Vegan Ethiopian

by

Post by:

josh panel

A trip to Little Ethiopia

Most Los Angeles vegans will already know about Rahel – it’s a vegan Ethiopian restaurant that has been on Fairfax for years and years. The secret to its success? Consistently amazing food. I’ve dined there multiple times over the years and on each occasion, Rahel has nailed it. A couple of weeks ago I was in LA and met my friend Brian for dinner. Check out the photos below of the ‘Millennium Special’ platter which included a dessert. Forgetting that I can never finish the platters, I also ordered a sambussa and instantly regretted it (although it was delicious).

If you’re familiar with Ethiopian food then you’ll know that the feast platters are served on a bed of injera and include many different and diverse dishes. Accompanying this were some of the tastiest vegetable and lentil stews ever, which combined with the injera made a mouth-watering combination of flavours and textures. The melt-in-your-mouth pumpkin stew was out of this world.

The dessert, a little like baklava, was nothing to write home about but who cares after such a delicious platter?

IMG_0930IMG_0928 IMG_0929

You can visit Rahel online and make sure you pencil in a stop when you are in Los Angeles.

beer fest bottom banner

Discount in Berlin

by

Post by:

joe panel

One of the great things about living in Berlin is that there’s a Veganz vegan supermarket a 10 minute walk away, or even less on the bike. Veganz is really more of a mini-supermarket, though they do have a huge range of products available.

But like all supermarkets, Veganz often has special offers or last- minute reductions on items nearing the end of their shelf-life. This is great for a cheapskate like me. My eyes can sense those bright orange price stickers before I’ve even set off. As a result, we end up trying exotic foodstuffs that are normally out of our price range. (Our freezer is full of bags of grated Daiya cheese that were a bargain at €0.99 each!)

Read more

This will change your view

by

Which city on the planet has the most vegan ‘heat’ and ‘buzz’ at the moment?

I’m sure you are rattling off dozens of city names in your head right now. You are thinking of all the familiar destinations you hear about when people talk about vegan hotspots. Los Angeles. Berlin. Glasgow. New York City. Portland. Austin.

Well, how would you react if I told you a lot of the above are about to be trumped for vegan superiority by Warsaw, Poland?

A reader we will call Luke (because that’s his name!) sent me the following video and I have to be honest when I say it completely took me by surprise. Made by a production team named wawangrada, this 30-minute long video is an exposé on the truly staggering  presence of vegan food in the Polish capital.

I can hear the groans of the soundbite-only consumers already, but I implore you to take half an hour out of your day to watch this short documentary. It is one of the most eye-opening chronicles of vegan eating I have ever seen.

Video highlights include:

Read more

My favourite London burger

by

The days of thinking of Shoreditch as a wasteland overrun with hipsters and lacking in vegan food choices appear to be well and truly over.

Following on from my hysterical post yesterday about the best vegan food in London now being served in Shoreditch, I bring you even more news from the ultra trendy enclave.

My favourite vegan burger served in London now has a temporary pop up home smack bang on Shoreditch High Street.

Essential Vegan is a name known to most vegans in London. Vanessa Almeida enjoyed a pop up cafe for months on Portobello Road, has sold thousands of copies of her vegan cookbook and has been a regular food trader on Brick Lane.

Vanessa has mixed things up a bit and you can now find her trading every single day at Pump Shoreditch, a very cool undercover food market housed in an old petrol station on Shoreditch High Street.

Check out the fabulous food I purchased from her yesterday, including what is certainly my favourite vegan burger in the UK. You can’t go wrong with seitan steak and homemade vegan cheese!

Read more

Your Sunday fry up

by

I’ve got news for you that you are going to love.

Check out these amazing vegan breakfast options served at Veg Bar every Sunday between midday and 3pm.
The top photo shows one of the best vegan fry ups in London. My plate last week was stacked with deliciousness, including handmade hash browns. Not sure anyone else in London is doing that.

You can also see the breakfast burrito Josh enjoyed. It was crammed with rice, tofu scramble and a whole host of ingredients. He adored it.

These items are only available between midday and 3pm on Sunday at Veg Bar at 45 Tulse Hill, Brixton.

Good news gets better…

My new day club called Rock Queer takes place in the downstairs club underneath Veg Bar every Sunday between 1pm and 7pm. We play a wide range of alternative rock tunes and the bar serves vegan beer, wine and cocktails.

You can fill your tummy upstairs and then join us downstairs for a few hours of awesome music and socialising.

Follow Veg Bar on Twitter

Like the Rock Queer Facebook page

beer fest bottom banner

Vegan restaurant in an airport

by

I’ve been vegan for almost 17 years and I’ve seen a lot of changes during that period.

I can remember going to my first vegan fair at Conway Hall in London back in 1999. Somebody gave me seitan and I recall being incredibly confused.

I think there was choice of just one soya milk we used to buy from Sainsbury’s back in my early vegan days. It was sweetened with apple juice! Cheezly was the only vegan cheese on the block and I had the feeling that eating vegan was going to remain an outsider concern for a long, long time.

Flash forward to 2015 and I am now blogging about a vegan restaurant outlet situated inside Los Angeles International Airport. Times have changed.

Following on from our vacation in Southern California recently, Josh and I were booked to fly out of LAX Terminal 4. This air travel hub just so happens to be the site of an outlet for legendary vegan food chain, Real Food Daily. Yep. A vegan food outlet inside an airport.

The photos below show my club sandwich that was stacked solid with seitan, tempeh and avocado. Josh’s ‘build your own bowl’ meal was filled with brown rice, seitan, marinated tofu and steamed kale.

Read more