Prague

Sadly we didn't get much time in Prague so this is going to be a pretty short post - I'm already working on the next one though so I'll be back soon!

We stayed in a campsite just outside the city which, upon arrival at our allocated pitch, we discovered was over run with frogs. Now I like frogs but these were no ordinary frogs, they were teeny tiny frogs and the ground was literally carpeted with them - aside from the obvious vegan concern of not wanting to squish one (or 10) by accident they were really creepy. I'm embarassed to admit that I squeeled like a girl and ran all the way back to reception to demand, with terrible czech and frog impressions, a different pitch for the night! Thankfully they found us one without a frog infestation & I had a nice cold beer to celebrate!

The next day we hopped on the bus and headed into the city.

After some sightseeing it was of course time for food, we headed to Country Life Melantrichova as it was pretty central (it's just around the corner from the astronomical clock) & we'd heard they had a pretty large selection of hot & cold buffet items. We were pleased to see that the place was pretty big inside so they were plenty of seats even though there was a decent sized queue for food.

I of course filled up my plate with almost everything they had...

... I was excited to be eating so many fresh veggies as we'd just come from Berlin where I'd been filling up on fast food & I thought it was about time I attempted to be a little healthy. I enjoyed what I think was nut roast, the vegan pizza was pretty good but the star of this meal was the seitan & peanut stew, I didn't take much as I wasn't sure it looked great but damn it was good! I almost went back for more!

The dessert selection wasn't huge but I found a couple of things that looked interesting, a little chocolatey thing with a cashew on top & a coconut biscuity thing that looked like it was filled with some kind of cream.

It turned out that these were both pretty similar which was great because they were yummy! The one with the chocolate covered biscuit base was topped with something similar to a coconut macaroon and filled with what I think was hazelnut cream. The cashew topped one was filled with the same nutty cream. What was also amazing about these was that they cost about 10p each!

Next door to Country Life is a little health food store where we found vegan hazelnut & maple syrup waffles, my favourite Rapunzel Nirvana Noir chocolate & vegan washing powder. I believe the shop is fully vegetarian rather than vegan as we definitely spotted a few things containing milk powder but it's definitely a great place to go if you're in the area.

Cologne & Berlin

Sadly the Cologne part of this blog post is going to be incredibly short as we only got to spend a couple of hours in the city before the sky turned black & we were caught up in an enormous sand storm - it was some of the most ridiculous weather I've ever seen. I wish I had pictures of the apocalyptic looking sky but I was blinded by sand & a little too afraid of damaging my camera to brave getting it out of my bag. Thankfully before we had to flee to the van we managed to grab a drink at Signor Verde, an awesome vegan coffee & snack bar...

They have a selection of baguettes and desserts that changes daily but it was already getting late & I was too excited about visiting Vegane Zeiten, an all vegan store close to the coffee shop, to stop long enough for food! I did take a picture of the desserts though and I can confirm that the dude that runs this place is a lovely as everyone on Happy Cow says!

Vegane Zeiten is an awesome all vegan store that sells tonnes of fake meat products, vital wheat gluten, Go Max Go bars, Beauty Without Cruelty make up, cookbooks, t-shirts, Vegetarian Shoes shoes and much more. It was awesome, we spent far too much money but the girls working there were so lovely we couldn't help ourselves!

After Cologne we had a decent amount of driving to do before hitting our next major city...

...we stopped off along the way to stay at a beautiful campsite in Central Germany...

...but we finally made it to Berlin! Yay! I love Berlin, I've only been once before but this trip just reminded me that it's one of my favourite places in the world - I'd move there tomorrow!

After dumping our bags at the hotel we headed straight for Cupcake, an awesome little cake store full of Americana and vegan cupcakes. The vegan flavour of the day was Raspberry...

...and it was delicious, I love raspberry frosting and I'd forgotten about the super cute plates they serve all their cakes on! We couldn't resist more of their baked goods so I got a brownie to go...

...I ate it for breakfast the next morning and it was SO good, nutty but not too nutty and perfectly cakey. It was definitely on par with the brownie I had from Strong Hearts in Syracuse, I think brownies are definitely my favourite baked good! Anyway, after the brownie I spotted an ice cream store and had to pop in to see if they had any vegan flavours given how damn hot it was, I was in luck...

...they had a vegan berry sorbet which was perfectly refreshing, just a little sour & from what I can remember, less than €1. Now much googling has not given me the name or address of this place but if you come out of Cupcake & take a right towards Simon-Dach-Strasse it's right there!

After starting off our lunch in Berlin with dessert we headed here for our main course...

