Stockholm

For my birthday this year Nick and I headed to Sweden for Millencolin Fest, a little punk festival put on by Millencolin to celebrate their 20 year band-a-versary. For those of you thinking "Birthday? Wasn't your birthday in June Jojo?" Erm, yes, I'm a little behind, let's move on...

The festival was in the band's hometown, Örebro. They headlined both nights & it was amazing to see in my birthday dancing around to one of my favourite songs. The festival campsite was set up just down the road from the festival site and we stayed in a super cute little cabin. The campsite also had a water park so we spent plenty of time playing on the slides and in the wave pool, I definitely think more festivals should be set up like this! The festival wasn't great food wise, onsite this blue candy floss was the only vegan thing I spotted, but hey, I love candy floss!

Luckily there was also a supermarket between the campsite and the festival ground and they didn't do anything silly like ban you from bringing food into the venue so don't worry, we didn't starve! We ate plenty of fruit, bread, crisps and Swedish Glace ice cream cones which are called Tofu Line in Sweden. Yum!

After the festival we spent a few days in Stockholm. We'd wanted to visit for ages and it would have been rude to just fly in and out of the airport without spending any time there!

As soon as we got off the train from Örebro we dropped our bags off at the hotel and headed to Herman's Tradgardcafe to find lunch.

Herman's is a vegetarian buffet style restaurant with loads of outdoor seating and super amazing views of the old town across the water. The woman behind the counter was super helpful and she happily gave us a guided tour of the vegan options, everything was vegan except for one hot and two cold dishes that contained cheese. 

As you can see we loaded up our plates with a bit of everything! My favourite parts of the meal were the tofu and herb spread which I smeared all over some delicious homemade bread, the potato salad, wedges, pasta salad with olives, and the carrot and raisin salad. As is traditional with buffets I accidentally picked one thing that was far too spicy for me but it was worth a try and I got Nick to eat it so that it didn't go to waste!

We sat outside and enjoyed the view...

...and as it was my birthday I wasn't going to skip dessert even after that humungous plate of food. I went to see if anything was vegan and as is always ideal in this situation it turned out that everything on the dessert table was vegan! I went for a piece of the most decadent looking chocolatey thing there.

This chocolate torte came with homemade whipped rice cream, I'd normally turn down any kind of cream with dessert, I just find cream icky, but I said yes this time because we were sharing and Nick wouldn't have been impressed if I'd said no! He convinced me to try it and I was pleasently surprised, it was really light and airy and not cloyingly sweet. I'd definitely say yes to whipped rice cream again.

We loved Herman's so much that we went back there on our last day. We were in a bit of a rush to get to the airport so I didn't take any pictures but the buffet was super vegan friendly again and it was a great last meal.

One place I really wanted to visit whilst in Stockholm was Kafé 44. Kafé 44 is a cafe, anarchist bookstore and music venue run by three different not for profit groups.

This place reminded me of The Cowley Club in Brighton. We shared a super cheap slice of delicious chocolate torte...

...and a Cuba Cola. I love it when places sell fun Colas like this.

We'll definitely head back to Kafé 44 next time we're in Stockholm. It was a really relaxed atmosphere and it was fun to see different groups meeting up there to work on projects.

We ate dinner at Kokyo twice during our trip. Kokyo aren't a veggie restaurant but they do have a separate vegan menu. We were super excited to find out that they even have an English menu, we weren't expecting that and we'd written down a few Swedish words to help us choose what to eat.

Whilst the restaurant advertises itself as a Japanese restaurant a lot of the menu seemed Chinese and there are a few reviews on Happy Cow that confirm that this is more of a Japanese/Chinese fusion restaurant.

On our first visit I ordered the Vegetarian Chef Special which came with a small plate of sushi to start.

We both love sushi & I was very pleased to see both Inari tofu and avocado on the plate. The main with the special is the Kokyo Wok.

As you can see this is a simple vegetable stir fry with tofu and seitan pieces. I have to say that this was nothing special, I wouldn't order it again and I'm surprised that this is the chefs special as everything else we tried had way more flavour.

Nick chose the Gongbao Surou. Soya protein, carrot & roasted peanut in an aromatic sauce with a side of steamed rice.

We loved both the tofu and the sauce but Nick wasn't impressed that they had replaced the carrots with two of his most hated veggies, red pepper and courgette!

We decided to go back a second time because we enjoyed the Gongbao Surou despite the change of veg, we loved the sushi, and we wanted to try a couple of the other dishes on the menu.

