vegan.in.brighton

I tend to find travelling the world as a vegan pretty easy. Whilst there are sometimes downsides; not always being able to grab a bite to eat at that cafe right next to the sight you're visiting for example, the upsides, like exploring off of the beaten path neighbourhoods, and meeting like minded compassionate people, far outweigh them.

In Japan there was one thing that made vegan travel that little bit harder for me - there were cute desserts everywhere! If you know me you know that I love desserts and I find cute (or kawaii) things hard to resist. Desserts in Japan aren't just a picture on a menu, oh no! There are giant signs advertising sundaes outside restaurants, plastic replicas of honey toast platters in glass cases outside cafes, and giant neon lights signposting the way to the nearest creperie. Honestly, it can be a little much hence why I decided to put together this list of the top five vegan desserts in Tokyo. From Harajuku crepes to konbini dorayaki, if I wasn't so committed to researching, locating, and eating the best vegan desserts around, the city could have been a challenging place for this sugar fiend.

Super delicate, fruity, layered, cream filled cakes are the treats most likely to make my pulse race. On more than one occasion I've talked about moving to Tokyo to start a vegan dessert cafe specialising in these specific treats but now I may not have to. The Strawberry Shortcake from Chaya Macrobiotics is one of the most delightful desserts I've ever had the pleasure of eating and I am a tiny but upset that I only had the chance to eat it once.

This dessert is a showstopper, a delight for all of the senses. It's light and creamy with the perfect cake to cream ratio and the freshest berries. I am determined to recreate this when I have some spare time and an oven because I'm convinced that it's the perfect dessert. Chaya is located ontop of the iSetan building by Shinjuku station and I would highly recommend making it one of your first stops in Tokyo.

If you can avert your eyes from the striking strawberry shortcake in the foreground of my photo to the more inconspicuous Lemon and Apricot Pound Cake lurking in the back then you're in for a treat because that's dessert number two on my list! This simple pound cake is served with lemony soy ice cream and it's much, much, more than the sum of it's parts. The flavours of the cake really popped thanks to the addition of lemon rind and little chunks of apricot and the ice cream was perfectly tart and creamy. These are the kind of desserts that are worth hopping on a plane for.

Dessert number three is the Chocolate Parfait from T's Restaurant in Jiyugaoka. Every vegan who has set foot in the capital will have eaten at T's Tan Tan but not many venture south to T's restaurant which I think is a mistake.

I'd recommend hitting T's Restaurant for lunch, their set menu includes dessert and you can choose between two parfaits, chocolate and strawberry, and a creme brûlée. The creme brûlée looks excellent but it's the chocolate parfait that, in my opinion, dreams are made of. Flavourful caramel ice cream and the perfect amount of whipped cream are topped with chocolate sauce, sliced bananas, macadamia nuts, cake croutons (whaaat?!), pumpkin seeds and, lurking right at the bottom of the glass and elevating this parfait to the next level, was a layer of crunchy corn flakes. Mic drop!

Some may think that this next one isn't a dessert but given that the Matcha Soy Latte from Starbucks contains as much sugar as your average brownie I'm counting it.

This totally Japanese drink packs a delicious matcha punch with a serious helping of sweetness. If you head to the branch on the roof of Tokyo Plaza in Omotesando, you can engage in one of my favourite travel activities, people watching, whilst you sip.

Now I'm giving Trim the benefit of the doubt and assuming that their name refers to cutting something, fabric perhaps, into a neat and orderly condition, rather than anything related to trimming down our bodies, because there is no dieting or detoxing propaganda inside and because I like to try to believe that people aren't inherently awful. And honestly this Chocolate Gateaux is not a "diet" dessert.

Located in a cute side street close to Nishi-Ogikubo station this cafe is a peaceful retreat in an otherwise busy city. They serve a delightful array of soy milk based drinks (Nick recommends the iced chai soy milk) as well as cookies and cakes. The chocolate gateaux is less gateaux and more torte but it's delicious and I love that it's served with homemade tofu cream cheese. I'm pleased to report that I enjoyed every bite.

I'm also going to give a couple of special shout outs to sweet treats that should have made the top five list. Firstly, the Coconut Chocolate Muffin from Ain Soph Ripple. The jury's out over whether a muffin is a dessert item or a breakfast staple but whatever the answer this muffin deserves a prize. It has the perfect slightly dense crumb that I'm always searching for in a muffin alongside a deeply chocolatey flavour with the perfect touch of coconut. It's love peeps, I wonder if they can post me one? Secondly, I want to give a shout out to Tokyo's first 100% vegan ice cream spot! In what I can only describe as a cruel twist of fate Brown Sugar 1st opened on June 9th just 6 days after I hopped onto a plane and flew to Seoul. The jury's out on whether these ice creams taste as good as they look but with flavours like wild lemon, rum and California raisin, and Madagascar vanilla I think that you can probably prepare yourself to be wowed.

Have you been to Tokyo? Do you have a dessert fave' that didn't make the list? Which one of these desserts floats your boat?

Seoul was an interesting place for me, it was so different to how I expected it would be. Anywhere I landed immediately after Tokyo was going to struggle to win an immediate place in my heart and it was warmer and more humid than I'd expected which is never my favourite combo. It was more reminiscent of some of the Taiwanese cities I visited, or maybe even Bangkok, than Tokyo, which wasn't where my preconceptions put it. These aren't bad things at all but it took me a little while to readjust my expectations. As well as some fun parks, art districts with interesting street art, traditional villages, and interesting shopping streets (more on those in a later blog post) Seoul has a tonne of amazing 100% vegan eateries and if anythings going to get me pumped about a new city it's discovering fun food.

The Bread Blue is a cool spot because they sell a great mix of Western baked goods like croissants and baguettes as well as bean paste filled buns and sweet potato bread - things I've never seen in a bakery outside of Asia.

I'm a total breakfast person, I can't comprehend how someone can cruise through the first few hours of their day on coffee and air alone, so Nick and I hit the baked goods hard every time we visited in the AM.

My regular orders were the chocolate croissants (OMG!) and the ham and vegetable danish (once I'd picked off the bell peppers). Nick was into the garlic bread but I wasn't a huge fan as the bread itself tasted slightly sweet to me. Those croissants though? Wow! They were seriously good, they had layers and everything. Let's take another look.

I got really into rose tea whilst I was in Seoul, I can't believe I spent years thinking that I hated tea when really I just dislike the way we Brit's do tea - sorry fellow Brit's but the whole milk thing just ruins it. It turns out that I'm all about floral and green teas. The Bread Blue is located just a short walk from the Hongik university area where you'll find other vegan spots like Jack's Bean which I never made it to but have heard good things about. Alongside the croissants I'd say that the olive rolls and the onion baguette are must try items. The staff at The Bread Blue are super sweet and are always handing out freebies whilst you eat or popping a little something extra into your bag of take out. They also have really good wifi and plenty of space if you're planning to get your digital nomad thing on.

Plant Cafe was top of my must eat list before I'd even planned to come to Korea because it's owned and operated by Mipa from Alien's Day Out. Mipa stopped blogging a couple of years ago (sad face) but I remember reading about her life in Korea, drooling over pictures of her delicious baked goods, and squeeing at pictures of her bunny back in 2011, maybe even 2010! Plant was actually one of the more challenging places for me to grab a meal free of peppers straight off of the menu. Something I found super interesting about most of the vegan joints in Seoul is that they have really small menus, only four or five items, this is the case at all of the places mentioned in this post aside from The Bread Blue. Every dish at Plant, from the sweet potato and hummus salad to the lentil veggie burrito bowl, is made up of loads of fun parts which meant that the staff there were always able to make me something both suitable and delicious.

I was able to eat a burger made from chickpea mash and some of the toppings from the BBQ tofu mushroom burger on an artisan vegan bun with a massaged kale, carrot and mushroom side salad and some black pepper kettle chips. I also tried the Tempeh rainbow wrap minus the cheese and Sriracha which I would highly recommend ordering as is when you visit.

Plant's desserts are ridiculously good, as soon as I saw the dessert case I knew that my tastebuds were in for a good time and after taking my first bite of the vanilla berry berry cake I was in love. Aside from grabbing the occasional Oreo Walnut Brownie to go the vanilla berry berry cake became my go-to dessert order. I love white cakes and Plant's is perfect, bursting with berries, and probably the lightest and fluffiest vegan cake I've ever eaten. The chocolate mousse frosting is an excellent accompaniment as a buttercream would have overpowered the delicate berry flavours. Nick went with the PB Choc Cake and said that it was the best cake he's eaten in Asia. We've eaten some pretty great desserts so that's high praise.

I'm quite emphatic about what makes a good brownie, it needs to be fudgey and bordering on dense, not too crumbly, not cakey, and it needs to have the perfect crackle top. I got super overexcited when I saw these because I just knew that they were going to be amazing. This brownie is up there with the ones from Austin's Capital City Bakery which I've raved about in the past.

If you're in Itaewon after 8pm when Plant's closed or fancy something smaller or cheaper than Plant's tasty bowls, wraps, and salads then Huggers is another great spot located within a short walk of Itaewon station. They're a burger and dessert cafe run by the people behind Coexistence of Animal Rights on Earth (CARE) - a prominent Korean animal rights organisation. One rainy evening Nick and I climbed multiple hills and rounded multiple bends to get to this new spot on the Seoul dining scene. We weren't hungry enough for desserts so I just tried the pea burger and Nick went for the cheeseburger. The patty for all of the Huggers burgers is the same and there are four or five topping options to choose from. My pea burger was topped with a creamy pea puree, a slice of melty vegan cheese, and a reasonable amount of salad toppings including onion, lettuce, gherkin, and a slice of tomato. I loved the brown rice veggie burger they've created because it was flavourful, leaning towards the healthy side of things as burgers go, and, most importantly, it held together whilst I was eating it which is always a bonus. I'd definitely go back there again but we realised a couple of hours after leaving that we were a little hungry, the burgers are a good size but the only options for sides are salad based and I realise that I would have loved the option to order some fries or tots. Basically any kind of potato! Maybe potato salad would be a good option if installing a deep fryer or an air fryer isn't an option in their small kitchen?

Another great place Nick and I discovered on a rainy afternoon was Cook and Book. Nick and I shared some food there one afternoon and I decided that I wanted to go back there to celebrate my birthday. This is a shining endorsement of how delicious I found their food - I don't eat anything other than the best food on my b-day!

This burger with creamy lentil sauce is served on top of brown rice with a beautifully dressed salad and some pickled cucumbers as well as some sides of pickles and a second little salad that I had to skip because of the bell peppers. This was nourishing, filling, and, above all, tasty which is the a perfect combo when you dine out every single day. Cook and Book also have soft serve (totally the reason I wanted to go in the first place) and it's ridiculously good especially if you go big and get both the berry sauce and the slivered almonds as a topping. Nick got his plain which is ridiculous if you ask me.

It was a great spot to celebrate turning 33 and I'd highly recommend adding it to your must-eat list, you all have those right?!

