vegan.in.brighton

Today wasn't much of a Snoozeday! The wonders of jet lag had me up and raring to go at 6:30am, but I'm not complaining because we're in San Francisco! Yay!

We headed to The Plant for breakfast because it was one of the only places in the area that was open early. I ordered the Basil Pesto Tofu Scramble which comes with potatoes, wholewheat sourdough toast and fruit.

I really loved the scramble, the tofu was kinda shredded rather than mashed or in chunks which was both interesting and delicious. I'll be trying this technique at home for sure. It was also full of tasty basil and tomatoes, yum. I love carbs so getting both potatoes and toast was always gonna be a win but I hate melon which made up over half of the fruit on the plate.

After breakfast we wandered around the Farmer's Market at the Ferry Building and found Pepple's Donuts, I'd heard of this all vegan Oakland based donut co' before but I was surprised and excited by the amount of variety at their small stall. I picked up two donuts, salt caramel and chocolate cookie.

I ate the chocolate cookie donut almost immediately, the inside was chocolate too and the delicious chocolate glaze on the outside had just the right amount of sweetness. There was also a great looking juice place next to Pepple's which had 5 types of green juice as well as a tonne of fruity mixes. Hodo Soy also have a stand outside the building and we bought some delicious tofu egg salad from the rad dude manning the stall.

I'm gonna keep exploring the city now so I'll catch y'all tomorrow for Football Food Sunday!

Hey MoFo's! This is gonna be a short one today, just some fun FFS pic's. We spent the morning exploring The Mission and now we're heading to Japan town before I hop over to Berkeley to meet a friend.

We started the day with a sandwich from Ike's place. We got the PeeWee which is stuffed with vegan turkey, poppyseed slaw and Swiss cheese. Their sandwiches all come with a hot sauce which we didn't realise until after we'd ordered - it was a good thing we didn't notice though because if we had we might have opted to leave it off and it was deeeelicious!

After the sandwich we headed to a classic breakfast location, Bi-Rite Creamery, for ice cream. The vegan flavour is chocolate coconut and we topped ours with Newman O's.

After this we chilled in Mission Dolores Park before heading to Valencia Street where we couldn't resist a taco from The Little Chihuahua.

Given my chilli issues I'm not 100% sure a Green Chilli Tofu Taco was a great idea but I can't resist tofu and despite the epic mouth burn factor of this taco we really enjoyed it!

Hope you're having a great weekend catch ya tomorrow for Mac & Cheese Monday - if anyone knows of a great mac & cheese spot in the Bay Area lemme know!

I'm in San Francisco right now but today I'll be taking you on a virtual tour of Zagreb's vegan eateries for Travel Tip Tuesday.

I was in Zagreb in late June with my friends Melanie and Carmen who both live in Vienna. We met up in Barcelona last year and I'm loving our fairly new tradition of meeting up in different European cities.

Or first dinner destination was vegetarian restaurant Vegehop.

Vegehop have a large menu with a lot of vegan options but it didn't take me long to hone in on the Moussaka...

...which I ordered with a side of Greek Salad.

Honestly this tofu, chickpea and olive stuffed salad was so huge that it could have been a meal in itself but I had no issue polishing off both plates of food. The moussaka was filled with tofu, kale, mushrooms and zucchini and there's no doubt in my mind that I'd order it again.

On our second visit I ordered the Seitan Burger which I loved. It came in a seeded bun with plenty of mayo, some lettuce and a gherkin which I removed.

This burger was huge, filling, flavourful and only cost £2.20, what more could you ask for?!

The real highlight of Vegehop's vegan offerings are their cakes, specifically the Danube Waves. We ordered a slice to share on the first night and if I didn't love these ladies so much I may have stabbed them with the dessert fork and run away with the whole thing. Luckily I'm learning to share food but on our second visit I did the sensible thing and took home two pieces just for me.

The base of this insanely delicious cake is a vanilla sponge, like a pound cake in texture, interspaced with waves of chocolate batter and filled with sour cherries, next comes a not-too-sweet mousse-like layer and then the cake is topped off with a semi-sweet chocolate icing. It was crazy good and I love being surprised by unexpectedly brilliant desserts.

It took us until the third day of our trip to check out Zrno's brand new Bio Bistro on Meduliceva which only opened the day after we arrived. We discovered their fresh, healthy, lunch menu thanks to a recommendation from a friendly vegan chap at the health food store and we loved this place so much that we ended up visiting three times in three days.

On day one I ordered the Greenpeace Pasta which came with wholewheat pasta, seasonal leafy greens, and smoked tofu with vegan cheese and fresh basil.

