Kambi's and Cocktails.

Friday night saw me heading out of Brighton and into Hove for dinner and drinks with my friend Tabitha. We'd only really planned to get drinks but we both arrived starving and decided that cocktails on an empty stomach would be a bad idea - look at me all grown up & sensible now that I'm almost 30!

Kambi's was the nearest vegan friendly eatery and as I hadn't reviewed it before I thought we should give it a try. I hadn't ever eaten Lebanese food in Brighton before and we excitedly ordered the Vegan Meze for two. This comes with Houmos, Moutabal, Tabbouleh, Vine Leaves, Batatah Harra, Fatayer, Falafel & Salad.

I was really happy to get to try so many vegan menu items in one go and I wish more cuisines were presented like this so that you could try loads of different things. Out of the varied selection only the moutabal, fatayer and battah harra were new to me. At least that's what I thought! Upon tasting the moutabal I realised that it wasn't new to me at all but baba ganoush hiding under a different name! This was a-ok with me, I love baba ganoush and this one was truly delicious. The hummus was great too, super creamy, y'know the good restaurant kind that you can tell is made with plenty of oil and tahini, the vine leaves were also perfectly oily and fresh. Both myself and my dining companion enjoyed the new-to-us batatah harra which if, like me, you're in the dark, is a sautéed potato dish with coriander, garlic, sweet peppers & chilli. I'm pretty sure that the only chillies in this dish were the two whole ones balanced on top and I think I enjoyed it all the more for that reason! The falafel balls were crispy on the outside but a little unsubstantial on the inside, there were also only three which for a dish two people are meant to share is just silly! Overall we enjoyed the food itself but we definitely didn't think that it was worth £20! They either need to lower the price or make it a helluva lot bigger! Kambi's is located on Western Road a little way past Waitrose and right next to the (hopefully opening really soon) new Hove Iydea location.

Here's the real reason for our trip into Hove. Cocktails. Not just any cocktails though, oh no, it takes a lot to get me to cross that Brighton / Hove boundary and Boho Gelato teaming up with Slice Sussex for a monthly frozen cocktail night is definitely the kind of thing that'll do it!

It's no secret that I love Boho Gelato, they have at least six vegan flavours in the cabinet every day and as soon as the sun comes out I'm there at least bi-weekly for my gelato fix. Unsurprisingly when I heard about this monthly cocktail night I was super excited and couldn't wait to check it out. Neither of us had been to Slice Sussex before and we were pleased to find a really cosy relaxed cafe-style place with cute angle-poise lamps and comfy armchairs.

The menu had three dairy and three non-dairy cocktails and the lovely people at Slice Sussex happily looked into which boozes were vegan friendly so that we didn't have to do all of the work ourselves.

I started with a Mojito Slush and Tabitha went for the Negroneeevil, a concoction of blood orange and chilli sorbet mixed with gin but minus the vermouth and campari.

The Mojito Slush ended up being my favourite drink of the evening. Consisting of mojito sorbet, white rum and fresh mint this drink is the perfect summer refreshment. I think I'll be buying a tub of the mojito to bring home so that I can make these in my blender come proper summer time.

Next we both tried the Red Lotus, a mix of Lychee & Cranberry sorbet, vodka and cachaca.

This one almost tasted flowery and like a sweet (one that we couldn't put our finger on!), I really liked the light foam on top of the drink and it was Tabitha's favourite cocktail of the evening.

This is going to be my last Brighton based blog post for a little while, I'm heading to Seattle with Nick on Thursday to spend four or five days sightseeing and eating before we drive down the coast towards Portland for, well, even more eating! Then Nick leaves and I stay for Vida Vegan Con! I don't think I've ever been more excited about a trip...well, maybe the time Nick finally got on the plane to NYC!! I have a shiny new suitcase and an as yet untouched notebook to fill up with tips, plans and ideas from the con. I also cannot wait to finally meet up with old and new friends, I'll finally meeting people whose blogs I've been reading since '09! It's gonna be epic! I'll be trying my hardest to blog from the road, something I practiced in Manchester and actually enjoyed doing, so I'll see y'all soon!