Cook and Book isn't the only place you can find vegan soft serve in Seoul, nope, the city has two vegan soft serve joints! DalYang Sweet Kitten is located in the north of the city close to Korea University and it's a super cute cafe with a vast drink menu and a small but delicious food menu that changes pretty regularly.

I ordered the pasta with pesto, mushrooms, tomatoes, and vegan cheese which comes with a side of pickles and it was oh so delicious. If you're not a spice fan or if you have allergies you'll need to ask for this without the chilli flakes. I had no idea there would be chilli in pasta pesto so I actually had to order this twice getting the first attempt to go so that Nick could have it for dinner because, as it turns out, it's completely impossible to pick red pepper flakes out of spaghetti.

Where the soft serve at Cook and Book wins plus points for toppings Sweet Kitten have the option of cones so it would be impossible for me to pick a favourite. Both times we visited Nick got his in a cup. Sometimes I worry about him!

Despite being super into the soft serve I branched out and ordered the chocolate pudding on our second visit. This comes with two toppings, cream and berry sauce, and I ordered a chocolate macaron on the side because why would you not?

This was so good y'all! I'm not usually a huge pudding fan and for some reason was expecting this to be more of a parfait kinda deal but holy yum. It was dessert perfection. I think I like pudding now. As I mentioned DalYang Sweet Kitten is a little far north and not really located near any tourist sights but you still have to go. The women running it are wonderful, they sell cool feminist stuff and VioLife cheese, the food is excellent, and it's just a nice place to sit and chill with a book or some friends.

I'd recommend a trip to Seoul if you're into hiking or biking, traditional or modern architecture, exploring markets, eating spicy food, or chowing down on some epic vegan desserts but I'd definitely suggest visiting later in the year than I did. September - November is meant to be best unless you want to be dealing with the humidity as the country moves into rainy season?!

You might be noticing that there isn't a lot of traditional Korean food in this post but that's because I'm saving it all for next time. See ya then!

The thing that I was most worried about when I was planning my trip to Korea was the food. I was told that being vegan in Korea can be a real challenge, especially if you don't speak the language, but what if you're vegan and allergic to peppers? And yep, that means chilli! It hasn't been plain sailing by any stretch of the imagination but I was excited to discover some Korean eats in Seoul that aren't spicy and I'm going to share them with you today alongside some tips for where to eat that'll satisfy the spice fiend within. One of the first traditional spots Nick and I ventured to was Oh Se Gae Hyang which is located down a cute alleyway in Seoul's bustling and super touristy AnGuk district.

After spotting that this place is a secret Loving Hut I immediately honed in on the sesame soup as the most promising non spicy option.

Nick chose some kinda spicy stew and we also ordered some dumplings to share because why would you not?! Everything we were served was delicious, so good in fact that we returned on two more occasions and both ordered the same things again. My soup was thick and creamy and filled with noodles that we saw being made at an empty table during one of the restaurants quieter moments. I only had to ask for the chillis that decorated my soup to be removed which made things nice and easy. The dumplings were your classic soy meat and veg filled deep fried fare but they weren't greasy, just crisp and boiling hot inside. Never forget to make a lil' air hole with your chopsticks!

One of my other top choices for an authentic Korean dining experience in Seoul is Babione which is located by the Express Bus Terminal. This is definitely a little way off of the tourist trail, unless you're vegan of course. This 100% vegan establishment is definitely a local spot and has a menu with around 10 items to choose from. I went for the soy bean stew and it was totally Jojo allergy approved aside from the kimchi that came on the side.

It came to the table in a hot clay bowl brimming with mushrooms and greens and was served with pickled veggies and rice. We actually had one of our most amusing dining experiences here; after waiting for my stew to stop bubbling and steaming up my camera lens I dug in and was happily taking a spoonful of rice, adding a little stew, using chopsticks to grab a few mushrooms, and then rotating my way through the non chilli-full side dishes. I was almost done with my meal when the same meal was popped down in front of the woman seated next to me and she immediately threw the rice and sides into the steaming pot and began eating! She caught my eye and we had a little giggle as I tried to eat the dish the correct way with the little food I had left.

My third recommendation for vegans travelling to Seoul is temple food restaurant Maji which has to be one of my favourite places to eat in the whole country. As soon as I explained my allergies to the owner she immediately sympathised and told me that a while ago she met a monk who was travelling in Korea who had the exact same problem! I've never met anyone else with an allergy to peppers and honestly, I was beginning to think that I was the only one. It was so cool to meet someone at a restaurant who genuinely understood. So often people working in restaurants either think that this is my cunning way of avoiding spicy food and just give me something not-so-spicy but full of bell peppers, or they forget to check with the kitchen and I end up eating paprika seasoned tofu scramble three days in a row resulting in awful stomach cramps and joint pain. Thankfully in Korea it was usually quite obvious when someone had misunderstood or decided to ignore my very clear allergy card because things with chilli really have chilli.

After chatting with the owner about my possible options I ordered the soy bean bibimbap and Nick and I ordered the pumpkin pancakes to share.

I loved how beautifully presented this was, such gorgeous bright veggies, but more importantly they were fresh, crisp, and delicious. I'm such a huge pickled vegetable lover nowadays. The soy bean sauce came on the side which meant that I could add it as needed which was good as it was super strong and a little really did go a long way. The pumpkin pancakes were a surprise as they were really slices of sweet, tender, battered, and deep fried pumpkin. I really thought I'd scored here because Nick's not the biggest pumpkin fan but it turns out that if it's deep fried he does like it so we still had to share! I'm actually pretty happy about this new discovery, back at home I hardly ever cooked with pumpkin but now I'm going to be sneaking it into stuff left right and centre to see how else he likes it - I can always make a sacrifice and eat anything he doesn't enjoy!

I'm so happy that I've been able to partake in some Korean food whilst I've been travelling here. Food is such an essential part of a country's culture and missing out, or having to survive on streamed rice and the occasional pickle, would have sucked some of the fun out of the journey.

Are you a Korean food fan? What's your favourite dish? I think Bibimbap is mine which is lucky as I'll be visiting Brighton soon where I can reminisce about this section of my travels whilst eating the mushroom special from Namul's!

I've been looking at my blog with something of a critical eye recently. Not in a bad way, I've just been making a few tweaks. There are more posts on the front page of the site now, it only took me six years but I learnt how to do page breaks! I want to try to make the blog more engaging for people who've been reading it for a long time at the same time as keeping it informative and interesting for readers, new and old, who are looking to plan their travels. It's a difficult balance to strike and I feel like I've been veering a little too far in one direction and not enough in the other in the last year.

I want to write some shorter posts to compliment my travel epics. Some will be silly, some will be more personal, some will be mini-guides to places I just stopped off at for a sec. Basically I'm going to start blogging more. Yay!

Tuesday will be my regular posting day; expect the usual city guides, restaurant reviews, and stories about volunteering, festivals, etc. Then each Friday I'll be posting shorter posts like this one. Don't hold me to the days of the week, when you're travelling the internet can be a fickle friend!

This is a part serious part tongue in cheek post. These aren't all of the things I've learnt whilst travelling, far from it, and they aren't the "OMG I've had an epiphany about my life" moments, but they're all true facts!

• Humidity is my nemesis.
• People grabbing me in public is annoying everywhere.
• I will spend a silly amount of cash on vegan cheese.
• My accommodation standards are lower than I thought (I spent a month sleeping in a mouldy room and shared a train carriage with upwards of 20 cockroaches on an overnight train) but I draw the line at sleeping in sketchy abandoned buildings.
• I actually couldn't quit Netflix!
• Depression doesn't just go away because you're living your dreams (duh)
• I want to save all of the animals.
• I can't save all of the animals but I'm damn well gonna try.
• Manspreading is alive and well everywhere.
• You actually cannot go to Tokyo and just be okay with not being able to shop. You'll buy a huge bag in the shape of a bunny, fill it with glorious things, and not regret it for a single second.
• European soy yoghurts are still the absolute best.
• Tea actually is awesome.
• Train travel is my favourite but I am also a mega fan of road trips and flying. Especially if I get an upgrade to business class.

I hope you enjoyed reading. Feel to leave me any constructive criticism, or comments, about my blog below, and don't forget to have an amazing weekend wherever you are.

The beauty industry is alive and well in Korea. In the country that invented BB cream products range from the usual moisturisers, cleansers, and toners, all the way across the spectrum to skin whitening treatments, and fat reduction "hippo patches" for your thighs, stomach, and knees. You'll find it all on sale in stores across the country. The beauty industry sure knows how to prey on people's insecurities. Korea has had a surge in the rates of plastic surgery in recent years (check out this short doc featuring Gracie Neutral to learn more) as K-pop stars have more and more influence on beauty ideals. Beauty, make up, and skincare stores line the streets here and it seems that each brand has there own store; so, rather than finding Barry M products at Superdrug like we do in the UK, Barry M would have their own store selling a mix of beauty and skincare products.

Whilst the beauty industry as a whole makes me sad I couldn't help but want to get involved with this huge Korean trend on some level. Also, sometimes you just need toiletries y'know? One notable cruelty free brand that has made it across here from Europe is LUSH. They're huge here with almost as many stores in Seoul as there are in London. But what if you're looking for non imported cruelty free and vegan beauty products, can't afford LUSH's import prices, or just want to try some fun Korean products like sheet masks?

Well, it's tough, after a lot of searching in stores like Olive Young (Korea's Superdrug), tweeting at people, and e-mailing companies I stumbled upon Beyond who are on this list of cruelty free products. It was put together by a Korean animal rights group who I assume do their research thoroughly especially as the list is spilt into three categories including one for no animal testing, no animal ingredients, and no exporting to China, and another for no animal testing, possible animals ingredients, and no exporting to China. There was a third for no animal testing, possible animal ingredients, and exports to China but I discounted everything in that section as exporting to China means that animal testing is happening somewhere fo' sure. Here's a copy of 2015's list which has English written over the Korean to help you work out which category is which.

I visited more than a few Beyond stores in Seoul and my favourites are in Sinchon near Ewha Women's University (hop off the train at Sinchon and walk down the street towards Starbucks), and in the Coex mall (look for Beyond's name in Korean in the B section of the store finder). These stores had a higher concentration of products with English ingredients as well as a larger representation of Beyond's product range. These stores (and the Beyond stores I visited in Busan and Daegu) also sell sheet masks in single packs or packs of 10 whereas the Myongdong store really pushes people to buy 40 masks at a time. I got out of there with 20 for 9,500 Korean Won / £6.90 / $8 because I rummaged through some boxes at the back of the shop before they had a chance to package them up but I'd probably have chosen a wider variation if I'd known that it was possible.

Out of the two types of mask I tried, green tea and bamboo, the bamboo was my favourite. My skin's been getting super spotty lately thanks to constant climatic changes and using suncream a lot and the bamboo sheet mask has definitely helped. They also make you look like a serial killer from a scary movie if that's your idea of fun! I picked up the mini tube of moisturiser because the Beauty Without Cruelty one I ordered from iHerb whilst I was in Japan finally ran out and it's the perfect travel size. I also couldn't resist grabbing some Apple Mint cleansing tissues whist I was in there. They leave my skin feeling really refreshed on travel days and are a good back up on days when I can't be bothered to cleanse properly with LUSH's Dark Angels.