I enjoyed this but I need to try to remember that I don't love wholewheat pasta, aside from that this dish was fresh and delicious and I loved the pesto.

On day two I opted for the Brown Rice Gomoku. I love brown rice and this short grain rice dish with mixed vegetables, seitan, tofu and a side of steamed greens was fantastic, filling and healthy.

I went a little fancier for our final meal and ordered the Seitan Cordon Bleu which was unlike any I'd had before.

The crisp coating around this seitan steak was perfect and the steaks themselves went wonderfully with the steamed greens, tomatoey barbecue sauce and creamy tofu mayonnaise. This was definitely my favourite meal out of the three and if I lived near Zrno I would find myself ordering it again and again.

Something else I'd love to be able to order again is their Chocolate Temptation cake. This dense but moist cake was filled with perfectly fluffy chocolate mousse and toped with chocolate ganache and a chocolate drizzle.

We were all super impressed with how delicious this cake was, rich but not too sweet, and then we were really surprised to find out that it's sweetened with agave. I wish I was eating a slice of this right now.

Our final dine-out destination in Zagreb was Green Point, a veggie fast food spot located right in the centre of the city. I ordered the Grilled Seitan Burger which was totally delicious.

I love seitan and I love burgers so a seitan burger is always a winner in my mind. This one was especially delicious as it was well seasoned and came with a really delicious soya mayonnaise. It was also about £2.35 which is a ridiculous bargain.

We all had a wonderful time in Zagreb and I'll be back next tuesday to show you what else we loved so stay tuned.

I didn't think I was going to manage a Mac 'n Cheese Monday post today, the two places I wanted to head to get my mac on (thanks to your awesome recommendations) were Homeroom in Oakland and Source over in the Design District. Unfortunately neither of these spots aligned with today's riding bicycles in Golden Gate Park plan. Soooo we did the next best thing, cheese picnic!

Yesterday we went to Rainbow Grocery and picked up a tub of Treeline soft French style nut cheese and a Dr Cow aged cashew cheese and today when we picked up our bikes we completed the trio with a tub of The Cultured Kitchen smoked cheddar cashew cheese. We also grabbed a Herb Slab, which is like a less oily focaccia, because cheese without bread is just sad!

This was one of the best picnics ever, not just because of the awesome setting and the huge appetite we'd worked up biking all over the park but because the quality of our cheese and bread choices were outstanding. The Treeline cheese is a tangy soft cashew cheese with lemony overtones, Nick enjoyed this one a lot whilst I preferred the Dr Cow which is a harder cheese. Our absolute favourite was the smoky cheddar cheese though, from a brand I'd ever heard of before this one was more like a dip than a spreadable cheese and was reminiscent of the sauce for one of my favourite mac & cheeses from Vegan Diner.

I think this was a super successful Cheese Monday even if there was no mac - I'll definitely be heading to Source and/or Homeroom this week though so expect a proper Mac 'n Cheese Monday post next week.

PS - My blog is insisting on time / date stamping my posts with the time in the UK so whilst it says I posted this on Tuesday 17th it is very definitely still Monday 16th here in San Francisco!

I love to read about other people's favourite things. Whether we're talking store cupboard essentials, food, restaurant experiences, make up, vegan products in general, I love it all! Given how much I love reading everyone's top five posts I thought I should jump on in there and write some lists of my own starting with my top five store cupboard essentials.

Nooch. Both Nick and I feel a little strange if we don't have nooch in the house and I always re-stock when I open the final canister in the house. This is our preferred brand and actually the only brand I've ever seen in the UK. I wish we could buy it in bulk here like you can in the US.

Pasta. Pasta always plays a part in my favourite quick and easy meals. Throw some canned tomatoes on the stove, wilt some spinach up in there and throw in some seasonings and you have a great, simple, healthy meal that takes little to no effort. I love white pasta for almost everything; I usually buy organic as the regular kind gives me more of a stomach ache when I eat a tonne of it... which I will because you use it to make mac & cheese and I refuse to think about portion control when I'm eating my favourite foods! I'm also partial to some rice pasta but wholewheat can get the fork outa my kitchen.

Canned Beans. I know it's lazy but I just cannot be bothered to simmer beans from scratch. I usually have cannelini, black, pinto and aduki beans in the cupboard alongside chickpeas which means I have a bean suitable for most recipes. Aduki may seem a little unnecessary but you use 'em to make my favourite AFR recipe, the Miso Stir Fry with Beans and Greens, and sometimes I really, really need to eat that!

