Groezrock Festival.

Last weekend Nick & I borrowed his dad's camper van & headed for Belgium. After last years disappointing experience at Groezrock we weren't sure whether to go back this year or not. The line up looked awesome as ever (Rancid, Anti-Flag, Bouncing Souls, Good Riddance, Hot Water Music, The Copyrights, Alkaline Trio, Lagwagon, Reel Big Fish, Motherfucking Refused!!) but remembering how annoyed we were at having to miss bands to trek to the van last year just so that we could eat and thinking back to having to buy crappy corporate water or bad beer was off-putting. After the festival last year I tweeted at & e-mailed the festival organisers to see what could be done about fixing the veggie food situation and after not hearing back from them I assumed that nothing was going to change...that was until we saw on Twitter that Just Like Your Mom catering were going to be there.

Just Like Your Mom are a vegan catering company who work closely with Alpro Soya to provide vegan food for festivals, events and touring bands. We knew they'd been catering for bands backstage at the festival last year (so close but yet so far!) and we were really really excited that we'd be able to eat this year. We booked out festival tickets immediately!

On arriving in the festival arena on Saturday morning we lined up to buy our food & drink tickets and then went in search of Just Like Your Mom. We spotted the stall with its large vegan food sign but they weren't open yet & there was no way to tell what they'd be selling...mysterious!

Their stall opened at 12 and when we went back there are 11.45 there was already a line, I was really happy to see that other people at the festival were excited about vegan food!

Once they opened their doors the crowd were visibly excited and soon it became obvious why. They had loads of Alpro Soya products for sale including Speculoos Soya Desserts and flavoured milks, Wheaty Chorizo Spacebars & a menu of delicious sounding hot food.

My eyes were immediately draw towards these delicious looking cupcakes. Chocolate with a whipped cream topping, a caramel swirl & chocolate chips. These were soft & muffin like and the frosting wasn't overly sweet meaning that they made an excellent breakfast. I couldn't believe what an improvement this was on last years sad (read, non-existent) veggie catering effort. Cupcakes at a festival! Amazing!!

There were loads of excellent savoury food options to choose from and we got started with some mock chicken nuggets...

...these crispy Alpro Soya nuggets came with a delicious homemade garlic dressing. They were perfectly crisp and to be served a homemade dressing at a festival instead of cheap ketchup was excellent.

Nick opted for a sausage roll...

...these seemed homemade which was brilliant and although I only got to take one bite (these were sold out when I went back to get my own!) I can safely say they it was delicious, perfectly soft flaky pastry encasing a delicious sausage, what more could you ask for?!

Last year at Groezrock the only beer for sale was Jupiler which although vegan isn't the kind of beer I like meaning that I stuck to soft drinks. This year Groezrock also had a 'Special Beer' section of the bar which sold Hoegaarden and my new favourite vegan beer, Hoegaarden Rosée. This sweet, unfiltered, low alcohol beer is perfect for a cider lover like me & I was happy to be able to spend my drink tickets on something nice. Unfortunately a bit of internet research tells me that this beer's only available in Benelux which I guess just means I need to plan more trips to those countries!

The next day Nick & I headed straight for the Just Like Your Mom stand for breakfast. We were contemplating more nuggets or sausage rolls but once we spotted these we quickly changed our mind!

These flaky chocolatey croissants were a great way to start the day. Also, vegan croissants at a festival is kind of ridiculous...ridiculously awesome! After catching Anti Flag's acoustic set we got back in line for more food and I finally tried a burger.

There were three burgers to choose from, the Crispy Burger, the Veggie Burger and the Eastern Burger. I chose the Crispy Burger and was very pleased to find that it was coated with a very similar crispy breading as the nuggets.

The Crispy Burger came on a soft warm bun with a great salad and the same garlic dressing as the nuggets.

Nick stuck with his festival favourite, the Veggie Burger.

This soyabean burger was filled with sweetcorn, carrot, peppers & onion and also came on a soft warm bun with a good salad.

Yet again we were incredibly impressed with the quality of Just Like Your Mom's food, these guys aren't like any other festival caterers I've ever encountered. The burgers came with two types of salad leaves, red onion, tomato, cucumber and grated carrot. The bread seemed freshly baked too & was nothing like the usual long-life-rock-hard crap I remember getting served at festivals as an omnivore many years ago. I really really hope that Just Like Your Mom will be at Groezrock next year...judging by the huge line at the stand every time we tried to grab food I'd say that they were super popular.

This year there's no doubt in my mind that we'll be revisiting Groezrock festival next year, wanna come?!