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.
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.
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.
If you are in London this week and are not attending London Vegan Drinks, I have two questions for you.
Question the first: why the heck not? Question the second: it’s because you are going to this fabulous vegan Italian supper club, right?
My pal Sara is a much-loved food creator and she has once again put together an eating experience for hardcore foodies. Sara has just arrived back in the UK following a vacation in South Africa and she is fired up, ready to put some serious food on the dinner table this week.
Check out the menu.
STARTER – Farinata – baked chickpea pancake with red onions served with handmade vegan garlic mayo
MAIN COURSE – Handmade Beetroot Ravioli filled with Fava Beans in cheesy cream
SECOND COURSE – Artichoke and Asparagus Gratin
SIDE – Blood Orange, Beet and Fennel Salad served with handmade sourdough
DESSERT – Caramel Tiramisù
Sounds lovely, right? If you are reading this soon after I posted it, you need to act quickly to book your ticket.
A little while back, Josh took over with a blog post about a vegetarian cafe in the heart of the Bloomsbury neighbourhood that serves up tasty meat-free meals during academic term time. Read about his love of the place here and then scroll down below for a shot of my tasty lunch there today.
The Mary Ward Centre Café is a long-standing favourite of students, staff and visitors to this learning complex, as well as visitors and staff from the nearby Great Ormond Street Hospital. The prices are maybe some of the lowest you will find for vegan options in central London.
Here is an Instagram snap I took of my lunch today. I thoroughly enjoyed the borlotti bean pie topped with creamy mash and the lentil stew with crispy potato wedges. Both plates of food just over £4 each.
I make no secret of how much I adore the Cool Chile Co. This London based business is my main supplier of essential ingredients needed to get my Mexican food fix.
They sell it all. Kits that take the mystery out of cooking the perfect black bean dish. Chiles that are chopped, diced, dried and powdered. Spicy chipotle ketchup. Sweet salsa verde. Their enormous tortilla machine churns out thousands of the soft, round things every week (I wrote about the machine here). They even have a chorizo spice kit that comes with instructions explaining how you can use a meat substitute if you like. I love it!
But something makes the Cool Chile Co. extra special. The people who run it.
Director Dodi and General Manager Kelly are some of the most down-to-earth, unassuming and outright friendly people I have met in London. Even if their Mexican products weren’t the best in the country (which they are by a mile), I would still want them to be a roaring success because of what decent people they are.
Mexican ingredient champions
It makes it all the more enjoyable to announce that I am partnering with the Cool Chile Co. for my huge vegan Mexican dinner taking place this week. Dodi and Kelly are getting behind UNA CITA by making sure we have the freshest tortillas in the country to make my three taco plate a dish you do not want to miss.
Cool Chile Co make this possible
As a thank you to the company for coming on board with my event, I am giving them a pair of tickets for UNA CITA to give away to one fortunate Twitter follower. You need to follow them and retweet THIS tweet to be in with a chance to snap up the tickets for this Friday’s event.
Love Cool Chile Co. and be in with a chance to win!
Limited tickets for UNA CITA also available to buy here.
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.
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.
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 Tomatoand 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 Cookconjures 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.
Here is a treat for you that requires very little reading. This post is super heavy with photos from my visit to the Natural and Organic Products Europe show that took place over the weekend at London Olympia.
It took me almost five hours to see everything and I was overwhelmed by the huge number of vegan companies and products on display.
The photos below don’t even come close to detailing the full range of cruelty-free goods at the event. I decided to include some of my favourites as well as brand new products showcased.