Silken Tofu. As this is a store cupboard list regular tofu can't make an appearance but speaking as a lady with a tofu tattoo it's fair to say that I love it all equally. I use this to make omelettes, brownies, pies, Alfredo sauces and salad dressings. It's rad. My brand of choice is Mori-Nu and I always buy firm.

Stock Cubes. A lot of my favourite recipes use broth and I think we've all ascertained that I'm not the broth making type. I've done it once or twice but to me it's not worth the effort. I keep vegetable, Not-Chicken and Not-Beef in my store cupboard at all times. Some of my favourite broth containing recipes are the Mac Daddy from Veganomicon, AFR's Caulipots and almost any seitan recipe.

You actually can't buy these here yet but I order mine from iHerb where you can also buy Dandies, Clif bars and plenty of other great vegan stuff. The shipping to Europe's super reasonable if you order less than 4lb's of stuff & you can use my code JOJ321 to get money off of your first order if you'd like to.

Have you written a five store cupboard essentials post for Vegan MoFo? If so link it in the comments so I can check it out.

Ah root beer, root beer gets a post all of its very own because we are in love. I first tried root beer by accident and it was not love at first taste.

Nick and I were at DunWell Donuts in Brooklyn and I decided to order a soda, they all came on tap and had strange names so I had no idea what any of them were. For no particular reason I picked a sarsaparilla soda. At first I was unsure but slowly the drink grew on me and days later I found myself thinking about it. I turned to google, effectively the matchmaker in this burgeoning relationship, firstly to find out what on earth a sarsaparilla was and secondly to work out where and how we could meet again.

Once I discovered that this mysterious ingredient was the main flavour in Root Beer I set about trying as many kinds as possible and our NYC to Chicago road trip was peppered with meetings like this one at Veggie Grill in Cambridge...

...this one on a bench in Salem...

...and this one at Evolution Cafe on our way out of Northampton.

I picked up many bottles and cans along the way, some micro brewed...

...some very definitely not.

Some accompanied cupcakes in Cleveland...

...and some were paired with pizza in Chicago.

I'm lucky enough to live around the corner from Cybercandy, a US import store, who sell Gale's root beer which is one of my favourites.

In Austin I tried a Root Beer Snow Cone which wasn't a winner in my eyes. Apparently I prefer my root beer chilled rather than frozen.

I did however offset this troubling experience with another root beer and all was well with the world again!

In Portland I was even lucky enough to try my first ever root beer float which, amidst the excitement, sadly went unphotographed. I am currently in Santa Cruz and I'm sure that there will be more root beers in the not too distant future.

Hey MoFo's! Welcome to the third Facsimile Friday in the series. I've already recreated Cafe Blossom's Benedict and the scramble from Bouldin Creek Cafe and today it's the turn of the Portland Bowl from Canteen in, yup, you guessed it, Portland.

I was lucky enough to try this just after Vida Vegan Con and it was the first thing I cooked up when I got home from my travels. The bowl is made up of quinoa, steamed kale, baked maple tempeh, nooch sauce, shredded carrots and chopped hazelnuts.

For my recreation I cooked up some quinoa, steamed some kale, fried up some Tofurky Maple Bacon tempeh and used the noochy sauce from Appetite For Reduction.

My recreation was yummy but not quite as delicious as the version at Canteen, next time I'll make my own maple tempeh and probably use a higher fat cheesy sauce. I think I'm gonna need to go back to Portland for research purposes!

It's Snoozeday Saturday you guys, I ate some pretty rad breakfasts this week so I'm gonna show you those!

Takeout pizza from DNA Lounge in San Francisco. This spot is 24 hour which means vegan pizza by the slice at any time of day. Even breakfast time. Yes!

Doughnuts! This beaut' was from Whole Foods and I ate it in the car as we drove down towards Santa Cruz.

Breakfasts shared with friends. Amey (from Vegan Eats & Treats!) met up with Nick & I one last time before we left Santa Cruz where we had an amazing time hanging out together - we went kayaking and ended up 10 feet away from a humpback whale which I think was one of the coolest experiences of all of our lives! We met up at The Bagrlry and I ordered a toasted onion bagel with herby Toffuti cream cheese & fresh tomatoes - I eat fresh tomatoes every chance I get when travelling because the ones in the UK are super hit or miss. Amey also brought muffins (from a place I forget the name of) and a huge bowl of delicious, fresh, sweet watermelon. She's so rad!

In other news it's mine & Nick's 9 year getting-together-aversary today!! I'm so excited - he's the best! We're going to Millenium for dinner so I'm extra stoked!

The niners lost but at least there were garlic fries.

Let's hope both the food & the game are better on Thursday!

Happy MoFoing peeps!

Hey y'all, I didn't eat any mac & cheese today buuuut I am in Vegas having an awesome time! Here are some pic's from my day so far...

