I ordered the special vegetarian platter which comes with injera or rice & any three vegetarian dishes. I went for the Injera with Ater Wot, Difen Misr Wot and Tikel Gomen and Jude ordered Injera with three other veggie dishes so that I could try all of the vegan stuff, this is one of the many reasons she's a great bff! Everything was flavourful and delicious (although a little on the spicy side for me!) and I think the Ater Wot was my favourite.
This was delicious, I really loved the shiitake mushrooms & the broccoli and the batter was perfectly light and crisp. It came with a side of plum sauce which went perfectly with the crispy fried vegetables.
This tasty dish is described on the menu as 'Chunky udon noodles with leek & red pepper, wok fried in soy & rice wine', I was pretty surprised when the dish arrived and also contained mange tout, mushrooms, bean sprouts and shredded nori. For me these were definitely pleasant surprises & it was even better than I'd expected.
This was a great sorbet, full of real mango and no horrible ice crystals.
We visited The Global again over the weekend to play Jenga & drink coffee. I remembered my camera that time!
I like everything about the global, it has a great community atmosphere, lovely people, great food, good booze & fun board games. Perfect.
The next day we went for lunch at Tampopo, a small chain of East Asian restaurants. The set up at Tampopo is very similar to both Wagamama and Pho which I like but Tampopo also label vegan options right there on the menu.
As soon as I saw the menu I decided that I had to have the Vegetable Tempura. I see tempura on a lot of menus but it's never usually vegan so I was pretty excited.
This was delicious, I really loved the shiitake mushrooms & the broccoli and the batter was perfectly light and crisp. It came with a side of plum sauce which went perfectly with the crispy fried vegetables.
To stick with the Japanese theme I went with the Yaki Udon for my main course.
This tasty dish is described on the menu as 'Chunky udon noodles with leek & red pepper, wok fried in soy & rice wine', I was pretty surprised when the dish arrived and also contained mange tout, mushrooms, bean sprouts and shredded nori. For me these were definitely pleasant surprises & it was even better than I'd expected.
Other dishes I spotted that sounded pretty great were the Vietnamese Com Hué, Korean Chap Chae & Indonesian Tahu Goreng.
Tampopo have a pretty great vegan friendly dessert section which is quite surprising for a chain place.
I really don't like ricey creamy desserts or bananas though so I got the mango sorbet!
This was a great sorbet, full of real mango and no horrible ice crystals.
Another great surprise was vegan LUSH soap in the bathroom, I love touches like this, it's so much nicer than the usual nasty hand soap.
Tampopo have locations in Manchester, Leeds, Reading & Bristol and I would love it if they'd come to Brighton. Hopefully I'll be able to eat at Tampopo again soon, I've been wanting to go to Manchester for ages so perhaps I should hurry up & make that trip.
On my way to the station on Monday morning I decided that a burrito was clearly an amazing breakfast option so I stopped off at Mission Burrito. Mission Burrito are a sponsor of Bristol Veg Fest so I thought they'd have some vegan options & I wasn't wrong.
I chose a burrito with rice, black beans (the pinto beans contain meat), the vegetarian filling which consisted of sautéed mixed peppers and red onions, guacamole & salsa verde. The staff were super friendly and helpful when I explained that I was vegan and I really liked that they had all of the salsas on the counter with chips to dip so that you could test them.
I did take a picture of my burrito but burrito's always look terrible in photos so I'll just let you imagine! Mission Burrito have locations in Bristol, Bath, Oxford & Reading and are currently looking into places to open their next location, Brighton please!
One other place I stopped off at in Reading was a little cafe called Picnic, they do a great soya latte & it was super cosy inside. I'd never realised how vegan friendly Reading was & I'll definitely be heading back there soon.
