai latte and Alys had a hot chocolate.

We also ended back there at the end of the day whilst waiting for our coach as they do two for one on cocktails on weekdays so we couldn't really say no to that. They remembered us as well which was cute. They also do afternoon teas with these really amazing looking cakes (probs not vegan tho).

After this we went for a wonder round the Northern Quarter as we were looking for boutiquey shops and barbers for Alys and I was more than happy to be in an independent and artistic area. We saw loads of great street art and shops, also the COW vintage there is so amazing?! Who knew. Way better than the one here in Birmingham. Being the little foodies we are it wasn't long until we wanted lunch and I had searched for vegan places to eat in the city using the Happy Cow app (get it if you don't have it, it's free and amazing) and it came up with Dough Pizza Kitchen and oh my GOD am I glad we chose there. 

They had so many choices and everything can be made to be gluten free, the blue dots meant it could be made dairy free and the green dots meant it was veggie. So they did pizzas with meat and dairy as well as vegan options which isn't something I've ever seen from a pizza place before. More need to start doing it! The amount of independent restaurants is definitely something Manchester has over Birmingham as there aren't that many cute coffee shops or anything in the city centre and it's nice to support local businesses. 

This is the pizza I had and how amazing does it look?! It tasted even better. I got The Veggie which has vegan cheese, tomato, spinach, mushroom, sweetcorn and red and green chillies on it and Alys got the The Goats Cheese which had crumbly goats cheese, mozzarella, caramelised onions and tomato pesto stuff and it also looked really good. We both really enjoyed it and the prices are pretty reasonable for how good they were and considering everything was made fresh by hand there. Mine was £8.15 and Alys' was £8.65. Then literally just across the road from there is this really cute chocolate boutique where Alys had a taster of hot chocolate she said was like a melted brownie and I bought some fancy choc which tastes sooo good and is apparently supposed to make you smarter. I fail to see how but it tastes good and that's all that matters.

Sorry this has been an unintentionally long post but I had a really good time yesterday and it's deffo a city I plan on visiting again - just maybe when it's a bit warmer.

Listening to: Flume - Bon Iver