See ya tomorrow!

This is the last of my Vegan MoFo 2013 Travel Tip Tuesday posts and today I'm continuing the virtual tour of Zagreb I began last week.

We were stoked to find that super vegan friendly health food store chain bio & bio had a location a short walk from the central apartment we'd rented for the week.

On our first visit we chatted to a vegan guy working there who not only pointed out everything vegan for us but also gave us a great tip about what turned out to be our favourite restaurant. On that visit I bought a few breakfast items - bread rolls, spreads, yoghurts as well as baked tofu for snacking, a delicious tofu sandwich, a cookie and a slice of cake. When we visited all of the cakes and sandwiches in the fridge were vegan.

We think that these cakes were made by the people at our favourite restaurant, Zrno, and I really enjoyed this slice which seemed to be made out of super thin layers of almost pancake like cake interspersed with agave sweetened chocolate mousse. It was delicious.

This smoked seitan sandwich was another favourite of mine although I liked the smoked tofu salad one even more.

Croatioa is also a veritable gold mine for accidentally vegan sweet treats. We saw all three of these chocolates in stores all over the city, from the speciality places like Kras to the regular old corner store. The Bajadera were my favourites, they were so sweet and creamy that I'd imagine people could find it hard to believe that they're vegan!

Napolitanke are another accidentally vegan Croatian speciality and I particularly enjoyed the cherry flavour made by Koestlin. Also vegan are Kras brand Napolitanke in Lemon Orange, Nougat and Chocolate.

We were excited to see that just like in Western Europe Croatia have a wonderful selection of Alpro products including some that were totally new to us like these Speculoos desserts...

...and red fruit flavoured soya milk.

We were tipped off before our trip that Croatian bakery chain MLINAR have two accidentally vegan pastries, the Burek S Višnjama and the Burek S Jabukama. We picked up both and whilst the Burek S Višnjama was, as expected, cherry filled, the Burek S Jabukama which we had expected to be filled with apples was full of something that looked and apparently tasted like cheese curds. We're not sure if the recipe had changed or if the person working simply passed us the wrong burek. I thought the cherry was pretty great though, the pastry was definitely on the greasy side but I enjoyed it and I'd definitely eat it again.

Hand model credit to Melanie.

We also visited the vast and wonderfully colourful dolac market. Outside every stall was bursting with fruit and veg that the farmers had brought in from their farms that morning.

We also wandered the streets checking out the fantastic architecture...

...and squeezed in visits to great museums. We all enjoyed the quirky Museum of Broken Relationships...

...and I had a wonderful time at the Museum of Contemporary Art, and not just because I went on the slides four times whilst my travel companions sipped coffee like real adults after their slightly more sensible one go.

Zagreb also has many wonderful cafe bars and a great tradition of spending Sunday afternoons sitting outside them and people watching. I enjoyed many of these vegan friendly grapefruit radlers at our favourite spot, Kino Europa, and I hope to see them making an appearance in UK stores soon.

This was a wonderful trip, I love these ladies and I love Zagreb. I hope to go back one day and I would strongly recommend it to any vegans planning Eastern European travels.

Hey! Welcome to this week's What I Ate Wednesday MoFo's!

We're still travelling and right now we're in Las Vegas! I wasn't entirely sure if I'd be into Vegas but I can confirm that I totally am!! Vegas is so fun!

We're staying at The Encore which is one of Steve Wynn's hotels, if ya don't know about this already it's pretty cool - Steve himself is (was?) vegan and now every restaurant in all of his hotels (two in Vegas & one in Macau) have vegan menus in addition to the regular menu. Rad right? Breakfast is included in our room rate so we've been taking advantage and having it delivered to our room each morning.

Today I had the pancakes...

...and Nick had the tofu scramble with spinach & soy cheese. This comes with sides of both potatoes & toast - he went for sourdough.

We also got a fruit salad and juices, one orange, one green, which we switched over after this pic was taken!

After a morning spent lounging by the pool lunchtime came and went and we found ourselves at Wazuzu, for a suuuuper late lunch.

The vegan menu here was one of the ones I was most excited about working my way through before we left and I certainly wasn't disappointed. This place serves some of the best dim sum I've ever eaten & I've been to Portland's Departure Lounge which was pretty special.

We started with the Jade Dumplings...

...and the Chick'n Shu Mai.

Both were exceptional, I adored the veggie stuffed green jade dumplings and we were super impressed at the chefs more out-there use of Gardein in the second dumplings.

As a sushi lover I just had to try the Vegan Crunch Roll.