Beyond do use animal ingredients in some of their products so you'll need to know your shit before you start shopping. Things like honey and squalene will pop up and no vegan wants to be smearing that stuff all over their face.

One other notable Korean brand with a cruelty free status is Neogen whose parent company is the leaping bunny certified Outin Futures. Other brands produced under their name are RE:P and Code9. I didn't find any products by the last two brands anywhere in Seoul or Busan (maybe I wasn't looking hard enough?) but I did spot Neogen's award winning exfoliating pads in Olive Young. I'm not a full time beauty blogger but I do know that the leaping bunny certification doesn't mean that the product is vegan. The ingredient list on these looked okay to me but always double check - they were a little out of my price range so I didn't do any extra googling of ingredients.

Are you tempted to try Korean beauty products like sheet masks? Did you watch the Vice vid? What did you think? I find the idea of elective cosmetic plastic surgery so conflicting. I totally believe in a person's right to do as they wish with their bodies but there's something about changing yourself to fit in with social norms rather than standing up and smashing them that sits weirdly with my feminism. Equally don't most of us do that when we choose to shave our legs or armpits, buy face masks to try to get clearer skin, or put on make up before leaving the house? It's a tough one but I think it's a whole 'nother blog post kinda topic!

I touched down at Heathrow on Tuesday evening after a flight which involved some of the worst food ever - on an 8 hour flight they served us salad, followed by salad with roasted veggies, followed by fruit. Sad times. I wrote a guest post about the best airline meal I've ever been served for Vegansaurus last week and I think that one amazing flight warped my expectations.

One question people keep asking me is "Is it nice to be home?" and I don't really know how to answer. I don't really feel like I am home. Nick and I are staying with Nick's sister and her family in Thames Ditton which is where Nick grew up. She has four rambunctious kids so it's a very different kind of chaos than we're used to. It's only day three and I'm pretty excited that I'm heading into London for a weekend of adult company (see you soon Randi and Sal!) and vegan eats in about an hour.

Aside from being reunited with family and the joys of long British summer evenings I've also been reunited with some of my stuff. Most excitingly my clothes, I have literally been wearing the same three or four outfits every day for 9 months which is a little ridiculous even for me. I also grabbed some fun coloured nail polishes from storage as well as my leave in conditioner - my hair is pleased! Most excitingly I'm getting reacquainted with some of my favourite foods. After spending a month travelling around Korea it seems even easier to be vegan in the UK that it did before I left. Aside from the fact that I can read every ingredient label, because I'm in my home country I kinda don't have to. I know which breads are vegan, where to find vegan crumpets, which brand of pesto to look for on the supermarket shelves, which types of granola to avoid and where to find the best vegan chocolate. I dived straight for these Booja Booja truffles at the local health food store. Love!

Loads of new products have come out since I left last October.

Quorn are now making vegan chicken pieces, fillets, and burgers, pizza chain Zizzi's make a vegan cheese pizza, and, apparently, Alpro have added new GoOn yoghurts to their range. I'm hearing reports that they are even better than the Alpro Creamoso yoghurts but I can't confirm the rumours because I can't seem to find them anywhere. I don't shop at Tesco or Asda (I'm not a snob I just try to shop at places with slightly better animal welfare standards and am fortunate enough to be able to make that choice) and all of the Sainsbury's and Waitrose stores I checked came up empty. I did find the vegan Quorn pieces though so I whipped up some pasta with those, some of Sacla's vegan pesto, and a little Vegusto cheese last night. Delicious.

I was delighted to be able to spend a whole hour in Brighton yesterday, after grabbing a bunch of stuff from storage I spent a frantic 10 minutes in Infinity Foods getting re-aquainted with their huge range of vegan options. Alongside my old faves I was excited to see a huge range of Tofurky products and vegan taramasalata. Yup, that's right, someone finally veganised my favourite fishy dip from back in my pre-veg days.

This fish and egg free dip is a delight when paired with toasted pitta breads and it definitely brought back fond memories. Texturally it's similar to its fishy counterpart and taste wise I thought that it was excellent. It's just a slightly darker colour but don't let that put you off trying this delicious dip.

I'm sending this weekend eating my way around London and checking out the Just V Show and then be back in Brighton next week to fit in some friend time and to do some proper eating. I'll be keeping you updated on more UK vegan eats as soon as I find them! Have a great weekend and let me know if you're heading to Just V on Sunday, maybe we can meet up.

I've definitely missed London whilst I've been away travelling the world. Despite never having lived in the capital I've probably visited at least once a month for the last ten or so years for gigs, meet up's, friend hangs, and eating adventures so I've been pumped about this weekend for a while. On Friday night Nick and I met Randi and her husband Zach to catch American Idiot at the Art's Theatre in the west end. It was a cool way to start the weekend although all of us had seen the Broadway version and we didn't think that this version was as good. They changed the story a little taking it further away from Billie Joe's imagining and some of the scenes and dialogue just didn't work for me. That said our seats were killer, second row from the front, right in the centre, and some of the new choreography was cool. I also thought that it was super impressive that they made it work on such a small stage.

The next day, in lieu of a pricy trip to Cereal Killer, Nick and I sampled Randi and Zach's cereal and non-dairy milk selection before heading into Soho to meet Sal for lunch at Mildred's. I last saw Randi and Zach in Phuket at the vegetarian festival but I hadn't seen Sal since last September which was definitely too long. Because she's an absolute winner of a human she brought me the gift of Alpo GoOn yoghurts which, if you read my last post, you'll know I've been struggling to find in my neck of the woods. Mildred's is a long-time favourite of ours so it was the perfect place to catch up. They make enough menu changes to keep things interesting but always have an amazing burger available and I always end up eating something delicious. This time it was their Polish burger that floated my boat.

Consisting of a beetroot and white bean patty topped with pickled cabbage, gherkin, and lettuce all squashed into a delicious focaccia bun this burger really hit the spot. I went with the optional slice of vegan cheese which was nicely melted and also ordered a side of their epic chunky chips. Partly because chips are great, and partly because they come with one of my favourite Mildred's menu items, the basil mayo. It's seriously so good. Nick went for the Sri Lankan sweet potato curry which I couldn't taste but dang, it sure looked delicious.

Fragrant basmati rice is nestled alongside the mild curry and it's all topped with roasted lime cashews. It comes with a side of coconut tomato sambal so that you can make it extra spicy if necessary. I love this as spice tolerances vary so much even between my chilli loving pal's. Mildred's is always worth a visit if you're in central London, their vegan options are always interesting twists on the classics, and I've never had a disappointing meal there.

Our main reason for hanging out in Soho on a Saturday afternoon was Yorica! This new ice cream spot has been blowing up my Instagram since it opened in March and I have been dying to visit. It's marketed as an allergen free spot and everything is vegan. Super cool!

All reports and reviews told me that their Fro-Yo (which is totally soft serve) is better than their ice cream and a quick couple of testers confirmed it. I went for a classic sized cup with half chocolate and half vanilla topped with marshmallows because I can never say no to a mallow.

The second super cool thing about Yorica!, aside from it's vegan status, is that you can get unlimited sprinkles. I loved this because once you eat the top layer of ice cream it can get a little less fun and getting to go back for more sugary toppings is pretty rad. The third super cool thing is that they will happily give you a big cup of free water to accompany your ~~meal~~ dessert. Love that! We visited on Friday night and again on Saturday and if I'd had time I'd have gone back on Sunday too.

On Saturday night Nick had to head back to Thames Ditton but I stayed in London with Randi and Zach. We watched tennis, laughed at Russian winnie the pooh (seriously, click that link!), and ate VioLife topped crumpets. It was great! I think I could have made it greater for Randi by not wanting to leave at the crack of dawn (ahem, 10:30) to get to the Allergy & Free From Show at Olympia the next day but what can I say? I'm the worst! Despite the early hour we had a great day at the show and I'll either post about it at the end of the week or do an Instagram recap on Friday so keep your eyes peeled!

I've been in two minds about whether to blog about my FED By Water experience. I tend not to write bad reviews without visiting somewhere two or three times but the problem here was not with the food so it's not something that's likely to be rectified on a return visit. FED was top of my list of places to check out in London and the food was exceptional but towards the end of our meal the service took a turn for the awful and now I don't feel like I'm likely to go back.

I've been beyond excited about eating at an all vegan Italian joint since I first heard about FED. The cuisine shares the top spot in my heart with my other all time fave', Japanese, and the menu looked seriously amazing. Everything we ate there was top notch, I mean you can't really go wrong with a vegan four cheese pizza but daamn this was exceptional.

The Cheesy is a white pizza made with a mix of homemade and store-bought cheeses and walnuts. It is exactly as epic as it sounds. Randi ordered the Experience LTJ which comes on black charcoal dough because we all wanted to try a slice of goth pizza, and Zach ordered the parmigiana and a salad for the table. I'm not a huge salad person but I would totally order this in another world where pizza and pasta aren't an option. Just look at that bread!

I still can't quite work out what happened with the service at FED because when everything was going well it was great. Our waitress wasn't 100% sure about which cheeses I could eat because of my allergies but she consulted with her manager who came over to let me know which ones were pepper free. The food arrived in a totally reasonable time frame given that everything is made from scratch, and whilst the place was kinda busy it seemed well staffed.

Once we'd finished eating I decided to order a pizza to go to take home for Nick and after 40 minutes we figured that it couldn't take much longer so we got the cheque. That's when we noticed that the extra pizza wasn't on the bill. When Zach went up to pay he asked about the extra pizza and was told that it wouldn't be much longer. We were totally cool with that, mistakes happen, we figured there'd been a communication issue, and waiting a little longer was no big deal. We happily went back to chatting about what we'd order next time we visited - um, all of the pizza, vegan carbonara, pear and chocolate dessert pizza. After another 15 minutes I realised that I really needed to get going if I was going to catch my train so Randi asked the closest member of staff how much longer it'd be; for some reason before they even got to answer the manager jumped in, leaned over our table, and started ranting about how this isn't their fault, that he had no idea that the pizza had even been ordered, how they're really busy, how we need to relax, and that the pizza will be ready soon. It was super strange and so rude and honestly it made us feel super uncomfortable. We kinda just looked at each other gobsmacked! When the pizza was ready it was tossed towards me with a quick thanks before the manager turned on his heel and walked away. I can't imagine why someone would react like that when a customer is asking a perfectly reasonable question and and at no point was there an apology that we'd waited an hour for the pizza. In another world I would have asked the guy what on earth his problem was but I'm not one for making a scene in a busy restaurant so we just left. It was such a shame that the meal ended that way because, as you can tell, I loved the food, but with service like that I won't be making another trip to Dalston in a hurry.

The FED experience ended our weekend of fun on a bit of a downer (especially as I actually did miss my train meaning that it took for-ev-er to get home) but we have big plans to hang out, veganise Randi's Italian grandma's carbonara recipe, and eat even more soft serve as soon as I'm back from Scotland and I can't wait.

