VBites Sunday Roast

The weekend before Christmas VBites invited me to come and try, review and give them feedback on their Sunday roasts. Super exciting! And, even better, they gave me a plus three so I could bring some friends along for a Christmassy meal. If you've been paying attention you'll know that I've been on a quest to find Brighton's best vegan Sunday roast for a while now and I couldn't wait to try another.  

So far in The Quest the top spot is taken by the Earth & Stars followed by The West Hill. Don't even get me started on the disappointing roast at The Sussex Yeoman or The Royal Sovereign and for reasons I have mentioned previously I won't be reviewing the roast at The Prince George.

We were all surprised by the effort VBites had put into our table for lunch, it was set up with about a million glasses, christmassy napkins and even christmas crackers! When they offered us a jug of cocktail on the house we realised this wasn't going to be your regular roast review, they were planning on taking us through the whole Christmas menu including their roast. 

To begin with we could choose between Ducky and Cranberry Pâté or Roasted Butternut and Thyme Soup. I went with the pâté because I wanted to compare it to the kind they sell as part of their packaged food range and also because I love a good pâté! 

I loved the presentation of this dish, each diner got an individual jar which meant that you could eat as much or as little as you wanted and then take the rest home. As well as being beautifully presented it was totally delicious, just the right balance of pâté and cranberry and very different to the duck and orange pâté sold as part of the VBites range.

As one of the friends I brought along is gluten free the kitchen quickly whipped up some garlic bread which we were all luck enough to try. Sarah was rightly worried that if she ate it all there'd be no room for a roast! 

We were all in agreement that this was some of the best garlic bread we've ever eaten, gluten free or not. VBites really seem to be on top of their gluten free game and I'd love to find out if this base was homemade or bought in - mainly because if it's bought in I want to find it, buy it and use it to make my own garlic bread!

After this course came a pallet cleansing sorbet made in conjunction with Boho Gelato. I took such a horrible picture of it that there's no way I can post it here! The Mulled Wine Sorbet with Star Anise and Cinnamon was interestingly flavoured and personally I think I'd have preferred it as a dessert option. 

Next up came the roast and I can honestly say we were all completely overwhelmed by the size of it! Without starters or the expectation of dessert I probably could have finished this whole plate of food but I'm not 100% sure. I ordered my roast from the regular Sunday menu so that it would be more useful as a reference point for vegans going to eat there throughout the year but it did come with some extras, like the rasher wrapped sausage and the mustard mash, from the festive menu.

First things first, this roast comes with a vegan Yorkshire pudding, the holy grail of vegan roast dinners. The West Hill claim to have one but nobody I know's ever seen nor eaten it and every time I've called I've been told they sold none last week so aren't making them this week. 

As a lover of mock meat and a longtime fan of VBites turkey celebration roast I picked the Turkey / Beef / Gammon combo over the nut roast. I'm unsure if you'd normally have to choose one of the three but I think getting to try all of these roasts adds a lot of extra value to the meal - how often would you cook all three roasts at home?! I really hope the triple meat combo is a permanent menu item.

Another often criticised part of any pub-style roast are the roast potatoes, these can make or break the meal. I make a pretty great roastie at home and I have to say that these came closest to the crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, roast potatoes I know and love out of any I've tried during The Quest.

My next favourite part of the meal was the cauliflower cheese. I assume these are one of the seasonal vegetables mentioned on the regular menu and I really hope they stick around. Cauliflower cheese, or even cheesy leeks, were one of my favourite parts of sunday lunch and I can never be bothered to make them when I'm cooking a roast at home. As well as loving the delicious turkey/gammon/beef combo, roast potatoes and cauliflower cheese I really enjoyed the crisp roasted parsnips. I also liked that they kept the carrots, broccoli and peas simple just like I choose to do at home, I like veg in almost all incarnations - no silly mint sauce needed!  I liked that this roast came with a classic gravy too.

If you're either gluten free or just not a fake meat fan VBites also make a nut roast on a sunday. This slab of nut roast was huge and chock full of chestnuts and veg.

I tried a tiny piece and definitely enjoyed it, if for some reason I don't fancy fake meat I'd definitely order it.

After our truly massive meal none of us thought we could manage dessert but when this plate appeared in front of each of us nobody could resist. At the back is a Chocolate Chestnut Torte with soya cream chantilly and in front an Amaretto and Raisin Iced Parfait with sticky apple.

These were so great and our table was split equally on which was best. My favourite was of course the chocolate torte, it was creamy and light and I loved the chestnut flavour. As I'm not a huge amaretto fan the iced parfait wasn't for me but my friends thought it was excellent.

Overall I was super impressed by this meal but let's focus on the part you can get your hands on this weekend, the roast. It's totally jumped to the top of the Sunday Roast Quest league table! VBites does lose points on the lack of a pub atmosphere, but it's not a pub so...! If a pub is what you want The Earth & Stars is the top choice. If you're looking for a delicious fake meat (or nut) roast, great veggies, classic gravy and a freaking Yorkshire pudding VBites is the place for you.