My picture really doesn't do these beauties justice, stuffed with green beans, asparagus, avocado and nori this is probably the best sushi I've ever eaten. I adored the fancy flourishes, the crispy Japanese rice cracker topping and the two sweet sauces. I'll Defintely be going back for more.

This place even has dessert and whilst I hate (HATE!!) the description in the menu (Guilt Free Vegan Brownie Sundae, yuch.) it was freaking delicious.

Ice cream topped and covered in crispy rice and an epic caramel sauce this was the perfect end to a meal.

As this is Vegas it's 11pm and instead of enjoying dinner we've (um, I've, Nick doesn't drink) been subsisting on beer and the joy of winning...I'll have to add our probably 3am room service dinner to this post at a later date!

It's Thirsty Thursday today and as I'm in Vegas this totally fits in with my travel theme too - double win (or Wynn, haha!).

Last night we had dinner at Zoozacrackers which is a super casual dining spot at The Wynn. It's right by the Casino floor so we popped in for a quick meal before heading back out to the Craps table.

We both had the Wynn Burger with fries and a chocolate shake.

This signature Wynn burger combo was designed by Steve Wynn himself to be like a Mc D's cheeseburger & fries and I'd say him & his team of chefs got it spot on. The fries were plentiful and perfectly crispy and the burger itself was a delicious Gardein patty on a soft white bun with a slice of melty vegan cheese alongside the classic gherkin / onion / mustard / ketchup combo.

What really surprised me about the meal was that I liked the milkshake! I have never, ever, liked a milkshake in my whole life! I always try a little sip when Nick gets one because I want to like them, I understand that not liking them makes me kinda weird, so I was both surprised and excited to discover upon sipping this shake that I didn't grimace & hand it back, I totally wanted more! It's apparently made with coconut based ice cream and it was super cold, really thick and not crazy sweet. It was SO great and I imagine that if you already enjoy milkshakes you'll really love this one.

When I planned my MoFo posts I never imagined that I would write a Thirsty Thursday post about a milkshake but crazy things happen in Vegas right?!

After a suuuuper late night involving a whole lot of casino hopping and far too much alcohol Nick and I slept in way past lunch and ordered some classy room service for our first meal of the day.

Luckily whilst the food here was presented in a fancy schmancy way the food was anything but. We got a Gardein Chick'n Sandwich with fries and a pizza topped with Gardein chicken plus mushrooms on my half.

The pizza was pretty great especially when you take into account that it's on a hotel room service menu! I would perhaps suggest they get some thicker boxes to keep the pizza even warmer on it's journey from the kitchen but honestly if that's the worst complaint I have I should probably STFU, the cheese was melty, the toppings were plentiful & it was a perfect hangover cure. We both enjoyed the burger but not as much as the Gardein cheese burger I blogged about yesterday - the fries were still impressively crispy though and it was by no means a bad ordering choice.

Other room service options at The Encore (and I assume The Wynn as I'd be surprised if there were different vegan room service menus at these sister hotels) include spinach & artichoke ravioli, nachos, tomato soup and kung pao chick'n. Their room service menu is available 24 hours a day & certainly contributed to my mad love for this super vegan friendly hotel.

Saturday Snoozeday is all about breakfast so really I shoulda saved yesterday's epic room service post for today right?! It's okay though I still have breakfast pictures for ya, these are both from Herbivore in San Francisco.

Blueberry Pancakes with extra blueberries instead of caramelised banana, because, ew!

French Toast, sourdough with caramelised banana because that's how Nick rolls.

More deet's to come when I'm not frantically MoFoing on my phone whilst travelling!

Happy almost-end-of-MoFo everyone!

I loved writing my list of favourite store cupboard essentials so I wrote another list! This time here's a list of my five (current) favourite convenience foods.

Vegusto. I love Vegusto's whole range of vegan meats and cheeses but the No-Moo Dezent has to be my absolute favourite. I love that it has a really strong flavour so you only have to use a small amount ontop of pasta or mixed into your baked beans whereas in the past I'd end up using about 1/3 of a block of Cheezly to get a similar flavour profile. My second favourite Vegusto cheese is the No-Moo Melty, it makes an epic grilled cheese especially if you use a panini press, toastie maker or cast iron skillet to make your sandwich. I often hear people complaining about the price of Vegusto but it's really not that bad especially when you consider a- how much nuts cost b- that Vegusto are a small company and c- that this is freaking delicious vegan cheese. They always have special deals on at vegan festivals so if you haven't had the chance to try it yet that's always a good time to pick up a block or three.