...Voner!! I was super excited about this, as was Nick, last time I came here they were out of Voner - the vegan doner kebab so we had burgers instead. Thankfully this time there was plenty to go around and we both went for the Voner in pitta with tahini sauce.

It was awesome, but like an idiot I'd eaten too much dessert first and couldn't finish it! After an afternoon snooze at the hotel room (we were SO glad to have air conditioning, it was far too hot for both of us!) we headed out into the night to look for food and ended up at Yellow Sunshine, a veggie fast food place with tonnes of vegan options and just enough grease to keep Nick & I happy!

We both went for the vegan chicken cheese burger with fries.

It was just as good as I remembered! After dinner we headed around the corner for an ice cream at Eis Sallon Tanne B as we'd heard on the grapevine that they do vegan waffles. Sadly they were out of waffles as it was pretty late but they still had ice cream & waffle cones so we were pretty happy.

It was damn good ice cream and we decided we'd definitely be going back the next evening to hunt for the waffles.

The next day we had lunch at Hans Wurst, Nick went for the burger and I choose the braised seitan steaks served over sweet potato mash with a red wine and mushroom jus.

It was all a little too winey for me to be honest but it was beautifully presented and the seitan was really tender and delicious. Sadly Hans Wurst is now closed making me more upset that we missed out on their Sunday brunch during our trip!

For dinner that day Nick insisted on having another chicken cheese burger from Yellow Sunshine & I certainly wasn't going to argue, I love burgers, especially of the mock chicken variety AND it put us right back around the corner from Eis Sallon Tanne B where we headed for dessert...

It was one of the best desserts in the entire world! Perfect waffley awesomeness with their creamy chocolate ice cream, amazing. I am in fact only ever going to visit Berlin between Spring & Autumn now so that this place will definitely be open! As it wasn't that late I picked up another ice cream for our stroll back across town, this time I went for a lime sorbet in a waffle cone.

That was certainly a good end to our last night in Berlin. The next day we had to quickly grab some brunch before heading towards Prague and after a disappointing experience at Cafe Vux we headed back across town to new veggie place Rootz.

Rootz has an English menu which is really helpful and the vegan options are really clearly marked on the huge board behind the counter and on the menu. Rootz is all pink, black & leopard print and was, as far as we could see, appealing to the teenage veggie market both with the decor and the simple menu.

I ordered a TLT - Tofu, Lettuce & Tomato and a side of fries.

I wasn't super impressed with this sandwich but the fries were good enough that we ordered a second basket to share!

Sadly we had to leave Berlin but we were heading towards the Czech Republic to visit Prague so I couldn't be sad for too long.

Writing this blog post has made me really miss Berlin but I'm determined to get back there again next year. There are still many vegan places I haven't been (Maja's deli's been closed the three times I've tried to visit!) & I need to go back to Nil as we didn't have time to eat their amazing Sudanese food this time around.

Gent

So after getting married in February Nick & I finally went off on our honeymoon at the end of July!

We hired a VW van...

...and we drove it around Europe for three weeks. We visited Belgium, Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Luxembourg and my next few blog posts are going to be all about our trip.

After a quiet first night at a campsite just west of Ghent we woke up bright & early and headed into the city for food and sightseeing.

Ghent's certainly a beautiful, that's me outside the cathedral but we were hungry and this is a food blog so I'll move onto the important part. As it was a Monday a couple of the places I'd like to have visited were closed but Avalon looked great so we headed there.

We were excited to see that they had a large garden and chose to take advantage of the lovely weather and sit outside...

...as it's not something you get to do too often in the UK!

After a quick look at the menu I knew I'd be having the lasagna, as I mentioned in one of my last blogposts I LOVE lasagna!

Nick was a little more unsure of what to go for but in the end decided on the broccoli pie...

Both meals were huge & came with side of bread and salad. The lasagna was our definite favourite, really tomatoey, loads of pasta and we liked the pesto dressing. Nick's pie was good albeit more quiche than pie, and whilst I loved the sides of broccoli in a creamy sauce, roasted butternut squash, carrots and onion and a bulgar wheat salad he wasn't the biggest fan and ended up polishing off a large chunk of my lasagna!

Even though we were stuffed dessert was a must especially after I'd noticed there was pie on the menu so we got a piece to share.

Apple pie, topped with strawberries & a vanilla sauce. Nick ate all the vanilla-ey bits, I ate all the fruit bits - perfect!

I definitely left wishing we were going to have time to go back there, maybe one day!