Now I also have to be completely honest here and say that I was considering visiting VBites for their Christmas set menu with three friends paid for myself but at £24.95pp, only £2 cheaper than Terre à Terre's festive menu, we decided to pool our cash and cook a roast together at home instead. Now that I've eaten it I totally think that this amount of food is worth £24.95, especially with the little touches like crackers on the table and the take-home jar of pâté. On the other hand this was a tonne of food and VBites might get more Christmas bookings by scaling the menu back a touch and dropping the price. What do you think?

The next place I'm planning on visiting on my great Sunday Roast Quest is The Almond Tree, this new veggie cafe is at Seven Dials and their Sunday Roasts sound delicious.

Let's catch up!

Hey hey! I've been so busy writing about my travels that I haven't stopped to tell you what I've been doing, well, eating, recently. I'm currently obsessed with Namul's, this new Bibimbap cafe that opened around the corner from me on Gardner Street early this summer. It's now the food I crave and my go-to whenever I'm not feeling up for cooking for myself.

There are three vegan bibimbap options at Namul's, the Classic Bibimbap (minus the egg), the Fluffy Tofu Bowl (also minus the egg) - the tofu itself wasn't vegan when Namul's opened but they've since changed it so that all veggies can partake, and the Mushroom Special which is my favourite.

The Mushroom Special consists of five types of mushroom - regular and king oyster, cloud ear fungus, chanterelle and shiitake, alongside shredded carrots, fresh greens, baby sprouts and fresh seaweed. This all comes on a bed of white, brown or black rice, I always chose black because it's so flavourful. You can also choose your sauce and I always pick Namul's Soy Sauce which is super delicious - I haven't asked about the vegan-ness of the sauces containing chilli (allergic!) and I'm unsure if the Goma Sauce is vegan.

This is such a light healthy delicious meal and I love, love, love all of the types of mushroom. It's one of the priciest dishes on the menu at £6.20 but it's totally worth it because it would cost a fortune to hunt down and buy all of those 'shrooms. I'm all excited just thinking about it and I'm totally counting down the hours until I can have it again.

My other summer obsession is Boho Gelato. I have always loved them right from when they opened with an awesome vegan selection to when they started a vegan friendly ice cream cocktail night. This week they outdid themselves when they unveiled their newest vegan creation, Peanut Butter Sea Salt Caramel. Vegan. Delicious.

This flavour stole my heart and the coveted favourite ice cream ever title. As you can see I had it in a cone with a scoop of Cookies and Cream, a flavour that I suggested and that they put into action. Nice one Boho Gelato!

I'm still on the epic Sunday Roast Quest and last Sunday Sal and I visited The Sussex Yeoman which had come highly recommended. The vegan roast of the day was a Vegan Rosemary and Sunblushed Tomato Polenta with chargrilled Mediterranean vegetables served with seasonal vegetables and roast potatoes. Phew, quite the mouthful!

This large piping hot plate of food arrived with a delicious helping of parsnip chips on top, I'll begin to think Brighton's pubs are in cahoots with a parsnip crisp company at this rate, I swear they're popping up on everything! I wish I could say that I enjoyed this twist on a Sunday roast but as someone who  dislikes bell pepper quite a lot there was an abundance of it left untouched at the end of the meal but the polenta itself was tasty and the plentiful aubergine and courgette were perfectly roasted. The roasties (that's roast potatoes if you're not from around here!) themselves weren't bad but I wasn't a fan of the tomatoey gravy at all. Putting my personal feelings about peppers and tomatoey gravy aside this was a filling and well seasoned Mediterranean meal but it certainly wasn't a satisfying Sunday roast. I'm told this is quite a strange roast option even for The Yeoman but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way to check the menu in advance.

So, The Quest continues! The Earth & Stars is still taking first place and there are still roasts to try at The Prince Albert and The Park Crescent as well as rumoured vegan options at both The Wick Inn and The Foundry.

One thing I can't believe I haven't blogged about yet is that Nick and I are currently fostering a kitty whilst his real mum is in New Zealand. His name's Rorschach, or, as I call him, Fluffkins! He's been living with us since the end of May and he's crazy adorable. We already have no idea how we'll cope with giving him back, I'll definitely cry! Just look at that fluffy tummy!

In other super exciting news, I baked for my first ever wedding this week.

This was definitely Operation Icing's biggest order yet and I really hope that they keep coming. I make quite a small amount for the charities by selling to cafes and website orders are where the "big bucks" are. I sell cupcakes through the website for collection in central Brighton in boxes of 6 or 12 which cost £12 or £20 respectively and every single penny of my profits go to animal charities. 

In other news I got sent some Frank bars to try recently, I love to snack so having bars like this on hand is great. They're gluten and nut free as well as being vegan and whilst they're mainly made with fruit they felt more substantial than, say, a nakd bar.