Amy's Daiya Mac & Cheese. I love this stuff! It's currently the only way to get your Daiya fix in the UK, it cooks in the microwave in under five minutes and it's super creamy and delicious. If there weren't about 600 calories in a frankly teeny-tiny portion I'd probably eat this every day. Tip - this mac's also amazing with some Taifun hot dogs mixed in!

Pop Chips. I love these crunchy, crispy popped potato chips. I rotate back and forth between Salt & Vinegar and Ready Salted because I can't pick a favourite. I also love that I can find 'em in both health food and mainstream stores.

Dove's Farm Cocoa Rice Cereal. I was pretty gutted when I found out that Coco Pops weren't vegan a few years ago, some kinda stupid d-vitamin change I believe, so when I discovered these I was over the moon. It's a pretty pricy cereal so it's not my go-to but it's definitely my favourite.

VBites Veggie Bacon. This stuff used to be branded as Redwoods but now the brand name is VBites to align with their Brighton based cafe. My dirty little secret has gotta be how much I used to love a bacon sarnie especially at breakfast time, luckily for me and the adorable little piggies these cruelty free rashers hit the spot and make an excellent butty.

Because I'm totally obsessed with both pasta and anything vegan-cheesy I like to fit in as much mac 'n cheese as possible whilst travelling, here are some of my favourites.

This side of Creamy Mac n Cheese from Foodswings in Brooklyn was pretty perfect, I loved it and I was gutted that I couldn't finish the whole bowl!

Also a side, the mac 'n' cheese from Chicago Diner in, yup, you guessed it, Chicago, was also creamy and delicious - just the way I like it.

I'm realising now that I'm writing this that the majority of the mac's I've enjoyed are sides! Weird. This next one's from Veggie Grill who have locations in Seattle, Portland and all over California. This contained some unexpected chilli but makes it into the favourites list anyway because it was perfectly al dente thanks to the gluten free pasta and once I knew the chilli pieces were in there I could eat around 'em no worries.

This next one certainly didn't come from a restaurant but I did eat in on the road so it's in. The Amy's Dairy Free Rice Macaroni and Cheeze is made with Daiya and it's something I eat regularly when we're staying in hotels, motels or anywhere with a microwave. It's so delicious that I eat it whilst I'm travelling even though I can get it at home.

This side of mac no-cheese from Homegrown Smoker in Portland was one I wished was way, way bigger. It was perfectly creamy and smokey and next time I'll be getting an extra portion.

This next one only just scrapes its way onto the list on a technicality, it's not really just a mac 'n cheese and therefor shouldn't be judged as such. Buuuut the Mac & Cheese Burger from White Owl Social Club in Portland was one of the best things I've ever eaten so it's getting a special mention.

Where are your favourite mac & cheeses hiding? You never know I just might travel somewhere to try them.

I can't believe this is that last Vegan MoFo post of 2013, I've loved taking part - I've learnt that blogging (and especially commenting) from the road is, um, challenging and, as always, I have a tonne of stuff bookmarked to read, make, and gain inspiration from throughout the year. Until next time MoFo's!

After arriving home from my US travels in the second week of October (more on that trip soon!) I turned around in a day and a half and hopped on a train followed by a Megabus up north to Leeds. The mission, to get tattooed. This isn't something I'd necessarily recommend as I was still feeling a little jet lagged and fragile by the morning of my appointment! I popped to the shop for my consultation as soon as I arrived in Leeds and then went to warm up with some hot chocolate and crumpets at veggie spot Roots & Fruits.

Roots & Fruits is a super cute cafe run by a lovely couple, these crumpets were the perfect comfort food and aren't something you often see in vegan friendly places. None of their main meals really jumped out at me so I didn't end up going back for one but I'd definitely say that this place is worth a visit.

The next day I grabbed a super hearty and filling breakfast of Baked Beans and Cheese on Toast at Global Tribe Cafe. This is another cute little place, located above a crystal shop, and run by super friendly people. As you can see the cheese on toast was suuuuper huge and filling. I loved that it was essentially a cheese on toast covered in beans, brilliant. I could hardly wait to go back!

This breakfast kept me going for a good few hours but after my appointment I was in need of sustenance asap and decided to check out Little Tokyo because of it's close proximity to Out Of This World, the health food store where I planned to stock up on awesome stuff for a hotel room dinner picnic. Unfortunately I don't think I can really review Little Tokyo fairly right now, it came recommended to me by two vegans who I assume enjoyed the food there and it has good reviews on Happy Cow but everything I tried was worse than mediocre and Japanese food is my favourite so I know what a decent dumpling's like. I only ordered dim sum though so maybe the full meals are better? If you've been let me know what you like there and maybe I'll give it another try.