Coming from Japan where convenience stores hold all manner of vegan eats Korea was a little bit of a shock to the system. None of the samgak gimbap (Korean onigiri) on offer were vegetarian let alone vegan and a lot of the soy milks there contain either dairy products, vitamin D3, or both. As someone who is a huge fan of the bed picnic after a long day of exploring this was a little disappointing! I was up for the challenge though, nothing gets in-between me and a bed picnic, and I soon worked out what vegan eats could be found at the 7/Eleven and CVS stores that were dotted around the cities we visited.

It's not a long list but in a pinch you can make a filling, if not entirely satisfying, meal from the following items.

Microwave rice, tetra packs of Almond Breeze almond milk, apples, snack packs of grapes and tomatoes, and bananas - although they are shrink wrapped and on a polystyrene tray. The earth weeps. I also found Pringles (no longer owned by Unilever), the sweet potato snacks pictured above, and the seaweed snacks pictured below. As you can see I had to supplement my bed picnics, and make hotel breakfasts, with food from elsewhere most of the time.

I also found Almond breeze on sale at larger Olive Young stores as well as individually wrapped Misura chocolate and apricot jam filled croissants.

Major department stores like Lotte in Seoul or Hyundai by Beomil station in Busan have food courts with things like Almond Breeze and fresh soy milk as well as imported treats and snacks. I found vegan cocoa pop style cereals and choco granola bars from Nature's Path, Bio Zentrale granola from Germany, Ten Acre crisps, German pretzels, and Goody Good Stuff sweets whilst I was scouring shelves in department store food courts.

You can also find branches of Loving Hut in every major city and they often have stores attached. The best ones are at Gangnam in Seoul and near the National University of Education in Daegu. You'll find VioLife cheese slices on sale there as well as Lenny & Larry's cookies, Misura soy crackers and croissants, ramen noodles, and mock meats which are perfect if you're Air B&Bing it.

VioLife is also sold at DalYang Sweet Kitten and The Bread Blue in Seoul and combined with a baguette or some rolls (I only found vegan bread at The Bread Blue in Seoul) my favourite cheese slices often perked up an otherwise boring breakfast. In Busan Yammy Green has a great small store with Lenny & Larry cookies and other vegan snacks which should help fuel your beach days.

As you can see Korea is no vegan paradise but you won't starve and as well as convenience store foods there's a chain restaurant called Robot Gimbap that serve kimbap with tofu or soy meat which are vegan if you ask to remove the egg. I first read about it on the Alien's Day Out blog and I was pretty excited to find some bed picnic suitable food.

You'll need to ask to have the egg removed in Korean at most of the Robot locations. I found it super challenging to pronounce it correctly so I just took a screen shot of it on my phone which worked every time. You can also eat in at Robot but be warned that they will give you a bowl of mystery soup. I couldn't find out if the broth was meat based so I played it safe and gave it a miss. If you can't read the Korean alphabet deciphering the locations on the Robot Gimbap website will be impossible but the locations I found and ate at (with the help of Mipa from Alien's Day Out / Plant and the reception staff at the hostel in Daegu) are located at the Hyundai department store in Dongdaemun in Seoul, the Hyundai department store in Daegu, and at both the Hyundai department store, and outside the Jangsan metro station at the end of the green line, in Busan.

As you can see Korea isn't a vegan paradise yet but it's getting there and each major city has some great vegan options. You can read about my favourite eats in Seoul here and here. Where's the toughest place you've ever travelled as a vegan? For me Korea probably tops the list but I mainly self catered in Serbia, Bosnia, and Albania which I think may have given them an unfair advantage.

If you follow me on social media you'll have seen that my travels have taken me to Scotland. Unfortunately I seem to have left summer behind in the south, it's kinda gloomy (but completely gorgeous) up here but road tripping past lochs and mountains all day has been dreamy. The food has also been uh-mazing so far. I've been taking plenty of photos so expect a blog post soon - right now I'm sitting on a camping chair looking out at Loch Leven. It's lovely.

Before heading north I popped to Brighton to grab some camping stuff from my storage unit and managed to fit in some eating whilst I was down there. I only had 36 hours so I had to prioritise and getting my paws on some pizza from Purezza, the UK's first 100% vegan pizzeria, was a top priority.

I visited early on a quiet Thursday lunchtime but from chatting to owner Tim I gathered that this wasn't usual. As the afternoon progressed the place filled up with people searching for delicious Italian food and I was excited to hear that they're in the process of adding a downstairs dining room so that everyone can get their pizza fix even at peak times.

I struggled to decide what to order because the menu is epic; there are classic pizzas, special pizzas, and calzones, with combo's ranging from the classic Funghi to the more out there Giardino which consists of a hummus base, green olives, artichoke hearts, sunflower seeds, cherry tomatoes, parsley, and chives.

In the end my dining companion and I chose three pizzas - the Quatro Formaggi, the new to the menu Courgette Flower, and the Spartana on a gluten free base. The Quatro Formaggi is a classic and was definitely my favourite pizza pre-vegan. I haven't tried many vegan versions because your average pizzeria doesn't have that many cheeses to choose from but I can assure you that this is up there with the best of them. The cheeses are made from coconut, soya, cashew, and almond and together they create a wonderfully cheesy pizza experience.

I only tried a small slice of my pal Justine's Spartana but it was excellent. The sauce is made from asparagus rather than your classic tomato and toppings included artichokes, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, pistachios, walnuts, and a generous sprinkling of fresh herbs. Being a gluten free vegan living in Brighton Justine's actually eaten the GF pizzas at Purezza a few times and she really rates their gluten free base. It was thin and crispy like their regular pizza base, albeit with less of a deliciously doughy crust, and whilst you can tell that it's gluten free it was still delish' even from this gluten lovers perspective.

Purezza's unusual courgette flower pizza turned out to be a fantastic choice and I'd go as far as to say that it was actually my favourite of the three. I don't think I've eaten courgette flowers before, perhaps in a salad at Terre à Terre many years ago, but the combination of courgette flowers, tomatoes, melted cheese, thinly sliced courgettes, and fresh basil was a delight.

I was a little gutted that I couldn't squeeze in any dessert because their chocolate calzone with walnuts and pistachios sounded dreamy. You can bet all of your favourite things on the fact that I'll be back there eating it as soon as I set foot in Brighton again. I also have my eye on the divine sounding white based Pere pizza which comes topped with pears and walnuts. I also need to try their classic Hawaiian pizza because that's always a favourite of mine.

Whether you're visiting Brighton for the weekend or living there full time you definitely need to pay Purezza a visit. The food's great, as is the service, and they even deliver. What more could you ask for?

My meal at Purezza was provided free of charge for review purposes but as always all opinions are both totally unbiased and 100% my own.

If you have plans to visit Korea I'd definitely recommend a short stay in Daegu. It's the perfect place to break up your journey between Seoul and Busan splitting the 5 1/2 hour ITX journey into two more manageable chunks. The main reason to visit Daegu is to check out Haeinsa Temple and, if you have time, Donghwasa is also worth a visit. As you can imagine at the tail end of nine solid months in Asia Nick I had visited more than a handful of stunning temples ranging from small local temples in Taipei where we were privy to Chinese New Year celebrations to the temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. We were pretty temple fatigued and, if I'm totally honest, not 100% up for making the bus journey out to Haeinsa but, as soon as we arrived, we were so glad we'd made the effort to keep pushing on through our burn out.

Haeinsa temple is a ridiculously beautiful complex located in the Gaya mountains. On the day we visited the sky was blue and the clouds were fluffy - it made us forget all about our less than lovely hostel in the city centre! Haeinsa is home to the Tripitaka Koreana, or buddhist scriptures, which are made up of 81,350 hand carved wooden blocks. My knowledge of Buddhism is pretty lacklustre so I can't tell you much more about it without quoting from Wikipedia but as you'll see from the pictures below this is a gorgeous place to visit and whether you're into Buddhism, Korean history, or just up for finding peaceful places to explore on your travels I'm confident that you'll enjoy it.

As well as wandering, taking pictures, and finding shady spots to sit and take in the atmosphere I met and took photos with some lovely people from the Japanese and Korean friendship society. It was super adorable and I really enjoyed chatting to them about my love for both countries. If you'd like to spend more than a few hours exploring this amazing temple and the surrounding grounds then Haeinsa offers a temple stay programme where you can immerse yourself in Buddhist culture and (probably) eat some delicious vegan temple food.

As I mentioned in my last blog post I'm currently in Scotland so expect some posts on Glasgow, Edinburgh, and the Scottish highlands soon. I'm going to be housesitting for a friend in Edinburgh as of Monday and I'm excited to be reunited with decent wifi (campsite wifi is always a disaster) so that I can upload some new photos to the blog. I'm also thrilled about having a cat to love on because I've been experiencing some serious cat withdrawal symptoms (including frantic scrolling through the Cats Of Instagram account and attempting to lure every street cat I spot towards me for strokes) since leaving Japan Cat Network. I'll be exploring Edinburgh tomorrow, say hi if you see me, and I hope y'all have a great weekend, catch ya on the flip side!

I've been meaning to visit Glasgow since before the awful fat shaming animal rights group that shall not be named here picked it as their most vegan friendly city in the UK back in 2013. I don't know why it's taken me so damn long to get there but I'm going to blame Nick and the fact that early 2013 saw him deciding that he actually did want to get on planes and fly to far away places which significantly reduced our European adventures. Approximately 90% of my list of things to do in Glasgow list involved eating and thankfully my travel buddies were into that idea. We also fitted in a whole bunch of galleries and museums, large and small, as well as a whole lot of walking about the place.

Because we only had 36 hours in the city we could only really fit in three meals. If I don't eat breakfast as soon as I get up in the morning I'll be horribly cranky for the whole day so on day one we arrived in time for a late lunch / early dinner and on day two we ate a campsite breakfast and got into the city in time for activities and then lunch. I took a little poll on Instagram to help me narrow down my foodie shortlist and bustling cafe bar Mono came out on top by miles. We headed there first and we certainly weren't disappointed.

Mono was one of those rare places where I wanted to eat almost everything on the menu. They have a truly excellent range of options including hearty soups, veganised British classics like tofish and chips, and their famous pizza crunch which does indeed consist of a battered and deep fried pizza slice. Despite being sorely tempted by deep fried pizza both Nick and I opted for the macaroni cheese, mine with garlic bread, his with chips, and our friend Tabitha ordered the battered vegan sausage and chips.

The macaroni cheese was fantastic, flavoured with mustard seeds rather than the often used paprika or roasted red peppers, it had a tangy creamy sauce and was topped with crisped melted cheese. It was basically macaroni cheese perfection and using the garlic bread to mop up the leftover sauce took it to a whole 'nother level. This is the kind of meal that I would eat every single day if it was an option.

We um-ed and ah-ed about whether to order dessert as we were feeling pretty stuffed but Nick and I agreed that we just had to try the apple pie. It comes with ice cream but I'm always unsure about the combo of hot pie and cold ice cream so we got the ice cream on the side. That doesn't make for the best pie picture but it was perfect because I got to try them together and separately and I think I might finally be an à la mode convert. I never thought this day would come!

