I am excited. I mean, really excited.
Check out the brand new (and amazing) travelling food vendor called The Vegan Grindhouse.
About Time
Just a super quick note to let you know about a new column I am writing for someone else. It’s not all about me, you know!
The wonderful and curious new online magazine called About Time has enlisted me to contribute a regular column called Fat Gay Vegan Eats. The first offering features my list of five destinations for vegans in Camden.
You can check it out here.
Vegan knowledge is power
How’s this for a UK first? You can book a tour of the giant Whole Foods Market store on Kensington High Street and you will be led around the complex for approximately an hour by their in-house Healthy Eating Specialist.
Oh, did I forget to mention that the specialist is a super friendly vegan named Maura? How cool is that?
Maura is in charge of all the cooking demos and food education that take place in the Kensington store. As a vegan, she makes sure plant based eating is front and centre of everything she does.
I recently booked a tour with Maura and was impressed by how she was able to personalise the experience for me. She really explored the vegan options available for me based around my love of quick meals and snacks (and maybe some beer). Maura pointed out products that matched my love of food and she often referred to my ethical choices. I didn’t feel like my health was being questioned and the nutrition information was pitched just right. I was interested in everything she showed me.
That’s not to say that she wouldn’t be able to cater for the health-conscious vegans out there. Maura explained how she loves to talk with store visitors about making the most out of the bulk section, vegan food nutrition, cooking vegan food from scratch and how she can even email you follow up recipes based on ingredients you discuss with her in store.
It really is a fantastic experience being taken around such a huge supermarket by a vegan food specialist. There is no pushing animal products. Maura is completely relaxed and helpful. The tour is flexible enough to feel inclusive for long term and new vegans alike.
The tour costs nothing and there is no pressure to buy anything at the end.
Maura of course welcomes non-vegans to tour the store with her. It is such a great way for people teetering on the edge of veganism to get a helping hand. This would be a perfect blog post to pass on to those people in your life who you know could be comfortable with vegan food if they just had a little more information.
Maura is definitely the person with that info.
Email Kensington@wholefoodsmarket.com if you are keen on taking the tour with Maura.
Cheap as chocolate
It is a wonderful time of year. A time of year I always look forward to with great anticipation. No, not spring. It’s time for discounted vegan chocolate.
Here are two delights I picked up this week in the post-Easter sales.
How about you? What have you found in the chocolate bargain bins this week?
What was good? What was amazing?
Raw in Camden
I was about to start this post by saying another week sees the appearance of another vegan food market stall, but I think they are popping up faster than one a week in London.
Rawwwsome is kind of unique, though.
The fabulous Steph has started this super cute stall right in the heart of Camden Lock Market. It is packed with incredibly healthy (and tasty!) handmade raw treats such as mint chocolate brownies, raspberry cheesecakes and banoffee bites.
Steph told me she is having a great time exposing this type of food to the mostly non-vegan punters of the market. During my visit, I counted almost a dozen curious people stop by to taste the samples on offer and every single one of them looked and sounded impressed.
And so was I. Everything I ate was gorgeous. Check out the photos below.
Get down to Camden Lock Market and eat all the raw treats from Rawwwsome. Follow Steph on Twitter. It might be a good idea to double check with her before you head down that she will be there. I think she is currently at the market most Fridays and Saturdays.
Ticket info
Can you believe it has been almost a year since London Vegan Beer Fest first stormed into our lives? What an event!
Beer was guzzled. BBQ food was devoured. Merchandise was snapped up. Karaoke classics were gloriously murdered. We certainly had a lot of fun and now it is time to do it all over again.
Fat Gay Vegan (that’s me) is thrilled to present London Vegan Beer Fest 2014.
When I decided to put this event together, it was difficult to imagine getting through the first year but now here I am ready to celebrate the second edition in 2014.
I overdid it at the soda shop
Here is some quick and tasty news for you.
Buy vegan soda in London that is delicious!
I have been hearing good things about new(ish) soda company Square Root and was keen to get it on my chubby tastebuds. This Hackney-based company make all their drinks by hand from seasonal ingredients and they sell them from a gorgeous vintage tricycle fitted out with taps from which they pour the tasty liquid.