The good news is that after my disappointing lunch I went dessert crazy at Out Of This World and got myself four desserts and a sandwich ready for bed picnic time! I was really excited to see the pistachio cardamon cake made by local company That Old Chestnut who I stumbled upon at the Northern Vegan Festival in Manchester earlier this year. I loved that cake then and I still love it now, it's delicately flavoured and not too sweet. Perfect as part of a dessert medley! I also grabbed a slice of Peanut Butter Chocolate tiffin which may have also been made by That Old Chestnut. It was exceptional, I've eaten a lot of tiffin in my time and this is up there with the best.

Next I was drawn to the piece of Bakewell Tart, I will never turn down a piece of Bakewell and this was the most authentic vegan version I've ever tried. It had the thin bottom layer, moist sponge and almond / cherry ratio spot on. It was delicious. Lastly I grabbed a Pudology chocolate pudding which I remembered enjoying at the Northern Vegan Festival but I was a little disappointed at how much more coconutty it seemed this time around, it really overwhelmed the chocolate flavour and I'm unsure if I'd buy it again.

I also enjoyed a couple of sandwiches from Out Of This World whilst in Leeds, the fillings change regularly and they come in either a large bap or on gluten free bread. My only complaint was that the chopped salad inside both sandwiches contained red pepper which I dislike and it was a challenge to pick out the pieces (especially on the bus!) because they looked so similar to the delicious chunks of tomato - hardly the worst thing ever though and I'll definitely be revisiting Out Of This World on my next Leeds adventure, they're only little but they have all of your vegan needs covered.

For my last meal, a brunch of sorts, I finally got to go back to Global Tribe Cafe to try their pie special. The day I visited it was Creamy Chicken & Mushroom, my favourite. It came with roasted root veggies, salad and a decent sized jug of gravy - there's nothing worse than somewhere that gives you a thimble of gravy ...or maple syrup, ugh! Moving on from my dining out pet peeves this meal was delicious and filling and I love the homely vibe here.

I really enjoyed my little weekend break in Leeds and I'll certainly be recreating the epic beans on toast soon. Since I got back from Leeds I've been in Berlin and now I'm getting reaquainted with Brighton and spending far too long lying around snuggling with Rorschach, our foster kitty, how could you resist this floofy belly?!

The super generous peep's at Veganic Foods in Germany sent me a bumper pack of vegan cheeses to try late this summer and I couldn't wait to dig in. I was totally one of those "I could never give up cheese" vegetarians. I know! I snapped out of it pretty swiftly and realised that the lives of dairy cows are obviously more important that my love of dairy - duh!

Anyway, as a former cheeseoholic, I get super excited whenever a new non-dairy cheese appears on the scene. The Veganic brand have come up with ten, yep, ten, differently flavoured cheeses which come in pre-sliced packs alongside a pizza cheese which is taking indie pizza places, including Brighton's very own Pizza Face, across the UK by storm.

I dug into the cheese slices as soon as they arrived and to test their meltiness I popped a slice onto the chickpea tuna sandwich (recipe in Vegan With A Vengeance) I was halfway through making and grilled it for a few minutes. The cheese got bubbly and melty, it was dreamy.

My absolute favourite way to eat the cheese slices (aside from straight up outa the pack) was on a regular old cheese sarnie. These were up there with my favourite sandwiches pre-vegan and now I can eat them again, all day every day if I want to. Being an adult is a dangerous business!

My very favourite of the flavours on offer was Original which reminded me of the Leerdammer slices I used to enjoy, both in taste and texture. My second fave was Cheddar which tasted pretty similar to Original and this was closely followed by Pizza, Olive Oil, Olive and then Herbs in that order. I could take or leave the mushroom variety.

As I couldn't be bothered to make a pizza as delicious as Pizza Face's I used the Pizza Cheese in a variety of different ways, stuffed into a baked potato, melted on toast, out of the bag with a spoon, but my favourite had to be this lazy chick'n parm. Can't be bothered to cook a proper meal but want it to look fancy? Just grab a Fry's schnitzel, chuck some passata (from a box, obvs) ontop, sprinkle with herbs and then top it with Veganic Pizza Cheese. Perfect. I served mine with quinoa and Nick knocked up some pasta to have with his. It was delicious.

There are so many non-dairy cheese options out there now even compared to when I went vegan almost eight years ago. Imagine what being vegan 15 or 20 years ago must've been like. Maybe you don't have to, maybe you've been vegan for that long or longer, if so, kudos to you. I think you're pretty rad! This range of cheeses can definitely hold it's own in the ever growing vegan cheese market and I strongly recommend that you give it a try. In Brighton you can pick up my favourite flavours at Infinity Foods (just a coincidence but a great one!) or check out a health food store near you. You can also order online from Goodness Direct or Alternative Stores.

