Restaurants

Itinerary: 24 Hours in the USA’s Oldest City, St. Augustine, Florida

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St. Augustine is a small city on Florida’s northeast Atlantic Coast. Founded in 1565 (yes, a whopping 200 years before the USA was founded!), St. Augustine’s claims to be the United States’ oldest city and is loaded with early American history. Today, the town is quite charming, offering visitors a walkable old town, gorgeous Spanish Architecture, including a castle(!), and tranquil beaches. St. Augustine makes a fun weekend getaway or a stop on a longer Florida itinerary. One could easily spend several days in and around St. Augustine, but if you only have 24 hours, this itinerary is for you!  Based off my recent weekend in St. Augustine, this post explains how you can make the most of St. Augustine in 24 hours!

The group at Flagler College’s Dining Hall during our 24 hours in St. Augustine. And that is, indeed, Tiffany stained glass behind us!

WALKING ST. AUGUSTINE’S OLD STREETS

Begin your time in St. Augustine on Aviles Street, aka the city’s oldest street, preferably in the morning to avoid the crowds of tourists and get the best pictures (without said tourists). There is nothing you really must “do” on Aviles except walk and take in the old timey sites (Aviles Street really leans into its status as “oldest street”). When you reach Plaza de la Constitución, what I would describe as one of St. Augustine’s main squares, walk up to the water to view the Medici Lion Marble Statutes (copies of the real Italian ones) guarding the draw bridge and then circle back to Plaza de la Constitución to view its gorgeous Oak Trees with Spanish Moss and the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine, which is a very beautiful and old Catholic Church. It still holds mass every Sunday if you are interested.

St. Augustine – the oldest city in the USA.

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Restaurant Review: Dishoom Breakfast, Kensington, London

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Loving our Dishoom Edinburgh experience so much, we returned to Dishoom in London (Kensington, specifically) for brunch on the last day of our trip. This post reviews our excellent brunch at Dishoom Kensington.

Rainy Kensington – we even saw a real Dalmatian!

Dishoom Kensington

There are numerous Dishoom restaurants in London, and there is a great one right in the heart of Kensington. We made a brunch reservation a few weeks in advance, but we probably didn’t need it on this wet, January Sunday. In fact, numerous parties walked in around the same time without a reservations and were seated without issue. Dishoom Kensington’s interior, and sign, has an art deco vibe that I absolutely love.

Dishoom Kensington.

The main bar area of Dishoom Kensington.

I was loving these lights.

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Restaurant Review: Dinner at Dishoom, Edinbough

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I absolutely love, nay, LOVE, Indian food. Dan doesn’t enjoy it nearly as much as I do but luckily for me, someone recommended Dishoom to Dan before our trip to Scotland (and London), so I had an excuse to reserve a table. In sum, and while Dishoom has been written about many, many, many times, our meal was fantastic and it is absolutely worth the hype.

Dishoom – the UK’s most famous Indian restaurant

Dishoom is a chain of 13 (currently) Indian restaurants in the United Kingdom. Founded in 2010, Dishoom is often described as “Indian street food” and was designed to feel like “an Irani cafe popular in Mumbai in the 1960s”. The founders left the business in 2017, but Dishoom is still incredibly popular and totally delicious. And, rumor has it that Dishoom is opening a location in New York in 2026…

Edinburgh’s Dishoom.

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A Hogmanay Food Tour Through Glasgow On January 2nd!

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Our second stop on our Hogmanay tour of Scotland was Scotland’s largest city, Glasgow. Unlike Edinburgh, Glasgow is not a charming European city with castles and ancient things; rather, Glasgow is a fairly modern city with a large university and numerous factories. It struck me as a real working town, in a great way. Along those lines, Glasgow has a reputation as being gritty and, in places, somewhat dangerous, and I probably would have skipped Glasgow all together had we not (1) needed to catch the train to London from Glasgow Central and (2) our friend’s grandparents met in Glasgow before immigrating to North America and he wanted to see the city. These two points pushed me into staying two nights in Glasgow. Due to both of our evenings being public holidays (yes, January 1st and 2nd are public holidays in Scotland), I didn’t get the complete Glasgow experience, but I did take a food tour with a lovely local, ate lots of delicious food and learned a decent bit of Glasgow history. I enjoyed Glasgow quite a bit and would like to return and explore further. This post describes the food tour that we took through Glasgow – my favorite way to see a city!

At Glasgow’s Brown’s Brasserie on the food tour. I loved the little palms.

STOP ONE: VEGAN HAGGIS AT A LOCAL BREWERY

Our first stop on our Glasgow food tour was at one of Scotland’s most well-known breweries, Innis & Gunn, for a beer and, dun dun dun, Haggis! Before diving into the main event (i.e., the Haggis), Innis & Gunn is a well known Scottish Brewery that makes, most famously, a slightly sweet, velvety beer aged in Single Malt Whisky casks. And while I usually hate beer (or anything) aged in whisky barrels, I do enjoy this beer! The brand Innis & Gunn was created in Scotland way back in 2003 and its an OG craft beer. Of course, our meal began with a half-pint of Innis & Gunn’s original brew, called, appropriately, the “Original”. As expected, the Original was incredibly smooth and quite tasty (despite being aged in whisky casks)!

Innis & Gunn’s Glasgow City Centre location. It’s right near Glasgow Central.

Clearly had a big Hogmanay celebration.

Innis & Gunn’s Original.

Moving on from Innis & Gunn’s noteworthy beer, our tour guide advised that the first tasting of the tour would be … Haggis! I was not particularly excited to sample Haggis again, but this was a vegan version (i.e., no meat!), so I was game to sample it. The Vegan Haggis was served in fried ball form, paired with a homemade brown “chippy sauce”. Being honest, I much, much, much preferred the vegan version to the real Haggis that I tried back in Edinburgh. I would actually order this version again! Point one for the food tour, as I would have never ordered Vegan Haggis on my own. The Vegan Haggis paired very well with the Chippy Sauce. Definitely give this a try if you want to try Haggis but are scared…or even if you just find yourself at Innis & Gunn. Even the meat lovers on our tour praised the dish.

Vegan Haggis with a Brown Chippy Sauce.

The full sampling at Innis & Gunn.

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Eating Our Way Though Edinburugh During Hogmanay.

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Of course when in Edinburgh, we had to take a food tour (it is one of our favorite things to do!). A few options exist in Edinburgh in terms of food tours; we selected Secret Food tours based on Hogmanay availability. Our tour was part Edinburgh history, part food tour. This tour was a good way to try some Scottish classics that I would not be keen to try on my own (like Haggis!).

Cullen skink – a Scottish classic.

STOP ONE: THE EDINBURGH CLASSICS

We met our a guide, who is a Scottish native, outside St. Giles Cathedral at 11 AM. We did not go inside (we went the next day – highly recommend), but listed to about 15 minutes of Scottish, Edinburgh and Hogmanay history. This was quite interesting, especially given the ongoing Hogmanay celebrations. After meeting at St. Giles Cathedral, we walked down to Grassmarket for our first stop at the famous pub called Maggie Dickson’s.

Maggie Dickson’s Pub. 

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