On our way out of the city we stumbled upon a little health food store called Ayuno. The store was really well stocked with tofu's, vegan milks and chocolate but we just stocked up on veggies for our dinner at the campsite and picked up these delicious treats.

So Yeah! chocolate ice cream, gummy fruits & gummy cola bottles. We enjoyed these whilst lying in a tiny patch of shade behind the van!

Next time I'll be writing about a flying visit to Cologne & our amazing weekend in Berlin.

Terre a Terre - Part III

My fellow blogging friend Kip & I decided to make the most of a midweek day off together and headed to Terre a Terre to sample their Great Growers Menu.

I get quite excited when Terre a Terre have one of these seasonal menu's as it's usually a cheaper way to eat at the restaurant (3 courses for £15) and you get to eat delicious, beautifully presented seasonal food.

To start we ordered Pulborough's Asparagus Army...

...described as a broad bean and thyme espresso with samphire, linseed flowery leaf relish and fried asparagus soldiers I wasn't entirely sure what we were going to be getting. I was very overexcited when I saw the beautifully presented plate, the little cup of soup, battered asparagus and little pile of samphire looked delicious. I'd never tried samphire before but I'd always wanted to after seeing it on almost every episode of Masterchef. It was delicious and I'll definitely be looking out for it when it's in season next year. The soup was seriously amazing, it was creamy and delicious and made me love broad beans even more, I loved having the little deep fried soldiers to dip in it and the lemon went with them perfectly.

Our main of choice (well, not exactly choice as it was the only vegan option!) was Lettuce and Lovage.

Now I'm not an enormous lettuce fan but this was pretty good, I enjoyed the little pea and parsley cakes and the baby potatoes were delicious, I'm a big fan of pea shoots so that was an exciting unexpected addition to the meal.

As usual I was excited about the dessert. Raspberry Rumble - Raspberry frangipane tartine served with raspberry sorbet.

This wasn't the biggest dessert I've ever eaten but it was SO SO good. The little almond tart was crispy on the outside & soft and perfect on the inside, the sorbet was perfectly tart and they went together beautifully.

Obviously it's taken me so long to blog about this that they're no longer serving this menu but don't let that stop you going there, their a la carte menu is amazing and the Terre a Tapas menu looks great - I'll hopefully be trying that asap!

Next time I'll finally be starting to blog about our Honeymoon trip, starting in Gent.

InSpiral Lounge

Yet again I feel like I should be apologising for being a terrible blogger, I can't believe I haven't posted since June. I'm sorry! As always I'm going to use the I've been busy excuse, I had friends to stay, our computer broke, my husband & I went on our honeymoon and then when I got back I quit my job to focus on setting up my business Operation Icing. I'll write about that properly when I get the website up & running but the general idea is that I'll be making money baking cake! Currently you can buy my cupcakes at the Add The Colour Cafe on North Road.

Anyway this blog isn't all about me, it's about food I've eaten, so...

At the end of June some fellow PPK friends and I met up at InSpiral Lounge in Camden to talk shit and eat food, this is something we do a lot.

I'd been there before but only for Ice Cream and I'd wanted to try their lasagna for ages...

... I definitely wasn't disappointed. For one it was huge, I could hardly even make a dent in my side dishes, and two, it was delicious. The topping was a really creamy bechamel sauce and it was filled with corn pasta, loads of sauce and Mediterranean vegetables.

I love lasagna but I'm always too overwhelmed by the many different parts of a lasagna recipe to ever attempt to make my own. Until today that is, this picture made me crave lasagna so much that I'm making the Veganomicon spinach lasagna for dinner. I've already made the tofu ricotta & the pine nut cream, all I need to do now is make the marinara sauce, steam the spinach and throw the whole thing together...I can't believe I've been scared of making lasagna for so long, it really isn't as complicated as it may seem!

InSpiral Lounge make amazing desserts, I bake a lot of cake which means I'm a bit fussy but I genuinely think this chocolate mousse cake is one of the best thing's I've ever eaten. I'll definitely be trying to recreate it at home as soon as I have the time.

The cake was perfectly soft & moist and the mousse was light and fluffy - yum! I also couldn't resist having a scoop of 'the best ice cream ever' as I refer to it, on the side. This mint choc chip ice cream is the creamiest most delicious thing ever, it's raw, soy free, cashew based, agave sweetened and amazing.

If you get the chance to head to Camden definitely make time for InSpiral Lounge, it's well worth the visit.

My last few post's have been very London based so next time I'll be back in Brighton posting about Terre a Terre's great grower's menu.

Manna and Ms Cupcake.

So it was my birthday a couple of weeks ago and I had the best day ever!

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!

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!

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!

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.