Do you live, work or travel in the King’s Cross area? If you said yes, start licking your lips.
Club Mexicana is a new 100% vegan street food endeavour that is currently popping up every Wednesday as part of the Kerbmarket on Granary Square just a short stroll fromKing’s Cross station. You might recall the stall cut its chops as a pop up venture in the Black Cat Cafe across several Saturday nights a few months back.
Check out the photos below to be impressed by the stunning taco, tortilla chips and soup tray on offer from the market stall. The fillings rotate week to week but you will always find a combination of either BBQ pulled jackfruit, beer-marinated seitan, smokey black beans & potatoes and tequila drunken black beans.
Fat Gay Vegan (that’s me!), in conjunction with The Gallery Cafe of Bethnal Green, brings you a unique take on Mexican cuisine to east London.
The tastes, sights and sounds of Mexico City are coming to London for one night only. This special event is inspired by street food of the Mexican capital and the menu has been designed by me based on my love of the city.
**Ingredients are supplied in part by Cool Chile Co. Follow them on Twitter where they will be giving away a pair of tickets to this event**
The Gallery Cafe will be closed to the public as we dish up mouthwatering Mexican fare, play visuals on the large screen and pump up some Mexican pop music.
The menu for the evening will include:
Welcome cocktail and snacks (non-alcoholic version of cocktail available)
Esquites(street style bowls of succulent corn kernels cooked in a savoury both and topped with mayo, chile and lime)
Soft tacos(warm corn tortillas with a hearty, spiced filling topped with fresh avocado and herbs – served with mixed rice)
Churros(hot sweetened piped doughnuts coated in cinnamon and sugar served with dipping chocolate)
This is set to be a mammoth social event filled with food and fun. Gather your best amigos and get your tickets now.
Please note: tickets are sold on a non-refundable basis although you are permitted to sell your ticket forward in the event you can no longer attend.
Ticket price includes one cocktail on arrival. Extra beer, wine, cider, soft drinks, juices and hot drinks will be sold by The Gallery Cafe.
I have left Mexico behind (for now) but vegan versions of the cuisine are alive and well in our London apartment.
Josh conjured up this gorgeous dish you see below, reminiscent of a meal we gobbled in an organic restaurant in Mexico City. It was rather simple to make, looked fabulous and most of all, tasted like one hundred million pesos.
Recreating this dish is simple.
Sesame smoked tofu tacos topped with salsa verde, avocado & diced red pepper
Thinly slice a block of smoked tofu before searing it in a heavy pan. Lightly steam corn tortillas (can be warmed in the pan). Place the tofu with filling of your choice (we added BBQ sauce and vegan cheese) inside the tortillas and fold over. Arrange on a plate and cover with salsa verde. Dress with slices of avocado and diced red peppers.
That’s it!
The tortillas and salsa were from the Cool Chile Co. and the tofu was Taifun brand.
My mate and all round good person Kip from Messy Vegetarian Cook has stopped by to let you know her take on my recent 2nd Annual Day of the Dead vegan supper club.
She even took fab photos for you to drool over. Thanks Kip!
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Another event organised by Fat Gay Vegan, the second annual Mexican Day of the Dead supper club went off without a hitch.
Día de los Muertos—Day of the Dead—is a Latin American holiday that originated in Mexico to remember and celebrate the lives of those who died. Food and friends are a central theme in the holiday, and this supper club lauded both.
The dinner comprised of five courses (six if you count the hibiscus tequila cocktail): esquites (Mexican sweetcorn salad, a typical street food), smoky lentil soup with fried plantain, potato taquitos (deep fried stuffed corn tortilla rolls), seitan in hibiscus mole sauce with cacao nibs, and cinnamon rice pudding.
FGV in the middle
While I think it’s safe to say the overall diner favourites were the taquitos and lentil soup, what stood out most to me was the mole sauce. This rich preparation is the end result of a laborious task of toasting, grinding, and mixing a number of latin ingredients. Aside from the necessary chili component, other popular ingredients include nuts, seeds, chocolate, various spices, bread, and various fruits and vegetables. A mole can be incredibly complex, so to know someone painstakingly prepared it from scratch made the whole meal worthwhile for me.
Many thanks to chef Julio for his efforts and skill in the kitchen, and for his enthusiasm in presenting the food and culture of his country with such passion. Hats off also to Josh for his help and to Sean for hosting such a great evening. Also a massive final thanks to all of the companies who donated to guests’ take home goody bags.
I’m already excited about next year’s supper club!
My vegan Day of the Dead party has been months in the planning.
Huge goodies bags have been assembled for attendees. My friend has designed the menu based on traditional recipes and he has flown all the way from Mexico City to be with us. The room is decorated. We have an altar for offerings to the departed. The food is crazy delicious.
It is going to be a phenomenal party starting at 4:30pm today in central London. How would you like to join us for free?
The marvellous people at Cool Chile Co have donated two tickets (valued at more than £80) to be given away today!
Once following, you need to tweet them and tell them when you last ate Mexican food
You need to include the hashtag #FGVwin
Winner is responsible for their own transport and must be able to get to Holborn in central London by 4:30pm today (Saturday November 2nd, 2013)
Winner will receive two tickets to attend the 2nd Annual Day of the Dead vegan supper club and two goodie bags.
