I am sitting in Mexico City as I type this blog post and I’m thinking maybe I left London a few days too early.
Check out this glorious vegan Indian food you can get delivered to your London home or office starting this week.
Food and drink in Newcastle
I don’t know if this is new info or if I’m out of the loop, but you are going to love this very vegan-friendly establishment in Newcastle.
The Bohemian is a super cool looking bar, restaurant and record shop (!) situated smack bang in the heart of the northern city.
So, just how vegan-friendly is it?
Supper club January
My buddy Jhenn is a food mastermind. She turned Veg Bar into a hotspot of culinary delights with her kitchen wizardry and has been serving up delicious food via her own supper clubs for years.
Now that Jhenn has stepped away from her role at Veg Bar, she has decided to dedicate her time and energies into staging a whole bunch of vegan supper clubs in her own home. London, you lucky things!
Check out the amazing list of events Jhenn is running in January alone:
Drink FGV
This is my favourite piece of news I have shared in a long time.
I’m thrilled to let you know I am making my very own beer!
The brew is being made and sold in conjunction with Dominion Brewery Company, which is also responsible for the incredibly popular Pitfield range of vegan beers.
Andy, head brewer and owner of Dominion, has helped me bring my ideas to life and we recently held a tasting workshop during which we fine tuned the flavours.
The FGV beer will be exclusively launched at London Vegan Beer Fest in July and will be available to attendees of Manchester Vegan Beer Fest and Glasgow Vegan Beer Fest later in the year.
You can follow Vegan Beer Fest UK on Facebook and Twitter to be the first to know about tickets and dates for these three huge events in 2016.
Following on from the beer fests, the FGV beer will be available to buy online and in independent beer shops, vegan retailers and selected bars.
Inspiral ending?
My buddy Quarrygirl alerted me to an article yesterday about InSpiral Lounge closing in Camden.
Well, it’s a little bit more complicated than that.
The article on the Kentishtowner website featured the following information:
Now serving meat
This ain’t cool.
One of the finest purveyors of savoury vegan food in London is now selling meat.
I have long been a champion of Koshari Street. This food outlet near Covent Garden has been selling their delicious vegetarian food for several years.
Their main offering was a sumptuous pot of lentils, pasta, fried onions, chickpeas and tomato sauce that is a staple dish in Egypt. I absolutely adore this food.
Unfortunately, Koshari Street felt the need to switch from a 100% vegetarian menu (all the savoury food was 100% vegan) and have started offering meat as an option.
I reached out to the restaurant to ask ‘what the hell?!’ and they responded by saying they aim to please everyone.
I’ve got two things to say about that:
- The animals you are serving up surely are not happy with this development, so you have instantly failed in your mission to please everyone.
- Your Twitter bio still features the phrase ‘Our food is 100% #vegetarian’. Reports of you serving meat go back a month or more, so I would think you need to urgently update your social media to avoid upset and claims of false advertising.
Koshari Street assure me that vegans can still eat the savoury tub of food as long as they stay away from the meat.
The major problem for the restaurant is a lot of us don’t want to anymore.
Vegan wedding
I recently answered a letter, in my role as resident agony uncle for Vegan Life Magazine, about how to deal with non-vegan guests at a vegan wedding.
My suggestion to the concerned reader was to throw the sort of wedding they wanted to throw. If people love and care for you, they will respect your wishes and enjoy the event.
That is exactly what happened during the wedding of Els and Matt. Josh and I were thrilled to be a part of the special event and Els was more than happy for me to share how wonderful the celebration was with all of you.
Check it out. This is what a vegan wedding looks like.
Jackfruit glory
Remember a few days ago when I posted about the best accidentally vegan product of 2015 being a cherry and bourbon sauce?
If you were too busy sleeping off your partying antics, you can check it out here.
Skip forward to today and I got my hands on the original version of this life-changing Jim Beam cooking sauce. Check out what we are having for dinner tonight.
Yes. Pulled jackfruit cooked in bourbon and BBQ sauce. Life is good.
The Jim Beam sauces are both suitable for vegans and available at Sainsbury’s.
Extra note: this photo originally appeared on my Instagram feed.
Vegan barleywine
This is some exciting news for lovers of drinking.
The always vegan-friendly Little Valley Brewery has just released a limited run of their brand new organic barleywine ale.
It looks like a real winner and at 10% ABV, you’ll need to take it easy with this one.
Here is what the brewery has to say about this decadent libation:
Eight of Europe’s finest hops and malts combine with fresh water from the Yorkshire Pennines to deliver a bottle conditioned barleywine ale that’s worth celebrating: rich, bold, dark, with hints of raisin and a strong malty backbone.
LVB X will continue to improve with age. Limited while stocks last.
Order online now and follow Little Valley on Twitter.
Eating in Glasgow
I am often found singing the praises of Glasgow. Well, not really singing because I can’t but I am known for seriously loving the city and its vegan food opportunities.
My recent-ish visit to the Scottish city had me all in a flap, trying to get my chubby paws on as much of the glorious plant-based offerings as possible.
Like I did with the following food/drink from The Flying Duck.