VBites East Street.

VBites has moved to central Brighton and today I was their first customer! I've been peering through the windows for weeks and I was excited to finally get to step inside. VBites have fancied up the old Aloka location on East Street and I must say they've done a wonderful job. The whole place is light, bright, airy and stuffed full of vegan goodies.

The shelves are full of staples, from soups, beans and pasta to cereal, peanut butter and tea. They have a small selection of veggies and fresh bread and plenty of exciting treats like Chocoreale, Dame Blanche cookies and even raw chocolate buttons.

The fridge is stuffed full of an unsurprisingly impressive range of Cheezly, mock meats and fish substitutes as well as drinks, margarine, plant milks and creams.

They have an impressive chocolate selection too which includes every kind of Go Max bar and plenty of Moo Free.

The main thing I was excited about though was the menu. I had heard that it would be different from the menu at the Lagoon location and that's definitely correct. This menu has a great balance of mock meat dishes like the Classic VBeefy Burger, VB Fishy & Fries and their No Meat Feast pizza and homemade comfort food classics like the Tuscan Bean & Fusilli Soup, Classic Homemade Beanburger and a Falafel Wrap.

As I was there early (I wasn't kidding about being the first customer - they unlocked the door for me!) they were still serving the breakfast menu which runs from 8:30 - 11 daily. These hours aren't set in stone but I'm really hoping they'll be able to keep the early opening time, it's hard to grab breakfast before work in this city and it's currently impossible to find a vegan breakfast before 10 on a Sunday!

Whilst I was tempted by the Full English I decided to go for the Rasher Roll, their version of a bacon butty, which is not something you can find elsewhere in Brighton. There was a choice of bap, wholewheat or white, and it comes with three rashers, tomato and both mayo and ketchup.

This sarnie would be the perfect start to any day. The rashers were perfectly crisped around the edges, the warm tomatoes added a more gourmet edge to the British classic and the balance of mayo and ketchup was spot on.

VBites are also selling slices of cake, shortbread biscuits and pastries alongside a delicious sounding selection of sandwiches (including classics like Coronation Chicken and Cheese & Pickle) and baked potatoes with a wide range of fillings. There's a breakfast bar in the morning where you can plate up your own granola and at lunchtime it turns into a salad bar.

I loved my first visit and I'm already tempted to go back for more. I'd definitely say that this VBites location is a must visit for any vegan visiting Brighton.

Weekend Eats.

After planning on cooking up some tasty food at home this weekend I somehow ended up eating out for every meal! I feel a little ridiculous but it was a great weekend and now I have plenty of food in the fridge to last for the rest of the week.

After a late night dancing like crazy to 90's grrrl rock and pop at Traumfrau Nick and I managed to get up at a fairly decent time on Saturday morning to head up to London for a spontaneous lunch. We met up with one of my favourite cookbook authors and the kick ass vegan behind The PPK, Isa Moskowitz, her boyfriend and travel partner John of Laziest Vegans fame, Quarry Girl and her partner Nick.

We decided on Mildred's and managed to get a table in the middle of the lunch rush despite the queue. The key to getting seated right away seems to be to go with a group, they'll seat you in the light & airy upstairs dining room too which is a real win.

I've been visiting Mildred's for years so I was surprised and excited to see some new dishes on the menu. Almost everyone ordered the brand new Bangers and Mash dish and it was a great choice.

The mash was perfectly creamy, no sign of lumps here, the sweet tofu, apple and bean sausages were substantial without being heavy and even Nick, hater of all greens, loved the kale. The sweet pear jus really tied everything together nicely and I'd definitely order this again.

For me the real highlight of the meal was dessert. It's no secret that two of my favourite flavours are chocolate and peanut butter (I even spread PB onto my chocolate rice cakes!) so this new dessert was a real treat. The Chocolate and Peanut Butter Brownie is served with chocolate sauce AND ice cream, craziness!