There is no cash substitution for this prize and the prize will be drawn randomly from eligible tweets – the judge’s decision is final (FGV and Cool Chile Co.)
Only enter if you are certain you can attend
Winner will be notified via Twitter at 1:30pm
Get tweeting. Tell your friends to tweet so they can bring you if they win.
If you do not win but would like to attend, there are roughly four tickets for sale from here.
Inspired by my love of Mexico and the wonder of día de los muertos celebrations, I am creating a one-off event that you will have a hard time forgetting.
Five courses of mouth watering vegan food will be served as you revel in the surrounds of a decorated room furnished with party supplies sourced from the streets of Mexico City. Sumptuous visuals will be projected to satisfy your senses as Mexican pop music fills the air.
In addition to Mexican-inspired snacks, you will be served:
Esquites (seasoned hot sweetcorn)
Lentil & ‘bacon’ soup
Taquitos (crispy fried tortillas with savoury filling)
Crusted ‘beef’ with hibiscus mole
Mexican rice pudding
The menu was co-created by a dear friend of mine from Mexico, who will be making an appearance at the event. I am busily putting together some fabulous goodie bags for attendees. More on that later!
Every attendee will receive a special goodie bag bursting with vegan treats including: a bottle of Choc Shot by Sweet Freedom, a packet of MozzaRisella rice cheese, a tub of Chocolate Orange Pudology, a decorative sugar skull courtesy of Mestizo Restaurant & Tequila Bar, a 20% discount voucher for Vegan Faces cosmetics, a bag of sweets from Need Sweets and a 10% discount to shop online with Cool Chile Co. All of the goodies will be yours to take home in a heavy duty jute shopping bag courtesy of Whole Foods Market.
Check out the blog post about the goodie bag contents here!
Ingredients on the night will be supplied by the Cool Chile Co. Check out their website for the best range of Mexican ingredients in the UK, including their self-made tortillas.
If you are keen to feast on Mexican-inspired cuisine, you should waste no time in snapping up a ticket from here.
One of my favourite places on the planet is Mexico. I adore the people I have met in Mexico. I love the flavours used to enhance food. The countryside is mesmerising and I am obsessed with the dynamic energy of Mexico City. It is one of the only locations on Earth where I feel completely at ease.
Given my acute fondness for the country and culture, you can imagine how distant Mexico feels from my current home in London. Thankfully, there is a company doing their very best to make sure I get an authentic taste of Mexico right here in the UK.
Please rise for the Cool Chile Company.
I was recently invited to visit the Cool Chile factoryin North London and what I witnessed was enough to bring a rumble to the belly of even a well-seasoned foodie like myself. The premises were stacked floor to ceiling with the most mouth-watering spices and condiments this side of Xalapa. Chipotles were whole, diced, powdered, tinned, bagged and presented in almost any way you can imagine. You think of any Mexican ingredient and rest assured the Cool Chile Company have got you covered.
Cool Chile chipotle ketchup
But surely the crowning glory of the company is the stunning piece of equipment they call El Monstruo. This wondrous example of engineering is responsible for the staple of all Mexican cuisine. The tortilla.
El Monstruo works like an independent tortilla factory. It takes the dried masa harina, mixes it into dough, presses and cuts the tortillas before cooking them on a long chain conveyor belt that loops back on itself inside the giant machine.
Workers collect the finished product at the end, weigh the bundles and shrink pack them for greedy consumers just like me. The machine works at the output of 3500 tortillas an hour and chugs away five days a week. That’s a lot of tortillas.
Mixing the doughCuttingComing out of the ovenThe end of the lineShrink wrapped for sale
I have not been able to source any other corn tortillas in the UK and even with that fact aside, the Cool Chile Company tortillas are some of the best I have consumed anywhere. We use them frequently in my kitchen and they even took pride of place at my Mexican supper club last year.
Vegan jackfruit carnitas made with Cool Chile tortillasFlautas stuffed with vegan chorizo & mashed potato made with Cool Chile tortillas
If you bulk buy from one food company this year, I couldn’t recommend highly enough that you make it Cool Chile Company. From their corn tortillas to their easy black bean soup mix, the company has everything you need to make delicious and authentic Mexican food.
What do you get when you mix FGV, Google and a Mexican restaurant in Central London? A whole lot of delicious fun, that’s what!
I was recently approached by Google+ Local to host a vegan event in the capital. Of course you know all about Google+ Local, right? Local is a fully integrated way to share your experiences, read reviews, view maps, browse businesses and immerse yourself (and your friends) in your local area. I am already swamped by social media but I am slowly getting to grips with Local.
I’m glad Google asked me to get involved with organising a vegan event as it has been a great way to sink my teeth into their new service. I have been writing reviews for my favourite London locations, as well as contemplating the idea of hosting a hangout. If you like the idea of exploring your local area via Local, read all about it here.
Are you available on Wednesday November 21, 2012 at 6:30pm? “Maybe” I hear you say? What if I told you I am hosting an event in conjunction with Google Local at a Mexican restaurant where all attendees will be treated to free vegan food and a tequila tasting? Of course you are available!
Eight people will join me in feasting on vegan Mexican delights and a sampling of fine tequilas picked out exclusively for our event. All at no cost to them.
How do you get an invite?
Get over to the Google event page and RSVP. Then follow the instructions on securing a place. I ate in the restaurant recently and believe me when I say you will adore the experience.
