Chinese restaurant has vegan menu

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Hey Manchester and Manchester-curious people. Did you know about this non-vegan restaurant specialising in Chinese cuisine that features a separate vegan menu?

Let’s take a closer look!

Sweet Mandarin is a family owned and operated restaurant in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, although an earlier version of the business dates back to 1950.

The big drawcard at Sweet Mandarin for plant-eaters is the rather sizeable vegan menu.

The Sweet Mandarin vegan menu is rammed solid with glorious-sounding starters such as Salt & Pepper Tofu, Hot & Sour Soup and Vegetable Spring Rolls.

The main dishes section presents choices such as Tofu with BBQ Sauce, Hot & Sticky Vegetables, Jungle Green Mixed Vegetable Curry, and Volcano Tofu.

You can also dive into the vegan sides including Sweet Potato Fries and Pak Choy with Garlic.

You can follow Sweet Mandarin on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, but be warned you may encounter photos of meat as this is not a vegan business.

Click here to see the entire vegan menu online.

You can see the exact location of Sweet Mandarin thanks to Google Maps.

Vegan in south east London

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Vegans and vegan-curious of south east London. Get ready.

Two fab-looking vegan happenings are taking place in the Peckham/Nunhead area in an event location called Space at 61.

Space at 61 is available to hire for parties, art galleries and now it seems even vegan pop-up food events. Two vegan events are taking place before the end of April, so let’s get stuck into the details.

Event the first.

Yep. The flyer above says it all but to recap…

This is a two-day takeover by Core of Life featuring smoothie bowls, waffles, breads, cakes, and plenty of drinks.

The takeover is set for Tuesday April 25 and Wednesday April 26, 2017. Food is served between 10am and 4pm both days.

And the next pop-up at Space at 61?

The V Spot is showcasing a new spring menu featuring some of their favourite seasonal British vegetables on Saturday April 29, 2017 between 7pm and 10pm.

The 3-course, all vegan homemade menu is as follows:

Starter-Aparagus & sorrel salad with mustard aioli
Main- Garlic Fried Samphire, Courgetti & Chilli Pasta
Dessert- Rhubarb Cheesecake

There will be a welcome drink served and you are permitted to bring your own beverages for the main meal. The V Spot will have herbal tea and water available.

Tickets are not refundable, but they are transferrable. You can buy them online here.

There you have it. Two reasons to get involved in Peckham/Nunhead.

Click here to see the exact location of Space at 61 thanks to Google Maps. Follow Space at 61 on Facebook to find out more about future vegan events.

Beer and vegan food event

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A Facebook reader named Chris gave me some exciting beer-related news.

Magic Rock Brewing in Huddersfield is going full vegan and they have a month-long celebration to usher in this new era.

The entire month of June will be all about being vegan. Check out the celebration line up below.

Vegan Street Food Festival 2017
2nd Jun — 25th Jun

Each weekend in June, Magic Rock Brewing will have a different vegan street food trader (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) PLUS an all day vegan festival on Saturday 3rd June to celebrate the fact that their beers will now be fully vegan.

Dates include:

2nd, 3rd, 4th June – vendor TBA

Saturday 3rd June with four / five street traders (12pm-9pm)

9th, 10th, 11th June – vendor TBA

16th, 17th, 18th June – vendor TBA

23rd, 24th, 25th June – vendor TBA

Put one, two or all of these dates in your diary and get along to help this Yorkshire brewery celebrate going vegan.

Click here to visit Magic Rock online and follow the brewery on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Vegan in Samoa

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My friend Kay travels the world like no one else I know. She is always sending me photos from far-flung destinations and tempting me with gorgeous vegan food shots from her journeys.

Kay’s latest email included these shots of a vegan café and juice bar in Samoa!

Take a look at not only the fab food, but the beautiful decor as well, at Krush Juice Lounge.

HUGE thanks to Kay for these photos.

You can follow Krush on Facebook and get along to the café next time you find yourself in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Guinness not vegan yet

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Super quick post to remind you that Guinness is not yet vegan. So don’t buy it or drink it yet.

The world-famous brewing company released news last year (or was it 2015?) that informed the planet of plans to alter their filtration system that would remove their dependence on isinglass.

If you write to Guinness to ask them what is the latest with their plans to turn the brew vegan, you get the following information:

We are continuing to work through the installation and commissioning of a new filtration system at St. James’s Gate that will remove isinglass from the Guinness brewing process. We are making good progress on the installation and the project remains fully on track.
Like a great pint of Guinness, good things come to those who wait and we will provide a further update as soon as we are able to do so.

This has been sent out to numerous people via email over the past two to three months.

I get at least a handful of emails from readers each month asking if I know when Guinness will finally be vegan, so I wanted to give this non-update update.

Sorry I have no good news yet. Please keep me in the loop if you find out something fresh.

While you wait, you can follow Vegan Beer Fest UK on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram ahead of announcements about tickets coming soon.

Discount code for online vegan shop

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There are two things I love to do with this blog more than anything.

