Exclusive vegan Valentine dinner

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One of the best decisions I made before leaving London for this latest six month stay in Mexico was to visit Paradise Unbakery in Kensal Rise.

The café was beautifully decorated and the food was superb. You can see my original blog post here.

Enough reminiscing. On with the future and the future at Paradise Unbakery is all about Valentine’s Day.

You really should book tickets for this exclusive event taking place on February 14, 2017.

The exclusive set menu reads like a dream:

  • Strawberry Kombucha Mocktail
  • Mermaid Platter: Raw Gnocchi OR Cooked Polenta, both with Loch carrot, “caviar” and “scallops”
  • Burger: Raw burger in a raw turmeric bun OR BBQ jackfruit burger in a focaccia bun. Both with veggies, cashew cheese, side salad and roast sweet potato or raw crisps
  • Raw Dessert for Two: a plate of two raw heart cakes and raw chocolate to share

As you can see, you can choose from raw or cooked options for some of the courses. Once you book your tickets, the café will get in touch to ask for your preference.

Tickets are priced at £32 each (plus booking fee). Additional drinks will be available to buy on the night plus you are permitted to bring your own beer or wine. Paradise Unbakery will supply the glasses!

This dinner sounds divine and I’m so happy to see a stunning vegan event like this happening in a part of London that doesn’t normally get a lot of plant-based heat.

Click here to book your spots for this special vegan Valentine event.

You can also let friends/lovers know you are going on the Facebook event page.

Vegan Vietnamese food in London

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How about this tasty news?!

Liz and Joe are a couple with big plans for their brand new vegan food stand being launched at The Boiler House in Brick Lane on February 25, 2017.

What’s so special about ANOTHER vegan food stall in that part of London? Take a deep breath as I tell you Eat Chay is a 100% plant-based Vietnamese food stall!

Before I show you some mouthwatering food photos, take a look at how the Eat Chay menu is going to work.

That all sounds RIDICULOUSLY fabulous.

Now for the photos. Vietnamese coffee and tea. Korean meat-free ribs. Start planning your first meal with Eat Chay now.

Be sure to follow Eat Chay on Twitter and Instagram. Plus, get all their details online.

Get down for the grand opening on February 25 and then visit Eat Chay each and every weekend following that at The Boiler House.

Extra note: neither Liz or Joe are vegan but have decided to invest all of their efforts into a 100% vegan food business. Interesting.

Vegan store now delivering

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There are so many things to love about Sheffield and home delivery from this wonderful vegan grocery store can be added to the list.

The Incredible Nutshell is one of the most well-stocked vegan stores I’ve seen. I’ve picked up some fabulous plant-based food from them that I haven’t seen anywhere else on my travels.

Sheffield is an extremely fortunate city to have this store and things just got better with the launch of their home delivery service.

Yes, that’s right.

If you live in Sheffield, you can shop online with The Incredible Nutshell and have your groceries delivered. The line up of products is impressive and includes chilled, frozen, cleaning products, snacks and so much more.

The wonderful Jez who works in the store told me the first orders are set to roll out from Monday February 13, 2017 and if the service proves popular, they will look into offering the service to nearby towns.

This is great news for anyone with access requirements that make store visits difficult and for people with work hours that don’t match store hours.

Click here to browse the online shop.

Vegan and half vegan

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OK. This is taking ‘meat reducer’ too literally.

A new UK food company is pushing what appears to be vegan meat replacements as well as products that are half meat and half vegetable protein.

LOL.

I’m always keen to promote new vegan meats, but Hooba Foods seem to be chasing a bizarre niche market that I’m not sure even exists.

The list of their vegan products include mince, meatballs and burgers. From the look of the info on the website, the main ingredient is mushroom. You can see the entire vegan-suitable range online here.

A photo posted by Hooba Foods (@hooba_foods) on


So that is the vegan range out of the way.

Now, about this 50/50 range.

Hooba market their 50/50 range as being ‘all the taste but half the meat’. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know anybody who eats meat who would knowingly eat a burger or sausage made with 50% meat.

I find this a very unusual product. Are there meat eaters out there that could be swayed with these half and half products? Would they work as a transitioning tool in order to help get people to stop eating animals completely?

A photo posted by Hooba Foods (@hooba_foods) on


Will you be recommending the 50/50 products to omnivores in your life? Will you try the vegan products by Hooba?

Extra note: Thanks to reader Stephanie for bringing this brand to my attention.

Decadent vegan cakes

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Berkshire.