I loved all three of the flavours I tried but the Oat & Chocolate was definitely my favourite, I liked that flavour so much that I'm going to order a box of 20 in their summer sale - £10 for 20 bars, which should keep me going for a while. You can currently buy Frank bars directly from their website or via Planet Organic. 

Lastly I have a little competition for y'all. I'm going to be out of the country when London VegFest is happening but I'm giving away a pair of tickets worth £20 right here.

All you need to do to be in with a chance of winning is to leave me a comment letting me know which stall from the list of stallholders you're most excited about visiting at the fest', if you wanted to you could also vote for me in the best blogger category in the VegFest Awards but you totally don't have to!

The competition is open to anyone who'll be in the UK on October 5th & 6th and is able to attend the festival. The competition will close on August 31st and tickets will be sent to you by the lovely people at Veg Fest themselves shortly after the closing date.

Earth & Stars.

The weekend before last my ongoing quest to find Brighton's best Sunday roast continued. I've previously visited The George, The Cowley Club, The West Hill and The Royal Sovereign which, on my visit, was so bad I couldn't even really write about it. I know that for some people in Brighton it's their favourite roast but based on my last experience I doubt I'll be going back.

This time around I invited my blogger buddy Sal to come & help me taste test the roast and we hit up the Earth & Stars as soon as they started serving. We went early because I'd heard that this popular, eco friendly, North Laine pub can be a challenging place to snag a table at and we were glad we did, despite the reserved signs sat upon almost every table we were able to grab one that wasn't going to be used until 3pm. 

We quickly pit in our vegan roast orders and were delighted with the plate of food that appeared from the kitchen mere minutes later. I am a firm believer that a roast dinner should be enormous and hard to finish and this one defeated us both.

The butternut squash puff pastry parcel came atop a pile of classic roast dinner veggies including cabbage, leek, beetroot, sweet potato, butternut squash, greens, and, of course, roast potatoes. This was all rounded off with a white gravy and a generous topping of parsnip chips.

The potatoes were my favourite part of the meal, the roast potatoes are usually the biggest let down for me when it comes to pub roasts but these were nice and crisp - in fact all of the veg were cooked perfectly, again, something that a lot of pubs don't manage. Although the gravy was unusual it was also delicious, well seasoned and complimented both the pie and the veg well.

This pub lunch wins points for being served in the nicest pub visited so far on the quest. Not only is this pub powered by a solar panel on the roof but the bar staff were both friendly and amusing and the pub itself is cosy with a mellow chilled out vibe that's perfect for a lazy Sunday. Bonus points for having a vegan labelled beer / cider menu too, I think we may be onto a winner!

The only reason I'm still searching for the perfect roast is because ideally I would like a nut roast to be the central feature of the meal. I love nut roast and Nick will under no circumstances venture out to eat anything where the main consists of squash or mushrooms and I'd like to find a place we can go to together.

Today I'm meeting up with Sal again and we're going to try the roast at The Sussex Yeoman. It comes highly recommended by Liz and I imagine that the pub itself will bring back fond memories as my friends and I used to drink Sex on the Beach cocktails in there by the jug when we were 16!

The West Hill Pub

At the beginning of the month I headed to local vegetarian pub The George to check out their Sunday roast, sadly it didn't go so well. Between the below par food & the terrible customer service I decided I definitely wouldn't be going back. Something good came out of it though because someone left me a comment tipping me off about a new place to get a vegan Sunday roast in Brighton, The West Hill, thanks Becca!

The West Hill Pub's just up the hill behind Brighton station & whilst it's not a vegetarian pub they serve food with vegan options Tuesday - Saturday with a roast dinner on Sunday, check out their website for details.

I was so excited when I saw that they not only make all of the usual roast accompaniments vegan but that they hit the holy grail of veganness by serving vegan yorkshire puddings. Amazing!

As you can see there's no yorkshire pudding here, I'll get to that in a bit! The lentil, tomato & nut roast came with sides of roasted butternut squash, sweet potato mash, roast potatoes, broccoli, peas, two kinds of braised cabbage & gravy. I loved the nut roast, it came packed full of cashews and roasted vegetables. The roast potatoes were also really great, perfectly cooked & still crispy on the outside. I enjoyed the cabbage, the gravy was the perfect consistency, the only thing I'd have changed would have been to have had more broccoli because it was really well cooked & I am a huge broccoli fan.

So, about that yorkshire pudding. When we got to the pub we were told that whilst they do usually do a vegan yorkshire pudding they didn't make any today because they didn't sell any last week. Unlike at The George the lovely staff were really apologetic & felt bad that they couldn't offer us vegans the full Sunday roast experience, they were so awesome about it that they even gave us a buy one get one free voucher for our next Sunday roast. How nice is that? Seriously, I haven't had such great customer service anywhere in a long time & I will definitely be heading back there soon for more of their delicious food. If you're in Brighton on a Sunday & in need of a roast dinner you should definitely head to The West Hill.