Usually the ice cream accompanying this menu item is vanilla but that day they had chocolate on the specials menu and they were happy to switch it for me. I felt like I was living out all of my dessert dreams!! The perfectly crackle topped brownie and the chocolate sauce were both served hot making for a gooey and delicious dessert. I couldn't find fault with it if I tried, honestly, it was perfect.

After lunch I met up with one of my bff's, Sal from Alien On Toast, for a little wander around Chinatown before heading back to my place for an evening of silliness, snacks and chick flicks. It was awesome especially as Nick took charge of the kitchen and fried up batch after batch of delicious dumplings.

The next morning we woke up late and after much discussion about our favourite ways to eat potatoes we took our hungry asses down the road to WaiKikaMooKau for breakfast.

The WaiKika breakfast has always been one of my favourites and for some reason I haven't blogged about it since 2009! That's four years ago! Ridiculous! The breakfast has changed a little since then, the sausages, pesto tomato, mushrooms, toast and beans have stayed the same but now this full English comes with some delicious oven baked marinated tofu and instead of french fries it's accompanied by a much more appropriate hash brown.

This was such a perfect start to the day and it made me think that I need to go out for breakfast way more often! As well as being delicious it was also super filling and kept me going until Nick finished work. As soon as he walked in the door I demanded that he turn around because I had falafel on my mind. Never one to say no to falafel we were on our way in seconds. We've been eagerly awaiting the opening of Brighton's latest falafel joint, Fil Fil, in the old Red Veg location on Gardner Street for months and it finally opened this weekend.

As with any brand new restaurant there were a few teething problems, staff being unsure what vegan means and running out of hummus aren't great but what we did try made our trip worthwhile.

We ordered the 'meal deal' for £4.50 which is a falafel sandwich with hummus, salad, and a drink. Nick also got fries which he got to eat most of! I chose the wholewheat pitta which was served warm and stuffed full of fried falafel balls and a salad of fried onions, red cabbage, tomato & cucumber. Gherkins were also an option that day and by the look of the online menu they also have beetroot, lettuce, sweetcorn and olives to choose from.

I loaded up on tahini sauce both to make up for the lack of hummus and because tahini sauce is delicious. I also threw on a couple of blobs of amazingly strong garlic sauce.

It was a good falafel sandwich, the garlic and tahini sauces were both really flavourful and the falafel balls themselves were perfectly crispy and delicious. This place is definitely promising, I love that it's is a family run place rather than part of a chain but I'd like to see them gain a better understanding of their vegan options.

Street Diner!

When I travel I love to eat at food carts, from Clover in Boston to Arlo's in Austin some of my favourite dining experiences have been at these al fresco mobile kitchens. Thanks to the people behind Street Diner this outdoor dining experience has finally made it to my city. I headed there on opening day to check it out. 

Street Diner is located in Brighthelm Gardens on what used to be a slightly derelict patch of land, this area has been coming into it's own over the last few years with the introduction of a community garden in 2011 shortly followed by the North Laine composting scheme. I feel like with the beginning of Street Diner this small, accessible, green space has finally made it onto the map.

As soon as I heard about Street diner I was intrigued and excitedly started searching online to see if there would be any vegan options available at the market. Long story short, of course there are! This is Brighton!

The first vegan friendly place I came upon was Crocus Paella who I'd already spoken to via Twitter. Crocus have two paella options at the stall, one veggie, one non. The veggie paella looked amazing but by the time I went back to get some they'd sold out. 

I was lucky enough to try some of their bottled gazpacho though and it was delicious. They have four flavours, three of which are vegan - Classico, Almond and Raspberry, and Tomato and Strawberry. The Classico is unsurprisingly made from a mix of tomatoes and red peppers and one sip took me straight back to Barcelona. Next I tried the Tomato and Strawberry which I don't mind admitting I was a little dubious about but the flavour really surprised me. I'd expected the strawberry to take over but it just added a hint of sweetness and I actually enjoyed it even more than the Classico!

