This is a super quick post to tell you about a wheat meat I am adoring.
vegan
Chilli cheese dog
I ate something that was delicious. Do you wanna see it?
Quorn doing vegan
MAJOR vegan update for Quorn – available in UK from October 2015 – click here to read more
I find out a lot of information over on Facebook.
Last week Robb posted about Rekorderlig cider not being vegan which led to this post. Wayne is always sharing with me news of vegan food, including the glorious sandwich market stall Killer Tomato. Today I woke to a post on my wall from Sammy all about a tasting session for new vegan Quorn products. That’s right, Quorn are finally rolling out some plant-based options in the UK.
There has been talk for a while of a vegan burger made by the company, but enquiries were always met with a response of ‘no plans as of now to sell it in the UK’.
If you can be in Southampton on Saturday June 21, 2014 and you want to be one of the first people in the UK to try new vegan options from Quorn, it seems you could possibly even be paid for your opinions.
Follow this link to read all about it on the Rice Up Wholefoods website. The link includes details on how to register for the tasting.
If you do go, please pop on over to my Facebook page after the event and tell me all about it. I am so curious!
UPDATE – since posting the above info, I have received a few comments from people suggesting I should not give any exposure to Quorn or it’s parent company Premier Foods. Premier Foods is a huge business that also owns the Cauldron brand (amongst many, many more). It reportedly generated over £800 million revenue last year.
Please comment below with any concerns you have about the ethical concerns associated with buying from such a huge company/a company that makes huge amounts of profit from selling animal products.
ANOTHER UPDATE – As pointed out by a passionate commentator below, Quorn is no longer owned by Premier Foods. It was acquired by Montagu Private Equity. You can view the portfolio of this organisation by clicking here.
Never was vegan
You know when you think something is vegan because the company has told you it is vegan, so you have been drinking it for years and then you find out it probably never was vegan to begin with because it contains gelatine?
Yeah, that.
Vegans are angry. It has transpired via social media that Rekorderlig cider uses gelatine during the production process but told people it was vegan. These claims of the drink being vegan-friendly were made to consumers via Twitter and email over a period of time stretching back a few years.
Everybody comes to Hollywood
Apologies to my loyal non-Californian readers who have been suffering through post after post about vegan food well out of their reach. Maybe you can think of it as the motivation you need to scrape some savings together and get away on holiday. Make Southern California your next vacation destination.
So really, these tempting posts of decadent dishes are a public service. My civil duty to inspire the plant-inclined people of the world to broaden their horizons.
To carry on in this completely selfless fashion, let me tell you what you are missing by not eating at Doomie’s Home Cookin’ in Hollywood.
Doomie’s is the FGV version of heaven. Vegan pulled pork sandwich served with mac and cheese? Check. Cocktails and cold beer? Check. Decadent vegan desserts and sweet treats? Double check.
If I lived in Hollywood, I would most certainly develop an unhealthy emotional relationship with this meat free restaurant. Their menu is what you would show someone wanting to understand the term comfort food.
The only thing that I can’t approve of is the fact Doomie’s offer cow-derived cheese on request. Their food is so utterly delicious and out of this world, offering dairy seems such an unnecessary concession. I can’t imagine that any diner would feel short changed by eating the vegan versions. It is all staggeringly good.
Check out my meal photos below, including the bonus photo of the jumbo vegan burger Doomie’s served me during the Los Angeles Vegan Beer Festival.
How many snacks?
I have been busy catching you up on the amazing meals I enjoyed during my recent Southern Californian vacation, but a lot of what I consumed wasn’t from any restaurant.
Check out the photos below of all the vegan snacks I got my chubby, queer hands on. There is a huge range of plant-based products featured, some of them are my old favourites and some are newly discovered tasty treats.
Do you like the look of any of the following snacks? Are any of your faves featured? If you could only pick one, which one would it be?
How much
Being a frequent traveller, I am used to the exorbitant prices charged for food items at airports. I am not sure if the food vendors are paying a premium for the space or they have just discovered people will pay anything because they are trapped in that location.
Let’s play a guessing game.
How much do you think I paid for this vegan salad at Los Angeles International Airport last week? The answer is below the photo in US dollars. Take a guess and then scroll down to see how close you were.
Ready for the answer?
Watch cooking
Along with a lot of other west London based vegans, I often complain that not a lot happens for plant eaters on this side of the city.
Well, here is one event.
Angela Malik has just opened a culinary school in Ealing and is set to host a vegan cooking demonstration next week on June 5, 2014. The event will be a chance for attendees to watch a vegan Chinese meal be prepared from scratch before diving in for some tasting.
The event website states that you will observe the creation of wood ear salad with coriander, pock marked old woman’s tofu and stir fried Chinese greens with sizzling oil. Then you will eat it!
The tickets are available now. I would love to hear what this event is like if you go along.
Let’s hope this is just the start of more vegan events in the forgotten western part of the capital.
North West Vegan Festival
I honestly struggle to keep track of all the new vegan events and festivals popping up around the UK. It is wonderful to see the explosion of plant based activities taking place all over the country.
Grab your calendar and circle June 7, 2014 because we have another event to add to this ever-expanding list.
The North West Vegan Festival is a bumper event with more than 100 stalls that will feature all the usual activities such as cooking demos, educational discussions, film screenings and lots of vegan food. Oh yeah, there will also be vegan beer!
Get all the information you need from the event website and drop by the Lancaster Town Hall from 11am on June 7 for a big day of compassionate socialising.
So popular
Here’s a quick post to let you know I made it back to my favourite place to eat in the USA and it was perfect.
Native Foods Cafe is a rapidly-expanding restaurant chain in the USA with locations far and wide. News of a huge financial investment deal means they are now set to appear in even more cities over the next few years.
I would be the happiest FGV in the world if they could find a way to open a London branch. I would eat there every day. Honestly.
Follow Native Foods Cafe on Twitter and then check out my most recent feast below. The Oklahoma cheese burger is the stuff of legend and the Native wings are crunchy sticks of irresistible glory. I threw in some polenta bites and lavender lemonade to make sure it was a well-rounded meal at their Santa Monica location.