The night before my birthday Nick & I met up with our friends J and Laura for dinner at Terre a Terre. I didn't take many pictures because I chose food I'd blogged about before but I wanted to show you my awesome dessert.
I had the delicious Rain Vodka Cherry Chocolate Churros and they wrote happy birthday on the plate and there was a candle and everything!
I'm like a six year old when it comes to birthdays, I always wake up really early (this is the first year I've managed to sleep past 6.30am!) and jump around - a lot! I think this picture'll give you a good example of the level of birthday excitement.
That's me wearing my new amazing cupcake's and unicorn's t-shirt Nick bought me from cakespy.com on Etsy. I got loads of great presents...
It's like Nick can read my mind (erm, birthday list!) I'm SO excited to finally have copies of Viva Vegan! and 500 Vegan Recipes, I've wanted them for ages. I also got some awesome prints from myzoetrope, The Beauty Myth, Paper Heart on DVD, Dandies marshmallows, Eco Planet cheese crackers and a box of chocolates from Rose City Chocolatiers.
After opening presents we had waffles for breakfast. I always make the 'Waffles I' recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking with added pecans. I was too excited to take a picture of our actual breakfast but we've had it before so here's the general idea...
After breakfast we took the train to London and went to see Legally Blonde The Musical!
It was SO awesome! Both Nick & I love musicals and Legally Blonde is one of my favourite films ever so it was a great birthday treat.
After checking into our hotel and chilling for an hour or so we headed out to Primrose Hill to meet up with our friends Holley and Kip and to have dinner at Manna. I'd wanted to go there for ages but North London's a bit out of our way and it's at the pricier end of the market but birthday's are a special occasion so what the hell.
To start we ordered the Manna Meze, a selection of 3 salads or starters for £18.
We went for the Living Pad Thai, Spring Rolls and the Smoky Tofu & Potato Roulade. I'd heard loads of great things about the Pad Thai and we weren't disappointed but it was a little hot for me. I really enjoyed the spring rolls, the peanut dipping sauce was delicious, but for me the highlight of this trio of starters was the roulade, yum!
The next day after a great night's sleep and some peanut butter on toast for breakfast at The Hoxton Nick and I headed over to Greenwich Market to find Ms Cupcake.
As a main I ordered the organic spaghetti & meat free balls.
I love pasta and hadn't had any for ages, this was yummy but I also tried Holley's Pasta of the Day which had a pestoey sauce and I think I liked it even more than my dish. If it's on the menu next time I'm there I'll be ordering that...or the bangers and mash, the tower of onion rings looked amazing!
I love pasta and hadn't had any for ages, this was yummy but I also tried Holley's Pasta of the Day which had a pestoey sauce and I think I liked it even more than my dish. If it's on the menu next time I'm there I'll be ordering that...or the bangers and mash, the tower of onion rings looked amazing!
Dessert is always my favourite part of any meal and I was SO excited to have an entire vegan dessert selection to choose from...so excited that I had two desserts! Firstly, the Manna Fruit Crumble, they even wrote me a birthday message on the plate!
It was SO damn good, if I'd only had one dessert I'd have definitely wanted more but as it was I think this was just about enough.
I love crumble and this one was no exception, especially because they gave it to me for free for being ridiculous enough to order two desserts!
My second dessert was the Matcha Mousse.
It was SO damn good, if I'd only had one dessert I'd have definitely wanted more but as it was I think this was just about enough.
They certainly know how to look after you at Manna and as we were ready to burst from all the food they brought us Petit Fours.
I really enjoyed the truffles and the chocolate cookie but I have to admit I didn't manage to try everything as I was far too full by this point.
I'll definitely be going back to Manna, there are at least another 3 desserts I need to try, I really liked the atmosphere and the staff were all lovely.
The next day after a great night's sleep and some peanut butter on toast for breakfast at The Hoxton Nick and I headed over to Greenwich Market to find Ms Cupcake.
Her colourful stall was easy to spot and we were super excited to see so many delicious looking cupcakes. After not too much deliberating we decided to get a box of four to share on the journey back down south.
Here we have (clockwise from the top) Kendal Mint Cake, Key Lime, Triple Chocolate and Cookies N Cream.
My favourite was the chocolate mint, it's my all time favourite flavour combo and this certainly didn't let me down. Moist and delicious chocolate sponge topped with a yummy but not too overpowering mint frosting. Nick loved the Cookies N Cream which was no surprise as it's the flavour he always requests on his birthday!
It was great to see someone running this kind of business as it's exactly what I want to, and am currently working on, doing myself. Hopefully I'll be seeing more of Ms Cupcake later this year as she mentioned she'll be coming down to Brighton in the Autumn to participate in a local vegan fair.
As you can see I had an amazing birthday and I'm going to try and be a more regular blogger in the up and coming year.