Crocus also sell their organic, saffron based, herbal teas at the stall. I'm not a tea fan at all but they sound really interesting.

My next stop was the all-vegetarian Sultans Delight stall. I've seen these guys before at the wednesday market at Churchill Square and at the new Old Steine weekend farmer's market but aside from a sample of babaganoush I've never eaten anything made by them before. The stall was bursting with beautifully presented Turkish & Middle Eastern style pastries and meze. All but one thing on the stall was vegan and the dishes ranged from a crispy sweet potato, spinach, and chilli filled borek to a healthy bulgur, mixed vegetable, and pomegranate salad.

My sweet tooth pushed me in the direction of the Baklava which was perfect. 

The little layered pastry was stuffed full of walnuts and pistachios and soaked in a simple syrup with a touch of lemon. It was amazing and I'll definitely be picking up another piece this week.

My final destination was Big Pan Cooking where I was pleased to see another sign advertising meat free meals. Big Pan Cooking make one huge pan of vegan stir fry with either potatoes or a grain as the base and a tonne of fresh veggies. This is piled high and topped with spicy chilli beans, or in my case, no beans. I'v never been able to handle spice and I've recently developed a full on chilli allergy! Fun!

My huge tray of stir fry was beautifully spiced, you could really taste the cumin, caraway, mustard seeds, wild garlic and fenugreek and even without the beans this was a huge and super filling meal.

Street Diner, which is on from 11-3 every Friday during spring and summer, features local traders who'll be cooking up fresh, delicious, food every week as well an ever changing selection of guest caterers to keep things varied. As well as the food I've shown you here I spoke to the people from the cute Creperie Lui food truck who assured me that a vegan and gluten free crepe is in the works for next week which I personally cannot wait to try. See ya there!

Ms. Cupcake Cookbook Review (and Giveaway!)

London based purveyor of sweet treats, Ms. Cupcake, has written a cookbook and I'm super excited about it! For anyone who's tried, or wanted to try, Ms Cupcake's delicious creations it's great news. If you haven't heard of Ms Cupcake yet lemme tell you a little bit about her.

Long time readers of the blog will know that I've always been a huge fan and supporter of Ms. Cupcake. From the days when I'd get a boat along the thames to get to Greenwich Market for her cupcakes...

...to the opening day of the store, to working behind the stall at VegFest, I've been there!

As well as creating wonderful sweet treats Mellissa, the woman beneath the hat, is sweet, funny and inspiring and I'm excited to be able to call her a friend. I'm SO happy for her right now because this book is awesome.

It's beautiful, it's hard-backed, and it's full of artistic colour photographs of gorgeous baked goods and the store's colourful staff. More importantly it's jammed full of recipes for everything sweet, from cupcakes to deep fried cookie balls.

Of course I've taken the cookbook for a little spin around the kitchen! 

I started with the Jaffa Cake recipe. I was super excited to see this childhood favourite in the book but if you aren't British you may not have heard of this delicious cross between a biscuit and a cake. The soft cookie comes covered in chocolate and an orange jelly hides inside. This recipe is super simple as it calls for orange marmalade rather than a complicated home-made agar based jelly. I was super sceptical about this idea at first but I have faith in Ms. Cupcake so I picked up a no-peel version from Waitrose and ran with it.

Aside from the marmalade I had everything else I needed to bake these in the house already. Awesome!

They were ridiculously quick and easy to throw together, as I was making them I remember thinking "Even Nick could bake these" and he is definitely not a baker (he does make a mean tofu scramble though)! Due to my baking these at night time I didn't really get a good picture but here they are chilling in the fridge.

The picture really doesn't do these justice, they were AMAZING! Seriously, so good. I planned to just eat one or two and then send the rest to work with Nick but, nuh-uh, that didn't happen. I ate more than my half and I can't wait to make them again. The recipe says that these can make 12 or 15 and I would suggest making 15 (rather than the 12 I made) for a more accurate Jaffa Cake.

Yesterday I made my second recipe from the book, the Chocolate Chip Cookies. I always grab a cookie when I visit Ms Cupcake in her shop or on one of her many stalls and I was super excited about being able to recreate these at home.

