London vegan news, reviews & events
It is time for a straight up vegan food blog post. Sometimes I love simply describing a delicious meal and nothing more.
222 Veggie Vegan is a glorious restaurant situated in West London. If you want details on their fabulous vegan alcohol menu or their handy location, check my earlier post. This one is just a quick fix for serious vegan foodies.
I apologise in advance for the money you will be forced to spend after reading this review. The plane tickets, the train bookings and the coach fares will be inevitable.
Sowerby Bridge is a picturesque village situated approximately halfway between Leeds and Manchester. The market town is nestled alongside the rushing River Calder and is made up of true story book visuals. Cobbled lane ways meet narrow passages amid historical churches, chimneys and shop fronts. Sowerby Bridge is a charming location sure to enchant most. Sold? OK. Well what if I throw in a world class, vegan restaurant?
I’m not usually one for disrespecting meat-free establishments, but neither will I pretend they are all fabulous havens of delectable and mouth-watering food.
If you find yourself stranded in Leeds for the day, places to eat vegan food are not easy to come by. If curry is your thing, make haste to Hansa’s and you should be satisfied with most things on offer. Feel like a quick snack or a tummy filler? Out Of This World stocks delicious vegan sandwiches, pizza slices and fudge to meet your needs. But if you are craving uninspired and uncreative dishes that are slightly overpriced, head on down to Roots and Fruits.
I know it would appear to some as slightly counter-productive for a FGV to ctiticise a vegetarian restaurant, but Roots and Fruits doesn’t make the grade in my book.
I do love a nice bar. Be it candy or other, a bar is a superb way of hitting the hunger where it hurts without ruining your appetite. If that bar can be based around delicious coconut, all the better for a FGV.
A little piece of heaven entered my life recently thanks to a health food company based in Lake Mills, Wisconsin. Oskri Organics is a small manufacturer producing goods in their own warehouse. Take a quick browse through their products list and you will find cooking oils, spreads, dried fruit, nuts, granola and much more. The only item from their repertoire that appears to have made it over to the UK is the Coconut Bar Original.
It has been a difficult battle and at times I have felt like I can’t go on. The vegan ice cream wars are starting to take a serious toll on me (mostly my waistline), but for the sake of public interest and immense greed I will continue. If only for my dear readers.
This is the part that gets confusing. Tofutti is a well-established brand, churning out masses of dairy-free products that are exported all over the planet. I have often enjoyed their vegan ice creams, dessert sandwiches, cheese imitations and even a mini, frozen, vegan cheese pizza. I don’t believe they are the healthiest food choices, but they satisfy in a cholesterol-free and cruelty-free way.
Potato is a food I enjoy mostly any which way. Roasted, fried, mashed… you cook it, I’ll devour it. With this established, you will understand it was with great excitement I set about creating a mouth-watering potato breakfast swimming in vegan cream and cheese.
Alpro products are everywhere in the UK. You can’t go into a major store without running into their yogurt, custard, pudding and milks. They produce a wide range of dairy substitutes using non-GM soy beans grown on land that is investigated to not have been deforested or reclaimed. Best of all, the entire Alpro range is suitable for a vegan diet. I had recently been craving creamy potatoes, leading me to search out the Alpro long-life, dairy free soy cream. This cream is housed in a handy and neat resealable carton. But I won’t pretend I needed to reseal it. All of the cream was used in one sitting.
As an atheist I don’t partake in rituals, rites or celebrations based on religious beliefs. But I’m certainly not going to let a little non-belief get in my way of a vegan Easter egg.
Whilst trolling around Sainsbury’s supermarket on Cromwell Road in London for a snack, I stumbled upon a delectable-looking treat in the section reserved for food allergies and specialist diets. The freefrom Easter egg stood tall on the top shelf and beckoned me with its yellow wrapping, shiny bow and cheeky swing tag advertising its vegan status. I was so taken by the snappy appearance of this seasonal snack that I was on the verge of offering to buy it a drink. Gift-wrapped, vegan chocolate doesn’t fall into my FGV lap everyday, so I barely hesitated as I swooped it up and deposited it into my shopping basket.
If vegan cupcakes are a sure way to my heart, I was head over heels in love today during a visit to the Ms Cupcake pop-up shop in Soho, London today.
Ms Cupcake is a fabulous vegan cupcake company I have written about previously and they create the best small cakes I have ever eaten. Since my visit to their Greenwich Market stall, I’ve suffered through countless sleepless nights as I’ve plotted, schemed and dreamed of a way back to their sweet treats. Well, my pleas were heard apparently. Ms Cupcake have a pop-up store situated in Soho, London this week and it is set to return again for two days next week in the same location. Positioned in a fair trade gift store called Fair Share, the Ms Cupcake table is brimming with six specially-created fair trade flavours that have to be tasted to be believed.
Leeds city centre isn’t exactly drowning in vegan food choices, but there is a special eatery that has been keeping our lot nutritiously-fed for over 20 years.
Hansa’s Gujarati Vegetarian Restaurant is every bit as much an institution as it is a success story. Hansa Dabhi is an accomplished chef, restaurateur, cookbook author, travel guide and business person. She has been at the forefront of quality dining in West Yorkshire for more than two decades and her North Street location employs an all-female staff. Hansa has made many appearances in support of her first cookbook and has been rigorously promoting her second. Charities supported by Hansa and her customers include Saraswati Vidayala, an organisation committed to constructing schools in India. As you can gather from this paragraph, Hansa is a busy human… and I haven’t even described her food yet.
Australia may have lost its only Maoz outlet when the Perth store shut up shop, but at least I’m still able to delight in their crunchy falafel goodness here in London.
Maoz Vegetarian is a chain of falafel bars that originated when their first store front opened in Amsterdam during 1991. Since then, the company has franchised locations all around the world. They serve delicious falafel, salad and tahini masterpieces in cities as widespread and diverse as Madrid, Hoboken, Paris, Rotterdam and Berkeley. Unfortunately, there weren’t enough falafel lovers in Western Australia to keep the doors of the Perth outlet open. I believe a Maoz in Germany might have also fallen by the wayside. But luckily for fine food connoisseurs, 15 Maoz locations are still left standing for our eating pleasure.