I enjoy sharing breaking vegan news and I adore helping you get a cheeky discount.

London vegan food emporium Greenbay Supermarket has decided that a bricks and mortar shop front in West London isn’t enough for them. The plant-based supermarket has now launched an online store, making it easier to get your favourite vegan groceries delivered to your home or office.

The online store contains more than 1,000 vegan products, offers free shipping for orders over £55 and delivers to any location in the UK (the world to follow soon).

And here is the even better news.

To celebrate the launch of their online shopping experience, Greenbay has given me a special discount code for my readers to get a whopping 15% off orders placed before May 30, 2017.

Get over to the online shop now by clicking here and use code: FGV to get your 15% discount.

You’ll find pantry items, snacks, sweets, household products, bathroom supplies and so much more. They even have tinned jackfruit!

Happy shopping!

Help vegan business

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Hey!

Doesn’t it make you feel like a happier person when you get a chance to help an independent vegan business?

Well, today you are going to be twice as delighted because two vegan businesses need your assistance.

First up:

Vegan brewhouse and all-round legendary company Brass Castle needs our help to buy a crowler.

What the fuck is a crowler? A crowler is a canning machine that allows beer to be canned fresh out of the tap.

Having a crowler will allow Brass Castle to sell takeout beer to customers at their taphouse, as well as package and send beer to customers around the UK.

At time of posting this story, the Brass Castle crowler campaign was 65% funded with 16 days remaining. Click on the photo above or here to pledge if you can afford it. They have vegan beer rewards!

Next:

The Spotless Leopard is a much-loved vegan food truck in Bristol and it needs our help to stay on the road.

Running a food business is tough work. Mentally, physically and financially. Profit margins are narrow, leaving not a lot of money spare for when emergencies crop up.

The Spotless Leopard has a batch of repairs that need seeing to if they want to stay viable and trading.

You can click on the photo above or here if you are able to push some money their way. They have great thank you rewards available if you are in the Bristol area. A small donation if you are nowhere near the city would of course be greatly appreciated, I’m sure.

There you have it.

Two opportunities to lend a helping hand to independent business.

Vegan options in Central London

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I was doing my usual sniff around the vegan Internet earlier today when I came across a vegetarian café in the Fitzrovia neighbourhood of central London.

KIN is open every day of the week except Sunday, with an early 7:30am weekday door time for customers looking for a little sustenance before the working day commences.

Of course it’s a huge shame that KIN isn’t a completely vegan establishment, but if you are in that part of town looking for a vegan meal you really could do a lot worse. Their stuff looks pretty spectacular.

Check out some of the vegan posts KIN has been sharing on Instagram.

A post shared by Kin Cafe (@kin_cafe) on

A post shared by Kin Cafe (@kin_cafe) on

A post shared by Kin Cafe (@kin_cafe) on

A post shared by Kin Cafe (@kin_cafe) on

A post shared by Kin Cafe (@kin_cafe) on

A post shared by Kin Cafe (@kin_cafe) on

A post shared by Kin Cafe (@kin_cafe) on

A post shared by Kin Cafe (@kin_cafe) on

You can see the exact location of the café via Google Maps and check out their full menu online here.

You can follow KIN on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

New vegan burger at Tesco

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This might not be news to you, but I’ve never seen this vegan burger at Tesco before.

As far as frozen burgers go, I’ve got to say this one is rather unique for the mainstream UK market.

Roasted peanuts, peanut butter and brown rice make up the main part of this burger, while their are chunks of avocado, red pepper and edamame beans also featured.

Makes quite a departure from textured soy protein!

The product also features the ‘vegan’ graphic on the front of the box for which Tesco is becoming noticed in plant-based circles.

Have you tried this new burger? Or is it not new and I’m just a bit behind the times? How does it taste?

If you are interested in nutrition values and ingredient breakdown, see the product listing on the Tesco website by clicking here.

Vegan cheese sweeps the world

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Have you noticed the complete domination of vegan cheese across the planet recently?

From the UK to Australia and from the USA to Greece, processed vegan cheese blocks and slices are available seemingly everywhere.

But have you ever wondered where all these cheeses are being made?

One surprising source of this vegan cheese onslaught is a Greek dairy company called Viotros.

Viotros started making vegan cheese a number of years ago to fill a gap in the Orthodox Christian market.

If you didn’t know, a lot of followers of the Orthodox Christian church fast on a regular occurrence which can include the removal of dairy products on certain days. You can read more about the fasting here.

Viotros discovered that vegans were just as excited about dairy-free cheese as Orthodox Christians, so they started packaging the fasting-suitable cheese for the plant-eaters and a revolution commenced.

Violife took Europe by storm and it didn’t take too long before other vegan brands started partnering with Viotros in order to get their own branded version.

Take a look at some of the brands making vegan cheese in conjunction with Viotros.

The above isn’t the full range of brands that have been tasking Viotros to make cheese for them, so please list anymore you know of in the comments below.

You can read more about Viotros online.