Save some, eat some
As you probably know, there is a venue called Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium. It is a cafe in east London that is also a home for rescue cats.
Even though the cafe serves some vegan options, I am yet to visit. I think I have a problem with the concept. It doesn’t sit well with me that animals are on display.
The cats in the Emporium are comfortable and wanting for nothing, according to the website. They have enormous amounts of space and are free to leave the public area when they choose. All food and welfare concerns are dealt with and there are guidelines in place for how cafe diners interact with the cats.
But I still don’t like it.
I don’t like the concept of any animal being on display, no matter how loved. As I walked past the front of the cafe recently, it struck me how much it looked like a pet store. People can stand at the window and stare at cats inside.
I don’t think I would ever go on a safari to look at animals. I would never go to a zoo, even if the establishment had a pristine record of animal conservation. I hate hobby farms and baby farm animal exhibits at fairs.
Loved and cared for animals on show are still animals on show for human enjoyment. I believe this is a practise that needs to be questioned, challenged and changed.
If it is cat interaction you are after, you can always visit one of the countless animal rescue shelters around the country where the animals are desperate for companionship, playmates and the odd spot of grooming.
As far as I can tell from their website, Dinah’s is a commercial enterprise designed to make profit. I am opposed to people making profit from displaying animals.
To add further unease to the situation, the patrons of the cat cafe have the choice of dining on animal-derived foods during their visit. Don’t hurt cats but by all means eat feta or milk. Or why not even indulge in a salmon salad?
Just don’t hurt the cats.
How do you all feel about this sort of cafe?
Not just falafel
I’m not going to pretend the food in Just Falafel even comes close to my favourite eating place in London, Mr Falafel, but I will say they do a fabulous job of making vegans feel like they have another friend out in the wilds of the big city.
Just Falafel is relatively new to London, with a handful of franchise locations popping up recently as well as the corporately-owned outlet on Fulham Broadway. It was the Fulham branch that I first stumbled into and I was pleased I did.
The menu clearly states what is suitable for vegans and the manager of the store was more than happy to talk me through how they could veganise other items. I was attracted to an Egyptian falafel wrap with a side order of fries.
The fries were delicious and delivered in a super cute mini deep fryer basket. I was grinning from ear to ear. Potato is my life and Just Falafel on Fulham Broadway knew what they were doing with the good stuff.
The wrap was good, but certainly not overwhelming. I would rate it 7 out of 10. If I was in the area and hungry, I would definitely buy it again. I wouldn’t travel for it. I would travel for the fries, however.
Curiously, Josh and I visited the Just Falafel outlet in Covent Garden and were slightly less impressed. Josh actually said he would not go back and he works just a few minutes away. I was surprised by how different the experience was compared to the Fulham location. The Covent Garden fries were left unfinished by the two of us. That speaks volumes.
Now, back to the good stuff.
Check out my photos from the Fulham Broadway Just Falafel. I recommend eating there if you are in the area.
Tempeh on Leather
There must be something about Leather Lane that attracts the veggie food crowd. This curiously-named London street is now home to not one but two vegetarian sandwich stalls. Get eating down Leather Lane!
A short while ago I wrote about the glorious sandwich I enjoyed from Killer Tomato and now the Mexican sandwich stall has company in the form of a vegetarian Indonesian-style tempeh vendor, located on the opposite side of the lane.
This is a brand new business with a few kinks to iron out, but you can’t fault their enthusiasm. The owner makes his own fresh tempeh (a rarity in the UK) and it is fried and seasoned right in front of you on the stall.
All you have to do is pick your fillings, pay your money and eat a delicious tempeh wrap.
Word of warning: even though the stall is emblazoned with the words ‘100% vegetarian’, they bizarrely have a sauce that contains real fish. The owner told me he cannot find a replacement for this ingredient, which doesn’t sound completely believable to me. My pal Messy Vegetarian Cook conjures up all sorts of southeast Asian cuisine requiring fish sauce and her stuff is delicious. She has even shown me a bottle of vegan fish sauce she bought in London.
Get along for a tasty treat, but remember to voice your rejection of the fish sauce.