I spent the last weekend of October in Berlin with one of my very best friends Tabitha. We had so much fun! She's my oldest Brighton based friend and I actually met her and my dude Nick at the same time, shitty jobs can apparently bring great things into your life. We're both kinda busy and don't get to hang out often enough so a weekend break was the perfect way to squeeze in a whole lot of silly friend time. We both adore Berlin, this was my fourth visit and her sixth or seventh and it was super fun showing each other our favourite parts of the city. A joint favourite and a place we knew we'd be heading for as soon as we arrived was Vöner, this all vegan kebab joint serves frankly enormous seitan doner sandwiches which come with your choice of herb, tahini garlic or chilli tomato sauces. I went with tahini garlic because if it was up to me I'd make it a law that people must put garlic on everything!

We both love to explore cities on foot and ride the u-bahn so we went all over the city eating, meeting dogs (real and not!), looking at street art and taking pictures of everything!

Our favourite place to warm up and chill out was Ohlàlà Tartes Shop. I fell in love with this beautiful French style cafe on my last trip to Berlin in 2011 and I'm happy to report that Tabitha now loves it as much as I do. We endeavoured to try as many of the delicious things on offer as possible and started with hot chocolate and flavoured lattes. My hot chocolate was delightful, I love this style where you mix the warm milk with the melty chocolate, it's so creamy and decadent.

I got super overexcited when I laid eyes upon the crepe menu, I might've even done a little squeak! I adore crepes especially the savoury cheese stuffed kind and they aren't something I often stumble upon.

As was only right in this establishment I chose a Parisienne crepe which came filled with ham and cheese. It was absolutely perfect, I mean how can you go wrong with a melty cheese stuffed crepe?!

This cafe has an amazing selection of sweet treats filling the counter and tempting your tastebuds. We endeavoured to work our way through as many as possible starting with this beautiful and perfectly light chocolate mousse cake.

I also tried a pear mousse bomb which was filled with an even lighter mousse than the previous cake, something I hadn't thought possible, hidden inside were some sweet delicious pear pieces.

Tabitha taste tested this gorgeous chocolate nougat thing that I forget the name of, it was dense and filled with a gooey caramel, definitely an intense dessert option.

Another of my favourite discoveries from previous trips was Viasko, I ate lunch there twice last time I visited Berlin and this time we went for dinner where we started the night as we meant to go on, with booze! These cocktails were up there with the best I've ever tried, my TransMelonMan was so good that I finished it in record time and had to order another before our food had even arrived.

We arrived around 8pm and quite a few menu items were done for the day so I decided to go with a salad starter...

...and my companion had the soup of the day which, to her delight, was mushroom. My salad was delicious but really huge and super filling for a starter, the mushroom soup was simple, rich and beautifully creamy, everything I remember dairy and cream laden mushroom soup to be.

My main was this huge tofu and sweet onion covered Flammkuchen, a dish I'd seen on many a German menu but never tried. The cheese portion was a mix of homemade nut based cheese, a melty dairy cheese alternative and tofu.

Tabitha ordered the seitan gyros, a classic choice and Nick's favourite dish at Viasko. Our mains were tasty for sure but we both agreed that they were far, far too salty, the combination of that plus the slow service when we needed our water glasses refilled meant that we only finished around half of our mains. I would definitely still recommend a visit to Viasko though, I love the atmosphere there and 90% of the food I've tried has been outstanding.

If you've been to Berlin recently or follow me on Twitter or Instagram one place I'm sure you've noticed is missing from this post is Veganz, Berlin's amazing vegan supermarket chain. Don't worry I haven't forgotten about it I just loved it so much that it's getting a post of it's very own, watch this space!

Saturday Snoozeday - San Francisco Edition

Football Food Sunday!

Travel Tip Tuesday - Zagreb

Mac 'n Cheese Monday - San Francisco Edition

Five Fave's: Store Cupboard Essentials

Thirsty Thursday - My Love Affair With Root Beer

Facsimile Friday - Portland Bowl at Canteen

Snoozeday Saturday

Football Food Sunday

No Mac or Cheeze Monday

Travel Tip Tuesday - Zagreb: Stores and More

WIAW- Vegas Edition

Vegan Vegas - Zoozacrackers

Vegan in Vegas: Encore room service

Saturday Snoozeday: San Francisco edition

Five Fave's: Convenience Foods

Mac 'n Cheese Monday - On the road.

Exploring Leeds.

Veganic Vegan Cheeses.

Exploring Berlin.