These cookies are huge, chewy, bakery-style cookies and they're perfect. They were ready just as Nick got back from work and we both loved them, I ate two as soon as they were cool enough to handle and they were almost exactly the same as the cookies from the bakery itself. I loved finding a new-to-me technique within the recipe which helps to flatten them out and to give them the desired chewy texture and this will definitely become a go-to recipe in our house.

The book actually doesn't come out until May 9th but a few weeks ago I was lucky enough to receive a review copy from publishers Random House. I had already pre-ordered myself a copy of the book so I'll be passing the review copy on to one lucky reader! Don't worry I've been super careful with it so it still looks shiny and new - no chocolate splatters or rouge bits of marmalade!

To enter the competition I need you to find me an adorable picture of a bunny, post it on Facebook, tweet about it with the hashtag #jojoisawesome and....hahaha, no. You just need to leave a comment on this blog post!

The competition is open to anyone, anywhere in the world and I will be announcing the winner on Friday May 3rd 2013. I have to post the book on May 8th before I leave on my epic Seattle / Portland / Vida Vegan Con trip (OMG! So excited!!) so please make sure that there's a way for me to contact you if you win and that you're paying attention to your e-mails so that I can get your address in time. 

Good luck!

We have a winner! The random number generator has picked Mihl from Seitan Is My Motor! Congratulations Mihl, Jaffa Cakes will soon be yours!

The competition is now closed!

Manchester: Shopping

Whilst in Manchester I ate out a lot but I also fitted in a few trips to food stores. I love looking around food stores, from supermarkets in new countries to health food stores in every city I pass through, I love them all. I almost always find something new and exciting and the stores on this trip were no exception. The first place on my list was Unicorn Grocery.

Unicorn is a workers co-op and it's entirely vegan, no label reading needed! Rad! As I was travelling on a budget I couldn't buy every new and exciting vegan product I laid my eyes upon but I took pictures.

I love to make my own seitan but it would be super convenient if you could get ready prepared seitan from shops down here. It would certainly up my laziness a little though. The sausages looked great too.

I was very tempted by these little tempeh & tofu salad tubs. They'd be perfect for turning a mini baguette into a meal whilst travelling.

I also spotted the new Melty Sheese! I tried them at a vegan fair about two years ago and I haven't seen them since. I assumed they'd sold the melty formula to Tesco for their free from range (which I was a little angry about!) but it seems that the melty just hasn't made it's way down south yet.

As well as being entirely vegan Unicorn is also refined sugar free. I was super apprehensive about this but as you can see I found some good stuff and the store certainly doesn't shy away from products containing oil, phew!

These Garlic sticks from the savoury snack section were amazing, super crunchy and very heavy on the garlic. I loved that they came in a ziplock baggie so that I could re-seal them to enjoy another day.

Unicorn also have a little deli where you can pick up all sorts of savory pies, pasties and pastries. I wasn't super impressed with this tofu and broccoli parcel, despite containing three of my favourite things it was a little bland.

On the other hand the Ganmodoki Tofu & Veg balls were perfect. These little fried balls are stuffed full of carrot, onion, hijiki seaweed, sesame seeds, garlic and herbs and they only cost 79p!

I really, really wished that I'd bought more than one.

The next store I checked out was Eighth Day, this veggie store is right opposite the university library and the Eighth Day cafe is underneath it. I didn't get a chance to eat there but it looked like they served cheapish canteen style food. I just grabbed a piece of the vegan lemon, almond and poppy cake from the deli counter.

Everything in this section is vegan!

It was the first sunny day of the year so I took my cake across to the lawns in front of the university library.

This piece of cake was the perfect spring day treat, the light and fluffy almond filled and lemon infused sponge was topped with a lemon sugar glaze and decorated with poppyseeds. It was super delicious, I never really make lemon cake but I should because it's pretty much my favourite.