Tabitha ordered the raw chocolate and avocado cheesecake which she was super into but that I declined to try because I am a firm believer that raw bases ruin 99.9% of desserts. Why would you make a crust from nuts and coconut when perfectly good biscuits exist? I don't know! When you visit Glasgow make Mono your first stop, I promise you won't regret it.

The next morning after a campsite breakfast of PB toast and soy yoghurt we hopped onto the train into town and immediately ran into Riverhill Coffee Bar to hide from the wind. I think I must have acclimatised to SE Asian weather a little because the UK seems so much colder now. I used to be that person wandering the streets in a vest top and an unzipped hoodie when it was 14 degrees outside but now I'm all bundled up in a jacket and a hat wondering why everyone else isn't freezing.

As well as a couple of pots of tea and a soy latte for our caffeine loving pal I had a Ron Swanson moment and ordered all of the chocolate chip cookies and a slice of ginger and pear cake. Apparently Riverhill always have vegan dessert options, three choices when we visited, and they use Bonsoy for tea and coffee which I am led to believe is the best.

The slab of ginger cake was tasty but the cookies really stole the show. These were the most perfect chocolate chip cookies I've had since baking a batch of Isa's choc chip cookies from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar before I went travelling. I seriously love those cookies and if they'd had more than two left we'd probably have bought even more to go. We hit up Stereo for lunch but unsurprisingly I wasn't super hungry so I just ordered some soup and sourdough. Nick went with the cheesy gnocchi which I was immediately jealous of but unable to steal more than a few bites of because I was just too damn full of cookies. It was delicious but not as good as the mac and cheese at Mono. I'm not sure if it was bad ordering or just having no appetite but I didn't love Sterio anywhere near as much as Mono. Tabitha disagrees though and thought that the jackfruit and haggis tacos she ate there were better than the battered sausages she had at Mono. Different strokes for different folks!

For dinner we hit up The Flying Duck which got a unanimous thumbs up from the group. I liked it as soon as we walked down into the dimly lit basement as it reminded me of some of the scuzzier (I used that only as a compliment!) pubs and clubs I used to hang around in back when I was a teen / in my early twenties. They make great use of the space and it was lit with candles and had flowers on the tables so I guess I'd describe the vibe as classy dive bar. As soon as I saw the menu I knew that I had to order the Mini Maccaritos and to accompany them I also ordered a plate of gravy covered cheesy mash and an Irn Bru. Keeping it classy!

The mash and gravy was nothing to write home about - I prefer my gravy to sit at the Bisto end of the spectrum rather than at the fancy tomato based end but I'm sure that there are people who'd totally disagree. On the other hand the maccaritos, or mini mac and cheese burritos, were dreamy. These crispy fried flour tortillas stuffed full of creamy mac and cheese were a bloody delight and as soon as I bit into them I wished that I'd just ordered two plates of them. They come with a little side salad as well as some delicious coleslaw and they even have a little extra cheese melted on top. The Flying Duck also have board games so we were able to play a little Boggle after we ate which is always a fun time. If we hadn't been leaving early the next morning I think we'd all have wanted to head back to The Flying Duck for more food and fun the next day.

Glasgow has another four all vegan spots, and countless veggie places with great vegan options, that we didn't even make it to so I'm already hatching a plan to revisit Scotland's largest city in the not too distant future. Have you been to Glasgow? What's you favourite place or meal? I'll add it to my shortlist for next time.

The last few weeks have been brilliant and tiring and inspiring and fun and all of the best things but they definitely haven't been productive as far as writing goes!

A little over three weeks ago my friend Tabitha and I boarded a bus in central London that took us North where we met up with Nick, hopped into the van, and went off on a Scottish adventure. I managed to blog about the great food in Glasgow from a campsite which wasn't easy and involved such modern things as attaching my computer to a 3G hotspot on someone's phone. Magic! After a week of lochs, walks, eating, and exploring Tabitha hopped onto a train back to Brighton and Nick and I did a spot of cat sitting for my friend Imogen in Edinburgh.

Whilst we were there we met up with my PPK pal Rachel and she introduced us to some of her vegan friends. I also squeezed in meet ups with some vegans I know through Twitter and Instagram as well as a quick dinner with my brother who moved to Edinburgh a couple of days before I left the city. We went to Zizzi's and I finally tried their vegan pizza. It was delish' but next time I think I'll add some veggies.

After Nick and I left Scotland we spent a few days in and around Manchester visiting Caroline from Tea and Sympatico and her partner Matt in Glossop (I finally ate at The Globe which was so great), grabbing dinner with Jenny (Spice Box of Earth!) and Emil (Hasta La Vegan!) at The Pasta Factory in the centre of the city, and having rainy picnics and fire pit fun with the vegan friends we made in Tokyo earlier this year.

Thats a sausage holder from B&M by the way. It's the exact right size for your Vegusto Farmhouse sausages. Buy one immediately! Also, top BBQ / fire pit tip, cook the vegan jam doughnuts from the Co-op over a fire if you get the chance. I think grilling them would work too as would switching those particular doughnuts for anything sugar coated and filled with something oozy. Roasting doughnuts makes them about 100% more delicious which is a pretty epic discovery. I totally thought that doughnuts were already at the top of their game.

I've loved saying with friends these last couple of weeks, getting to hang out with like minded people and chat about life is the best. The longer I spend in the UK the more I realise how many great friends I have scattered all over the place. Unsurprisingly, like with my friends who are scattered elsewhere across the globe, I've usually met these people through blogging, Vegan MoFo, social media, or The PPK forums and despite a part of me wanting to take a little step back from the internet (especially social media!) I can't because this is where all of these wonderful people are sharing their day to day thoughts and ideas and where we keep up with each others lives and there's no way that I want to miss out on that.

For the next few weeks I'm going to be based in Thames Ditton in Surrey but I foresee frequent trips into London (I'm going to see The Bouncing Souls tomorrow) as well as a couple of trips down to Brighton. At the end of the month Nick and I are heading to Calais to volunteer at the refugee camp. We'll be sorting donations at a warehouse every day and before I go I'll be organising collection of food and hygiene products in Brighton. I watched this video from the camp earlier that highlighted the fact that there are people there who aren't even getting a hot meal every day because there just isn't enough food to go around. It's so sad and I hope that I can help a little. I'm currently finalising the list of things that people are desperately in need of and then I'll publish that and the collection point(s) on here and on social media as well as on posters in Brighton. Hit me up in the comments or via e-mail if you'd like to donate or help in some way and I'll make sure that you get the info as soon as I have it. I hope everyone's been having a wonderful summer and I'll be back soon with some delicious Edinburgh eats.

As I mentioned last week Nick and I are staying with his sister right now. She has four kids who are eight, six, four, and two and OMG looking after them is tiring! I genuinely don't understand how she gets up and does this every single day and it's definitely reinforced my decision not to have children of my own. I mean we're having some fun but I wouldn't want to do this all the time. We're helping her sort out her house, which was Nick's parents house, so that she can sell it so we've been sorting through things, taking bags full of clothes and toys to the charity shop, and attempting to keep the kids entertained all at the same time. I'm definitely wishing I was back in Edinburgh right now as we move into hour six of supervising the putting together of a jigsaw! On the other hand Nick's sister made everyone vegan scones earlier and they were super delicious. I'll be stealing her recipe for sure, let me know in the comments if you want me to share it. Scones have always been a favourite of mine, they're up there with shortbread as one of the things I can remember loving since I was a wee bairn, as my dad would say.

Whilst we were in Edinburgh we spent a lot of time hanging out with the cats we were cat sitting for and cooking meals at my friend Imogen's place but we did manage to eat out a fair few times. Henderson's has been a favourite spot of mine since I first visited Edinburgh six years ago and now my favourite bistro is 100% vegan. How cool! Their shop, located just next door to the bistro and above their salad bar, seems to have become far more vegan friendly too. When we popped in they had cupcakes, cakes, flapjack style bars, and chocolate dipped shortbread biscuits which were only £1. As soon as I bit into them I wished that we'd bought more than three pieces.

I don't remember Henderson's having a particularly interesting breakfast menu but now it's seriously great. I wanted to order everything. In the end I settled on the tofu benedict which was a most excellent choice.

Flavour wise it was spot on, I loved the mustardy vegan hollandaise and I am a big asparagus fan so getting to eat it at breakfast is always a treat. My only slight complaint is that I could have done with a little more food - perhaps a bigger slab of tofu would be nice. One breakfast that was definitely a good size was the full Scottish breakfast which came with sausage, haggis, baked beans, tofu scramble, mushrooms, tomatoes, toast, and a tattie scone.

Potato scones are a truly excellent addition to a cooked breakfast and I love that the Scottish breakfast contains haggis. I think my favourite part of breakfast was when 11:30 rolled around and we were offered desserts from the lunch / dinner menu as it was nearing that time of day. Genius. I feel very good about breakfast dessert. I ordered the lemon and thyme cheesecake which wasn't my favourite (too much coconut) but it turned out that one of my dining companions didn't like her avocado chocolate cheesecake and was happy for me to eat the whole thing. I would totally order it again, I'm quite the fan of the combo of avocado and chocolate but apparently it's not to everyone's taste.

I love the Edinburgh and Bruntsfield is one of my favourite areas to walk around. There are loads of cute independent shops to peek into there including Dig In, which is a great little community owned, not for profit green grocers. There's a Real Foods close by in Tolcross too for all of your mock meat, vegan cheese, and fancy tea needs. One must visit spot in Bruntsfield is The Chocolate Tree which is another old favourite of mine and whenever I'm in Edinburgh I pop in for a chocolate overload. They always have one vegan cake as well as both Spanish style and regular hot chocolate.

I'm a huge chocolate fiend so I went for a piece of chocolate mousse cake and a Spanish style single origin hot chocolate. This is basically just melted chocolate and it's seriously epic. I couldn't finish both but that meant that I had leftover cake for breakfast a couple of days later.

Edinburgh has become a whole lot more vegan friendly since the last time I visited in 2013 and as far as new fave's go Nova Pizza is the best of the best. They're a vegetarian place but their vegan menu is epic and includes pizzas, calzones, and pasta dishes as well as a wide range of speciality desserts.

I tried quite a few pizzas during our sojourn in the city but by far the best combo was one that Nick made from the create your own section of the menu. Alongside the tomato base and melted cheese it had Bolognese sauce, potatoes, and vegan ham. It was seriously great and I would definitely recommend it to anyone willing to step out of the box with their order. Another unusual offering from Nova Pizza is their dessert pizza which is super thin crust pizza topped with a creamy hazelnut chocolate spread and a little icing sugar.

I was stuffed when I ate it but it was seriously good and I would have ordered it again had this next dessert not existed. The Oreo cheesecake is the stuff that my dessert dreams are made of. I usually hate cheesecake, like serious hatred. I've never enjoyed cheesecake outside of Japan before (it's much less sweet there and tofu based rather than vegan cream cheese based) but this was so great that I had to order a second slice immediately.

It was creamy without having an overpoweringly cheesy tang and sweet without being sickly which is impressive when something involved Oreos. I was beyond impressed and would urge you to order this when you visit. Whilst the food at Nova Pizza was seriously great the service really stood out as some of the best in the world, there was only one waitress working the packed out restaurant both times we visited and she was efficient, friendly, and chatty at all times.