Of course to start we ordered more sushi. I love that this place makes their own tofu and the avocado was nice & ripe.

We also got some Dim Sum, fried dumplings filled with soya meat, shiitake mushrooms & vegetables.

We loved these, perfectly fried and stuffed full of yumminess.

Of course I forgot to take a photograph of the rest of the meal but we ordered the Braised Vegetarian Balls to share and it was our favourite main out of the three we tried. There were plenty of meaty balls (hehe!) and the brown gravy-esque sauce was delicious. It was pretty huge too, which is always a win in my book, although we were a little sad that we didn't have any room for more dumplings!

Our other favourite place in Stockholm was Naturbageriet on Gamla Stan. It was a short walk from the Gamla Stan tube stop and in an area we really wanted to explore. We'd just planned to grab a quick breakfast from there but there were so many great vegan options that we took stuff to go for lunch too.

For breakfast we had a Kanelsnurra.

 This delicious sweet pastry was perfect and we took two more to eat on the plane.

For lunch we took one of these Spinach & Tofu pasties...

...and a veggie sandwich stuffed full of avocado, sprouts & tomatoes in a delicious homemade roll.

We really loved Stockholm, well, Sweden in general really! We can't wait to go back one day. We thought the countryside was really beautiful and the city was remarkably chilled, peaceful & easy to get around. Perfect. 

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?!

On the road again & headed for Groezrock.

A couple of weeks ago Nick & I headed off to Belgium in the van we took on our honeymoon. It was great being reunited with the van & getting back into road tripping again. We were on our way to Groezrock festival to watch a whole load of our favourite bands but we left a day early so that we could re-visit a lovely little campsite we discovered last summer.

One of the things I love about travelling in the van is having a fridge which meant that I could make & bring some delicious food with us so we didn't have to do too much cooking at the end of our long day of driving.

I made a simple potato salad using Plamil mayonnaise, Alpro soya cream, salt, pepper & lemon juice as my dressing. I also brought a quinoa salad made with everything that would have gone to waste if we hadn't been able to clear out the fridge, it had kidney beans, courgette, cherry tomatoes, peas, sweetcorn & cubed tofu - yum. All we needed to do to get this meal ready was to fry up one of my favourite burgers, slap in on a bun & eat. Here I am looking quite happy about eating!

I tried to do some research into eating vegan at Groezrock festival before we left but I could find nothing about the food there at all, once we arrived the reason for this soon became clear. There is no vegan food at Groezrock. Okay, that's not strictly true, you can get chips and some pretty uninspiring fruit. I still call this a fail.

Here's a selection of quick snacks we knocked up in the van...

A fishfinger sandwich! Sausage & Baked Beans on toast...

...and Alpro soya schnitzel with brown rice pasta & the nooch sauce from AFR.

That was definitely my favourite meal at the festival, I wish we could get the Alpro schnitzels in the UK, Belgium seems to have a much wider range of Alpro products than anywhere else in the EU, I wonder why that is?

I loved how easy it was to throw together the nooch sauce, I just made the dry mix at home, took it with us in a 1 cup sized tub & used that to measure out the correct amount of water when we were ready to get cooking. Perfect. I've done the dry mix & just add water thing with pancakes when I've been camping in the past, it's a great way to eat fancyish camping meals.

Having seen the awesome offerings from festivals like Coachella I think it's pretty lame that the festival organisers couldn't even sort out some falafel or something. If we hadn't have gone in our trusty van with a fridge full of food we'd have been screwed. I'm trying to forget about how annoying it was having to do the 45 min round trip back to the van every time we wanted something to eat because of course you weren't allowed to take any kind of food into the arena AND the fact that ALL the non-alcoholic drinks were made by Coca Cola & cost the same as a beer. I've been boycotting Coca Cola for years and it drove me crazy to have to pay the same price as a beer for a tiny 300ml bottle of Coca Cola water - I was under the impression I was going to a punk festival. The bands we went to see really were were amazing but I'm going to be thinking twice about going back there however good next years line up is.

I'll end this post on a positive note, here's a picture of me with a couple of dudes from one of my favourite bands in the world, Goldfinger.

It was actually the lyrics to the Goldfinger song Open Your Eyes that made me go vegetarian & soon after that, vegan. I fucking love them! In fact I've now been watching video's of their live shows for over an hour, I should stop & hit publish...