Lastly on my stores-of-Manchester expedition I popped to Wing Fat in Chinatown. I picked up some preserved beans (anyone have any recipe suggestions for these?), noodles for 50p and some Peanut Butter Mochi.

Nick and I have plans to visit Japan in the not too distant future and I am determined to make myself like Mochi (and tea) before we go. This is the closest I've gotten to enjoying mochi! Peanut butter was always going to be the best possible filling for my tastes and I definitely prefer the kind coated in coconut over the cornstarch covered kind. I would say that the mochi love is coming to me faster than a love for tea. I just hate it all. I've never discovered a tea that I can even deal with drinking let alone actually enjoy but I have hope, a few years ago I also hated hot chocolate and coffee so ya never know!

My next blog post is going to be about the wonderful Ms Cupcake's upcoming cookbook, it includes a giveaway so stay tuned...

Manchester: Breakfasts

I'm a firm believer that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Without breakfast I'm a grumpy, lightheaded mess and nobody wants to hang out with that version of me!

Before my trip to Manchester I did a little research and scoped out where the best breakfasts were at. I didn't manage to eat them all but I did fit in three proper brekkies.

The first was on Sunday morning when we had a PPK meet up at Bistro 1847 in Chorlton. We all ordered the Full Breakfast and we managed not to start a riot when they told us that they were out of both avocado and soya milk!

This breakfast consists of two homemade sausages, tofu scramble, spinach, mushrooms, homemade spicy beans and toast. It comes with a side of vegan margarine.

This breakfast was mostly good, especially the sausages, which were lovely and crisp on the outside. I also loved the crispy French bread toast. The tofu scramble tasted a whole lot better than it looked, it was the first time I've had a scramble with neither nutritional yeast nor turmeric in the ingredients but it was still very flavourful. The only part I disliked was the beans, I am a firm believer that a breakfast bean should be a proper baked bean and not just any kind of tomato & bean combo - I have friends who think the total opposite of me on this point though and everyone else enjoyed them so it's just a personal preference thing!

My next breakfast adventure was at Odd Bar in the Northern Quarter. They don't start serving breakfast until 11am so as you can imagine I was pretty hungry by the time my meal arrived. Their vegan breakfast includes toast, baked beans, mushroom, tomato, a sausage, a hash brown, a spicy three bean patty and tofu scramble. As you can see there's no tofu scramble in this picture - they were out of tofu but I got an extra sausage and an extra mushroom instead.

I really enjoyed the falafel sausages which make a fun change from the often store-bought sausages I see in breakfasts down south and I was happy to see my favourite Heinz beans making an appearance. I also appreciated the inclusion of the hash brown as there aren't enough UK breakfast places including a potato product in their full English. The herby tomato made a nice change from the usual pepper covered tom' but due to the spice factor I wasn't the biggest fan of the bean patty.

I would definitely re-visit Odd and order this breakfast again but they really need to get some margarine! When I asked the guy working there for it he said "someone asked for it yesterday and I had to disappoint them too", they also disappointed the two people ordering after me who were both vegan too. Given that this place is a stones throw from a health food store I would have thought that the tofu / margarine issues could have been resolved quite easily.

My final stop for breakfast was Oklahoma, again in the Northern Quarter. The vegan breakfast options at Oklahoma are all toast based and you can add beans, jam, PB, marmalade or Marmite. You can also order sandwiches or baked sweet potatoes right from when they open at 10 if you fancy a more out-there breakfast. Unsurprisingly I went for my favourite start to the day - baked beans on toast.

These beans were close enough to Heinz that I loved them but they had a slightly different and more interesting depth of flavour. I should really have asked what brand they were or if they were homemade because they were super delicious. I also loved the granary bread which was toasted until beautifully golden and slathered in margarine. What a perfectly delicious end to my trip.

Two other places rumoured to have good breakfast options in Manchester are Eighth Day who apparently do a sausage sarnie and start serving food much earlier than anywhere else in the city and Mod's Cafe at The Thirsty Scholar which sometimes has a full English which includes veggie bacon. You can rest assured that I'll be checking them both out next time.