On one of our last days in the city Nick and I met up with some Instagram buddies for lunch at The Caffeine Drip, a central sandwich spot serving a decent range of vegan options. I wasn't stoked on their options when I looked at the menu, they all seemed rather roasted veg heavy, but the vegan club sandwich I ordered was more than the sum of it's parts and they were more than happy to leave off the roasted red peppers.

The vegan club was a massive sandwich on seeded bread stuffed full of grilled veggies, caramelised onion hummus, tomatoes, and avocado and I would totally order it again. The breakfast menu at The Caffeine Drip looks pretty great and I was sad not to have been able to try it - options include a make your own breakfast featuring such delights as tofu or chickpea scramble, vegan haggis, and roasted tomatoes, as well as vegan French toast - sweet or savoury. I'll be back! The other cool thing about The Caffeine Drip, just in case you need another reason to go there, is that it's just down the street from both Affogato Gelato and a great little health food store called Jan de Vries. Nick and I managed to share a small cup full of peanut butter and chocolate ice cream and a slice of millionaire's shortbread.

If you read my blog often, or even if you just caught my post about Glasgow last week, you'll know that I have some pretty strong feelings about raw desserts. It's very easy to screw them up and so often they just taste like coconut and leave you with a horrible aftertaste and a general sense of dissatisfaction. This particular raw dessert was excellent though, not the best ever but truly great and definitely something I'd order again. There was a lot of caramel and no detectable desiccated coconut. The base had a nice crunch to it and the chocolate topping was nice and thick. The ice creams were great too, you can't really go wrong with the combo of peanut butter and chocolate, and I loved how many vegan options they had.

I've been back down south for almost a week now and I'll be making a trip to Brighton tomorrow. My to-eat list is long and I have posters to print and things to organise for my collection for Calais donation drive. In case you missed my post on Friday I'm going to volunteer at the refugee camp at the end of the month and I want to fill the van with food donations. Collections will be taking place from 10:30 - 6 at Punktured on Gardner Street on Thursday 25th and Friday 26th and at The Hope and Ruin from 6pm until close on Thursday 25th. I'll post more about what to bring nearer the time and posters will be going up all over town in the next few days. Hopefully I'll get to meet loads of my Brighton based readers and see some old faces at the collection points!

It's no secret that I'm vegan primarily for animal rights reasons. I went vegan in 2005 after a short period of vegetarianism and I've never looked back. I've always loved animals, from the rabbit my parents finally let me get after years of begging, to the sheep that lived in the fields near where I grew up, I wanted to hug them all. I made the connection between the animals we see grazing in fields and the food on my plate at quite a young age but but my mum wouldn't let me go veggie and, as a kid growing up in the middle of nowhere with no idea where to even buy food, I just kept eating what was put on my plate. No lamb though, I just couldn't deal. Farmed animal sanctuaries like Friend, located near Tonbridge in Kent, are important for so many reasons. Firstly they're a refuge for the animals that make it out of the meat, dairy, and egg industries. Without sanctuaries these animals would have nowhere to go aside from the slaughterhouse.

Friend are currently caring for over 100 animals including cows, pigs, sheep, goats, cats, ducks, geese, chickens, and turkeys. It's a really fun place to visit. One of the goats was so friendly, whenever I spotted him he was making friends with another group of visitors! As well as believing that farm sanctuaries are essential for the animals that live there I also see farm sanctuaries as an essential education tool.

This is where the non vegans in our lives can meet the animals that appear on their plates. For some people looking into the eyes of a cow or realising how smart pigs really are will make the difference between them choosing meat or the veg option next time they're at a restaurant or wandering the aisles of their local supermarket. Maybe they'll even go vegan too!

Farm sanctuaries are also a great place for vegans to visit and to meet with like-minded people. Getting to spend time with the animals that we see as sentient beings rather than food is also pretty special and I loved stroking the cows and making friends with the pigs that roam free at the sanctuary. Friend run volunteer days three times a month so as well as hanging out with the animals you can help them, and the people running the shelter, by scooping poop, building new shelters, cutting the grass, erecting fences, painting, and whatever else needs doing on the day. Groups of volunteers come down from London to help and I'm excited to be joining them this coming Saturday.

During the open day I was lucky enough to be able to go on a tour of the sanctuary and I left feeling inspired about the future of the animal rights movement. Intersecting oppressions were mentioned, they spoke of plans to help homeless people and refugees as well as animals, and they discussed how the animals at the sanctuary could live in a way that is less representative of the methods used in traditional farming. If the day wasn't already amazing enough Friend were also selling delicious baked goods to help raise money for the sanctuary. I ate a delicious chocolate cupcake topped with melted chocolate, almonds, and a strawberry as well as an amazing slice of lemon drizzle cake - all to help the animals! If you'd like to support the team at Friend sanctuary and the amazing work that they do then you can make a donation, buy something from their Amazon wishlist, or spread the word about the sanctuary by sharing this post on social media. See you soon friends!

This past week has been a whirlwind. Between getting my IUD replaced early last week (OMG that hurt so bad), to flying to Scotland and back today to investigate some exciting future plans I've met up with friends in London for delicious vegan eats, volunteered at FRIEND Sanctuary in Kent, hung out with my dad, spent time barbecueing and hanging in a hot tub with old friends, and even squeezed in a little dinner date with Nick's oldest friends and their new (to us, she's actually four months old already) baby. I've basically been all over the place!

In between all of this madness (don't worry I've scheduled a self care day for tomorrow!) I've been organising a food donation drive for Help Refugees. Nick and I will be driving our little camper van to Calais to volunteer at the refugee camp there. Did you read about my fun European road trip adventures last summer? Well whilst Nick and I were zig zagging across the continent in our silly tiny van with our British passports we passed numerous refugees who were unable to cross any borders. They were camping in city parks, being blocked from getting on trains, and arriving on Greek beaches with nothing after the most horrendous journeys. I think that it's bullshit that I can travel pretty much wherever I want because of some weird twist of birth whereas these people, not migrants as the British press are so fond of calling them, people, are what? Just meant to stay put whilst their countries are bombed? Where there are no opportunities for their children? Where they face persecution? Where members of their families are being killed? One of the first things I saw when we drove off of the ferry into France last summer was all of the fencing around not just the camp but all of the roads leading from the camp to the ferry and train terminals and I was both horrified and disgusted that my government was paying for this to keep refugees, people who by definition have been forced to leave their countries, away from the UK. Aside from feeling saddened by the state of the world I felt like I needed to at least try do something to help.

Nick and I will be at the refugee camp for two weeks and I think we're mainly going to be volunteering in the warehouse sorting donations. It doesn't make sense to drive an empty van over there so we're going to try to fill the van with as many donations as possible. If you're in Brighton you can donate some food this Thursday 25th or Friday 26th at Punktured or The Hope and Ruin. I'll be at Punktured, located on Gardner Street close to Infinity Foods, between 11am and 6pm on both days and then at the Hope & Ruin, on Queen's Road, on Thursday night from 6pm - close. Don't ask how I'm going to be in both places at 6pm on Thursday, I'll figure it out. Maybe I'll run! If you drop donations off at The Hope & Ruin you get the added bonus of getting to order some delicious food from Beelzebab whose food I am totally obsessed with. The loaded fries are especially uh-mazing.

Help Refugees have to be quite strict with the donations that can be dropped off, there are only a small number of volunteers sorting through them and then an even smaller number manning the kitchen and cooking food for people. This is why everything has to be non perishable, donating some gorgeous veggies from your allotment would be a lovely idea but they wouldn't be good by the time our delivery slot rolls around on Sunday and they need a lot of each item to feed everybody.

If you'd like to donate here's your shopping list, screen shot it and grab a few things!

• 1kg bags of sugar

• 1 litre bottle of oil (vegetable or olive)

• 1kg bags of rice

• 750g bags of salt

• Tinned pulses especially chickpeas and kidney beans (ring pull tops only)

• Tinned tomatoes (ring pull tops only)

• Dried red lentils

• Dried fruit and nuts

• Vegetable stock cubes

• Biscuits (good vegan biscuit options include Bourbons, HobNobs, McVities Fruit Shortcake and Lotus Biscoff)

• Tea

• Coffee

No one person needs to donate everything single thing on the list. A few small things will be really helpful, maybe your local shop will have an epic deal on canned pulses, or litre bottles of oil will be going cheap at the corner store you pass on the way to work. Every little helps!

Some of you super sweet people have let me know that you'd like to help from afar and I super appreciate it! Y'all are the best. Help Refugees need fresh fruit, veggies, herbs, onions, garlic, and potatoes so we'll be using any monetary donations to buy these things at a supermarket in Calais. The best way to donate is probably via Paypal to jojo.huxster@me.com with a note that it's for Calais but if you have any other ideas of how to get cash to me then just holler on that same e-mail.

Thanks for reading! See you soon!

I recently returned from a two week trip to Calais where I spent my time volunteering with Help Refugees. If you read my last post you'll remember that I was running a donation drive in Brighton to take food donations to Calais in my van and it was a huge success, so many people brought generous donations along to both Punktured and The Hope and Ruin, and Infinity Foods gave me a generous donation of dried and canned goods. As well as filling the van with lentils, tinned tomatoes, biscuits, rice, sugar, tea, and more I was also able to raise £1050 which covered a weeks worth of fresh food for Refugee Community Kitchen who currently feed over 2000 people a day.

The refugee crisis in Calais is actually worse than I understood it to be before I went over there, the most surprising thing to me was finding out that it's not an officially recognised refugee camp. There are no large aid agencies like Oxfam or Amnesty there on the ground distributing aid in fact the only organisations working in the jungle are small grassroots groups like Help Refugees. There are over 10,000 people living in the camp and numbers are growing every day, the majority or refugees come from Afghanistan, Sudan, Pakistan and Eritrea. These are people who risk (and often loose) their lives trying to get to the UK to claim asylum. Despite the Dubs amendment passing in May no unaccompanied refugee children have been settled in the UK under the new law. Just let that sink in for a moment. Over four months ago the UK government agreed that we need to resettle unaccompanied refugee children but since then we have done nothing about it. Nothing. The mental and physical health of vulnerable children (children as young as eight) is declining every day and we're over here planning to build a £1.7m wall to keep people away?! It's appalling.

Whilst I did spend some time working in camp during my two weeks volunteering, I spent a day on the Women's and Children's Bus giving manicures and pedicures as part of pamper day, most of my time was spent in the warehouse. This was a choice I was happy to make as it seemed that most volunteers wanted to be in camp and I quite like to be behind the scenes. I was working in the main sort department both sorting clothes donations - which ranged from the practical (hoodies are a much needed item) to the fascinating (glitter mini skirts are not camp appropriate!) and putting together packages for women.

I think the hardest moment of the whole week was putting together a clothing package for a pregnant woman and her child which included a warm coat, a onesie, little boots for her child, socks, underwear, and a hygiene pack. People really do arrive with nothing and I felt heartbroken that this women was going to have her baby at a refugee camp.