I don’t know much about you. You’ve got Windsor Castle. You are west of London. I think The Office was set in your surrounds.

And you have a vegan bespoke celebration cake maker to call your very own.

Tiny Sarah’s Cakes is the stuff of sugar-filled dreams. The first time I looked through her photos on Facebook, I kept trying to think of an excuse to order a cake of my own. Surely I could find someone to marry or I could adopt a baby?!

Take a look at some of these creations and you will understand my emotional reaction.

Sarah is a French-trained baker and cake decorator. She recently became vegan and of course decided to turn her newly-established special order cake business 100% plant-based.

As you can see, Sarah’s cakes are extremely intricate so they can’t be shipped but she is willing to talk about shipping cookies and brownies to you if you are in the UK.

Otherwise, if you need one of her glorious vegan celebration creations you need to arrange to collect it from her in Bracknell, Berkshire. I’d say a drive to Berkshire would make your wedding or party perfect with one of these cakes.

I am in awe and I want to start seeing photos of cakes you all have specially ordered.

Go to Tiny Sarah’s Cakes online and like the Facebook page. Lots of photos can be seen on her Instagram.

Vegan afternoon tea for Valentine’s Day

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There is a cute tearoom in Exeter called The Hidden Treasure Tea Room and the big news you need to know about is the Vintage Valentine’s Sharing Menu taking place on February 14, 2017 between 4pm and 9pm.

The Hidden Treasure Tea Room is not a vegan establishment but if I had a quid for every time a reader raved about their plant-based options, I’d be a retired blogger trying to realise his dreams of becoming a Mexican wrestler.

This Valentine vegan menu sounds superb and you can’t even think about complaining for the price of £45 per couple for 5 courses!

Check this out:

1) Setting the table – pea and mint spoons, olive and rosemary forks, blue “cheese” and grape knives and a tropical granita.

2) Three tasty morsels – tiny tomato soup with a desert island, Mediterranean stuffed pepper and crispy rocket.

3) Take a break – herb broth-in-a teapot with savoury popcorn.

4) Sticky fingers – three delicious dips with a selection of interesting things to dip and share.

5) Divine decadence – a selection of desserts and two spoons! Including sparkling Prosecco and elderflower jellies, melting chocolate pots, brown sugar custard hearts, mini fruit pavlovas and fizzy fruits.

You will need to book a spot for this incredible vegan meal. The Hidden Treasure will understandably be packed on the day.

Call 01392 274134 or email hiddentreasuretearoom@gmail.com to reserve space.

You can also get more info on the Facebook event page.

Most popular of 2016

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I need to apologise for my lateness.

Last year I shared the most-viewed/liked photos from my Instagram account for 2015 sometime in January 2016.

Here we are in February and I’m only just now highlighting the most popular Fat Gay Vegan Instagram posts from 2016. So slack.

Last year, I gave a rundown of the most popular photos but I thought it might be more fun for you all to try and guess where they are from.

There are 16 photos on my most-viewed/liked list.

How many can you work out? Put your answers below!

Follow Fat Gay Vegan on Instagram.

New vegan burgers and sausages

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You should all be familiar with the Cauldron brand seen in most mainstream UK supermarkets.

They are probably most familiar to vegans thanks to their tofu and because a lot of their other products are only vegetarian.

However, the brand appears to be exploring more plant-based items with the launch of vegan burgers and sausages now available in Morrisons and Waitrose.

The sausages are billed as featuring mediterranean grilled vegetables, haricot beans and tomato pesto while the burgers are made from cauliflower, aduki beans, spinach and chipotle.

With the runaway success of Quorn vegan items, I expect we will see a few more Cauldron lines that are 100% plant-based rolling out soon (the two brands are owned by the same company).

Have you tried the new Cauldron burgers and sausages? What did you think?

Vegan food in a pub

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Have you ever found yourself driving the A1(M) between Leeds and Newcastle only to think how grand it would be if you could come off the motorway for vegan pub food.

I know we’ve all been there, right?

Worry no more, weary travellers. Baydale Beck Inn has a brand new vegan menu to fill you up and it’s kinda really impressive.

Baydale Beck Inn is a family-run pub on the outskirts of Darlington, County Durham.

Alongside their regular non-vegan menu, the Baydale vegan menu is now available all the time. Check it out below.

I don’t know about you, but that is one of the finer vegan pub menus I’ve seen.

You can check out Baydale Beck Inn on Facebook and see where they are located on Google Maps.