Towards the end of my time at Help Refugees donations seemed to be drying up, in early September vans and cars would be arriving all day but towards the middle of the month they'd slowed to a trickle. The camp is made up of far more men than women, around 92% of the population in camp is male, and most of them wear size small clothes. As you can see the size 28 and 30 waist trouser boxes are empty and when that happens it means that there is nothing to distribute at the camp.

Alongside Refugee Community Kitchen is the dry foods area where volunteers pack bags of supplies for distribution within the camp. This, along with distributions of pots, pans, and camping stoves, enables people to cook for themselves which, given that queues for food are often three hours long, is really important.

Whilst donations of food like the one I organised go a small way to helping with these distributions monetary donations are needed now more than ever. With the population in camp growing every day it is getting more and more expensive to distribute enough food for even one meal a day. Help Refugees get bulk discounts on foods including canned tomatoes and beans, lentils, and cooking oil so your money goes further if you make a financial donation. Distribution has to be fair and equal to avoid causing tensions within camp so if stocks of something are low nobody will get that item until there's enough for everyone.

I understand the need to see exactly what your donation has bought though so if you'd like to make a physical donation then it would of course be most most welcome. I chatted to people from each area and right now these are some of the most needed items:

• Black tea

• Coffee

• Biscuits (As you can see from the picture above the biscuit area needs a little help!)

• Duvet covers (Help Refugees have a lot of duvets but they cannot be distributed without covers)

• Roll mats

• Warm blankets (winter is coming and sleeping in a tent with just a sleeping bag for protection is going to be horrible)

• Size 28 and 30 men's trousers preferably in dark colours

• Small men's hoodies

• Clean, small or medium, men's and women's underwear (New if possible, these are available at places like Primark for very reasonable prices)

• Men's deodorant

• Lamps

• Torches

• Towels (new or nearly new)

I feel really strongly about making volunteering a part of your travel plan if you're fortunate enough to be able to travel long term. Unlike some of the places I've volunteered in Japan and Thailand, Calais isn't most people's idea of a dream destination, but the people I was volunteering with were for the most part inspiring, ridiculously hard working, compassionate, intelligent, people who I was more than happy to be around every day. I'd highly recommend it as a place to volunteer, even if you only have one or two days spare at the beginning or end of a European trip, or at the weekend, you'll be able to pitch in somewhere and make a difference. As a bonus the kitchen cook lunch for everyone on a donation basis and the food is both delicious and almost always vegan, whilst I was there there were two non-vegan salads (look out for mayo and honey) but the rice and main meal were always a-ok.

What else can you do? If you have no time / money to volunteer, to organise a donation drive, or to take donations to Calais yourself then no worries. Here are some other ways you can help:

• Make a donation online to either Help Refugees or Refugee Community Kitchen.

• If you're based in the UK write to your MP to ask them to put pressure on the government to uphold the Dubs amendment. Remember that your MP works for you! I've written to Dominic Raab and will be requesting a surgery appointment with him if I don't get a satisfactory answer.

• Buy clothes or camping equipment online for delivery direct to the Help Refugees warehouse with Leisure Fayre. Find the list here, click, buy, and know that your donation will make it to Calais.

• Spread the word! Share this post, share this article about the Dubs amendment, share news stories from the Help Refugees website, get involved in their #refugenes project, share details of the Solidarity with Refugees march happening in London tomorrow, hell, come with me if you want to. Just do something to make people aware that the refugee crisis isn't over.

I've been struggling to write about food recently. After volunteering at the refugee camp and writing about my experience there writing about doughnuts and cupcakes seemed tougher than usual. Almost as soon as I got back from France I spent a couple of days catching up with friends, headed to London to march to Parliament Square with Help Refugees, the charity I'd been volunteering with, and the very next morning I was on a plane to NYC. I was excited but feeling pretty guilty that that's just a thing I can do because I happen to have been born in the UK. I didn't get a lot of time to process my experience before flying over here but since I've been here I've been setting aside time for self care; reading books, reading blogs, walking in the park, watching movies, eating all of the foods, and just giving myself time to do these things has reminded me that writing this blog is activism, it's just a different kind of activism! I don't know why I forget this sometimes but I do.

Travelling the world as a vegan can be the best, I know that I've mentioned that the hunt for vegan eats often makes you veer off of well trodden tourist routes and into neighbourhoods that the average tourist probably doesn't visit and this is no different in Hanoi, Budapest, or NYC. I've found it to be true everywhere. Brooklyn Whiskers is one of these spots and you need to venture deep into Bushwick if what you want is a top notch vegan danish.

As you can tell by the name the people who set up this cafe are really into cats, even their biscuits are kitty shaped and you must check out the bathroom if you're a cat person!

Peaceful Provisions is probably my favourite discovery of the entire trip so far, I do a lot of research before I travel so it's not often that I stumble upon a company or restaurant that I've never heard of before or that I hadn't specifically planned to visit. Peaceful Provisions is a bakery run by two sisters who basically make the best doughnuts ever. I ate one of their doughnuts and a DunWell doughnut on the same day and they're not even orbiting the same planet - Peaceful Provisions is where it's at. Nick and I tried the apple cider doughnut which is stuffed full of the most amazing homemade apple butter and topped with cinnamon and sugar - it's basically an apple pie doughnut and I don't think that you can get better than that. The other treat that I just had to try was the rainbow cookie doughnut, a chocolate coated, triple layered, almond flavoured, jam filled, dream-dessert that exceeded all of my expectations. If I had to describe it in two words I'd go with freaking delightful.

Inside shot!

Peaceful Provisions don't have a brick and mortar store (yet!) but they pop up at events all over the city, from the Vegan Shop Up to the Renegade Craft Fair. If nothing's happening whilst you're in NYC it's well worth dropping them an e-mail to see if you can arrange a custom order.

One place that was very firmly on my must eat in NYC list was Cinnamon Snail and I fiiiinally got to eat there last week. I say fiiiinally because I have tried to eat at The Snail many, many times. Back in 2012 CS were still a food truck and on the day I tried to eat there they kept getting moved by the police. It was a ridiculous wild goose chase that Nick implored me to give up on after approximately three hours! When I was in the city in 2014 they were taking a break as they readied themselves to open their spot at The Pennsy so I missed out on the food people were raving about for a second time. Then, on the day we arrived this time around, we headed to The Pennsy only to be told that they had no idea which items did or did not contain the things I'm allergic to so they couldn't serve me. I was so freaking sad especially as I munched on a Clif bar whilst Nick tucked into a ridiculously epic looking burger. Buuuuut they totally redeemed themselves, I sent them a message to see what the deal was and they were super apologetic. Not just regular apologetic, they actually offered me a meal on the house to apologise. Yay for excellent customer service! I was beyond excited to try their thanksgiving sandoo and I chased it with an ridiculously excellent ganache filled s'more doughnut featuring Sweet & Sara mallows. So yummy.

For those of you who don't have ridiculous allergies to contend with the whole menu at CS looks like the kinda food I wanna get my teeth into. Nick loves the smoked sage seitan burger and if I could I'd be making him share! His epic PB twist doughnut thing was also a total delight and I'm heading back there today for more food so keep an eye on my Instagram for more food porn.

Last but by no means least Ess-a-Bagel is very much on the tourist map for vegans and non vegans alike and that's simply because they make the best bagels in the city. From vegan friends online to omnivores who I've bumped into in line waiting for iced tea in South Slope everyone agrees that Ess-a-Bagel is the place to go to get your bagel fix.

I've tried the plain, sesame, everything, and onion bagels and the plain, scallion, and sun-dried tomato tofu spreads. That's a lot of bagel eating and I can confirm that you basically cannot go wrong here. Located on 3rd Avenue and 51st Ess-a-Bagel is in the perfect spot for when you want to grab some breakfast before heading to Central Park to get your tourist on.

That's it for now, I have tickets to the matinee of The Color Purple on Broadway and I need to pre game with some Cinnamon Snail. I'll be blogging about some more of my favourite places (Oh hey Modern Love! Hi Confectionary!) soon but until then have a rad day and keep on spreading the word that vegan travel doesn't have to be difficult!

I fell hard for Lagusta's Luscious long before I ever tried their chocolates thanks to word of mouth and the power of the internet. That may sound strange but chocolate is one of my favourite things and when you do as much vegan foodie research as I do you know where to find the good stuff. After years of gazing at the Lagusta's Luscious website and following their beautiful Instagram feed I tried their chocolate for the first time in June 2014 after winning a voucher at Vida Vegan Con, waiting patiently for my chosen chocolates to ship, and sitting on the doorstep on my Austin Air B&B on delivery day because I knew that everything would melt in the hot Texas sun.

As soon as I bit into my first caramel I knew was in love, I'd never be satisfied with mediocre vegan chocolates again!

Lagusta's Luscious have two spots in upstate New York, New Paltz to be precise, their original chocolate shop and a new cafe where they offer rad things like palm oil free croissants and sliding scale soup. Lagusta's newest location, and the spot I visited, is called Confectionary. It's located in the East Village and is a joint venture with Maresa of Sweet Maresa's Macarons. What a dreamy duo!

If you follow me on Instagram you'll have seen that I pretty much popped into Confectionary to get something sweet every time I was in the area. I tried apple pie macarons, yuzu creams, peanut butter cups, and multiple chocolate bars laced with caramel and nuts, plums and anise. Everything here is seriously gorgeous and with Lagusta's you know that you're getting a quality chocolate product and supporting an awesome female owned business. Fuck yeah! As well as being a committed vegan Lagusta herself is an environmentalist and a die hard feminist with a commitment to running her business ethically. Everything is totes fair-trade and Food Empowerment Project certified which is super important to me, I don't know about you but I don't want to support child slavery and I wish every vegan business could get their shit together and stop using chocolate sourced from places where child labour and slavery are rife. Click here to learn more about this important issue.

I wish that I could have stuffed every space in my suitcase full of these delicious treats but my travel budget said a big hell no to that idea and I chose a couple of fave's and a couple of new treats to bring back to Europe with me.

On the left is a box of rosemary sea salt caramels, these are a bestseller and have been my favourite since I tried them in Austin a couple of years ago. I adore the rich and satisfying combo of salt caramel, rosemary, and chocolate and the little pinch of rosemary infused sea salt atop the bar really takes these from delightful to perfect. I couldn't have left New York without them! On the top right is a box of thyme caramels with sea salt and preserved lemon because I knew that I couldn't go wrong with another type of salt caramel, there are no chocolatiers in the UK making chocolates as inventive as these and I will be making them last as long as I possibly can. My third choice was a maple white chocolate bar which I'm sad to say is not to my taste. I'll try any and all ethically produced vegan white chocolate bars at least once but this is just a little too sweet for my tastes. Thankfully Nick loves it so I'm using it to keep him away from my caramels! Last but by no means least I picked up a turtle bar which is still my very favourite of their bars even after trying Lagusta's favourite the peanut butter caramel bar. This chocolate bar is stuffed full of pecans, nutty nougat, caramel, and sea salt (Anyone else seeing a pattern emerging here?!) and I'm saving it for a super special occasion. The chocolates that I desperately wanted to try but had to leave behind were the croissant infused chocolate caramels, the toasted mallow s'mores bar, and the vegan bacon infused pig out bar. I'm sure there are more (cardamom caramels anyone?) but that's my current wish list!

Food and ethics aside the other great thing about Confectionary is that it's in an amazing location right in the heart of the East Village. It's only a couple of doors down from Superiority Burger, one of my new fave' NYC spots (get the New Creation, you won't regret it!), and there are a bunch of other cool things within walking distance including the Tenement Museum, radical feminist bookstore Bluestockings, and Vaute Couture's flagship store. I'm sure I'll be back in the US one day and I'll be making Lagusta's Luscious (in real life or online) my very first stop.

Glasgow based vegan cheese co' Nutcrafter Creamery have been on my radar for a while and I finally had the chance to try a couple of their cashew based cheeses whilst I was road tripping in Scotland this summer. I picked up two of Nutcrafter's cheeses from Roots, Fruits, and Flowers in Glasgow; The Decadent, a flavourful, salty, air aged, Scottish dulse infused cheese, and The Essential, their smooth, spreadable, double cream style cheese. I ate them both on Oatcakes next to lochs all over Scotland which made my travels even more delightful.

As a self confessed vegan cheese fiend I obviously needed to get my paws on some more of their cashew cheeses and luckily the lovely peep's at Nutcrafter were more than happy to send some new flavours my way. My package included the The Volcanic, an extra aged black ash covered cheese, and The Indulgent, a fresh chive chèvre, as well as their almond parmesan, and a jar of their delicious cream cheese.

The Volcanic is definitely the best ash coated vegan cheese I've tried. This is probably a personal preference thing but I find that the black ash itself can sometimes be a little too intense overpowering the delicate flavours of the cheese itself but this was spot on and probably my favourite of the bunch.

Whilst my pre-vegan tastes leaned further towards a big block of cheddar or a tub of Philadelphia than anything decent there was a pizza place near me that used goats cheese on one of their pizzas. It was always my go-to order so this was an exciting one for me and the fact that I scoffed it all before it made it anywhere near a pizza says a lot about how delicious it was.

The Double Cream Frawmage was just as delightful as I remembered and it inserted itself just as well into my morning toast feasts as it had on my oat cake extravaganzas up in Scotland. Lastly The Prodigy, Nutcrafter's grated almond parmesan, was a total surprise as I didn't even realise that Nutcrafter made a parmesan. This nutty noochy powder is delicious over pasta or risotto and a jar of it would be the perfect addition to any festive foodie gift.

Nutcrafter Creamery cheeses are available at Infinity Foods in Brighton, Green Bay and Planet Organic in London, and at health food stores all over Scotland including Real Foods in Edinburgh and Roots, Fruits, and Flowers in Glasgow. Nut crafter Creamery also sell their cheeses online here.

I think that these cheeses are an absolute must for any vegan in the UK who has spent time lusting after the huge range of artisan nut based cheeses on the other side of the pond or for anyone looking to fancy up their cheese board this winter. I obviously need to eat all of these cheeses again as soon as possible and I can't wait to try both The Rebellious, their air aged roasted garlic cheese, and The Ancient, an amazing sounding extra aged gomasio cheddar style cheese. Bring on the cheese plates!

The cheeses featured in this post were provided free of charge for review purposes but as always all opinions are both totally unbiased and 100% my own.

If you live in the South of England and a friend is visiting Paris all the way from the US of A then you kinda have to make sure that you're there to greet them with a vegan croissant and tips on where to find the best chocolate chaud. When that trip also coincides with another friends parent's visit to the continent then this applies doubly and explains why I recently drove to Paris to spend the weekend with Joanna (of Yellow Rose Recipes fame), Randi (I hope you read her hilarious blog), her husband Zach, and her parents Cheryl and Bob.

Whilst Randi and family were still en route to the city of light Nick & I met up with Joanna for dinner at Brasserie 2eme Art. Both this spot and sister restaurant Brasserie Lola are new additions to the Parisian vegan dining scene since my last visit way back in 2011 and what great additions they are. It's not often that you find the vegan spots situated on main streets and bustling corners, blending into the local area, and tempting people with their mood lighting and cosy patio heaters but here we are.

The menus at both Brasserie 2eme Art and Brasserie Lola are very similar and whilst I enjoyed the food at both places the risotto I ordered at Brasserie 2eme Art was miles better than the croque monsieur I tried at Brasserie Lola. Brasserie 2eme Art also had a specials board which included waffles with a range of toppings and wow, that waffle was definitely one of the best things I ate in Paris.

My must-eat list was of course pretty long and I managed to squeeze in a surprising number of stops! Las Vegans quickly became a favourite, they sell the best vegan hot chocolate I've had in years and their doughnut selection is truly excellent, I went for a chocolate doughnut covered in chocolate and dipped in nuts but they also had Speculoos and caramel banana. If you're in the market for something savoury they make kebabs and bowls that can be eaten hot or cold which, although I don't try them myself, I am reliably informed are great options.

The area around Las Vegans is well worth an explore, from pavement cafe Delaville where you can enjoy an expresso, a soy milk cappuccino, or a glass of biodynamic wine whilst taking advantage of their wonderful setting and free wifi, to quirky homewares store Bibi Idea Shop located on rue de Bretagne, theres something for everyone. You're also within walking distance of both Un Monde Vegan and Ara Chocolat where you can stock up on a multitude of fun French treats. You'll have to excuse the terrible picture of my Un Monde Vegan haul, I was hungry when I took it!

Nick and I picked up some peppery tofu spread, a tin of Faux Gras which I am yet to open but totally excited about, a couple of our favourite iChoc bars (I love the white vanilla bar and Nick's super into choice cookie flavour), a shaker of parmesan, and a jar of nutella style spread.

We also put together a selection of pralines and other chocolaty treats at tiny award winning artisan chocolate shop Ara Chocolat. The guy working there, who I assume was the owner, was lovely and happily talked us through the chocolate making process and how using different beans gives even the most simple bars completely different flavours - kinda like with coffee or wine - I'm a total chocolate fanatic so I knew that already but Nick kinda had his mind blown by that news! I was happy to play along and try a few samples to work out which was my favourite. We also tried some pralines and some of the more out-there flavours including greengage, a type of sweet European plum, and peppercorn both of which we enjoyed enough to pop one of each into our selection box. The pralines were the real stand out for me though so if you visit make sure to at least pick up the almond and peanut variations. Apparently online store Vegan Town stocks Ara's pralines in the run up to Christmas so I'll be keeping an eye out & I'll let you know if / when they hit the virtual shelves.

Food aside I fitted in some great touristy spots and activities over the weekend; I visited The Orangerie, Sacre Cour, Notre Dame, and the Eiffel Tower. Walked along the Seine, sat in cafes drinking decaf espresso, and ate a helluva lot of between meal baguettes. I believe that this is what they call doing Paris right!

Now, back to the food! I've been wanting to eat at Gentle Gourmet ever since I heard about it opening in 2012. Nick and I stayed at their B&B back in 2011 and whilst we only ate breakfast there we had fond memories of their food and wonderful hospitality. Unfortunately our dining experience was, if I'm completely honest, a little hit and miss. I will admit that we weren't the easiest of guests, with one of our party arriving a full hour and a half late and ordering her main just after we'd finished eating our starters, but it also didn't get off to a great start as, upon arrival, we discovered that they'd lost our reservation. After a lot of back and forth, some awkward hanging around, and a phone call to the manager we were eventually seated outside and despite the need to immediately pop our jumpers, jackets, and scarves back on we were fine with the seating sitch'. Service was slow though and, to start with, a little on the chilly side, but toward the end of our meal I was being given free stuff left, right, and centre which was both very much appreciated and a little confusing. I think that the relaxed speed with which our dishes were coming out of the kitchen had something to do with the French weekend dining experience and a little to do with the fact that the kitchen was probably struggling with the "surprise" party of seven but when half of your group has to leave before the dessert menu has even been offered because you've already been there for two and a half hours then something's not quite right.

Food wise I was impressed for the most part, the arancini was nothing to write home about (I've had better at supper clubs and cafes in Brighton) but the sea-inspired tofu-stuffed giant ravioli served with sautéed salicorina, which I was pleased to discover is essentially samphire, one of my favourite sea veggies, and giant nori chips was excellent. I've never eaten a dish quite like it! Out of the wide range of starters our group chose the standout was the French style savoury shortbread topped with heaps of homemade cream cheese and crisp veggies, I loved this petite dish and would definitely order it again.

The saddest thing about my meal at Gentle Gourmet was that by the time our dessert order was taken they were sold out of the sweet that I'd had my eye on since this trip to Paris first came up in conversation many months ago. This time around Gentle Gourmet's giant macaron was flavoured with vine ripened peaches and filled with a white peach and champagne-syrup coulis and I think that the look on my face must have accurately conveyed my dismay at them being out because both the dessert I ended up with, a plate of six smaller macarons, and the hot chocolate I ordered along side it, were free.

The macarons themselves were a delight and eating macarons in Paris was certainly not something I'd ever dreamt possible back when I went vegan 10+ years ago. Vegan gastronomy has come so far y'all. As you can see from the picture above Nick ordered the most amazing looking dessert which consisted of a vanilla crumble, vanilla mousse, a strawberry coulis and a perfect cone of candyfloss. So fun! I was lucky enough to have a nibble and it tasted just as good as it looked. Joanna ordered a trio of vegan cheeses for dessert which was a genius idea and I can confirm that the two I tried, basil and mint, and sun-dried fig, were most excellent.

Overall I would recommend a meal a Gentle Gourmet but I would perhaps suggest calling to confirm your reservation and making sure that you don't have any post-lunch plans, partly because long lunches with friends are a delight but also because you're going to eat so much that you won't want to move for the rest of the day.

Food wise my final recommendation is Cloud Cakes, this is the place to get a vegan croissant in the city so you're gonna want to check their opening hours and get their early in the day, every day, for the duration of your stay. I kid. Kinda. These croissants really are the real deal and I actually had to pause to check Happy Cow after one bite because I got scared that we weren't really at a totally vegan place. You can scope out a pic on my insta if you don't believe me! Cloud Cakes also make a fantastic black forest cake so if you have any space left after inhaling all of the croissants then I would recommend a slice.

As we were only in Paris from Friday night through to early Monday morning, we left at 6am to squeeze in a half day volunteering at the Help Refugees warehouse in Calais before catching our ferry home, we missed some spots that I'd been dying to try; Hank Burger, Hank Pizza and Le Tricycle, were all on my to-try list and almost vegan Chinese spot Tien Hiang and world renowned vegan friendly falafel spot L'as Du Falafel were both on my re-visit list. We didn't have time for most of them and sadly when we arrived at L'as Du Falafel early on the Sunday evening there was a little sign letting people know that they were closed that day. We ended up eating decent, but not the best ever, falafel sandwiches at a spot a little way down the street but these things happen and Paris is close enough that I know I'll go back one day.

Have you visited Paris recently? What were your favourite spots?

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