vegan.in.brighton

Hello and welcome to the penultimate Mac and Cheese Monday of VeganMoFo 2014. To keep the Austin weekend going (Monday still counts as the weekend right?) today we'll be focussing our attention on all of the mac and cheese I ate during my recent trip to Austin.

BBQ Revolution was high up my list of places to try because I loved Homegrown Smoker in Portland so much and actually up until this trip that was my only experience of BBQ food ever!

The menu was pretty simple and Nick and I both got the BBQ plate. I was a little disappointed that they were out of soy curls because that's what I'd decided I wanted to order after looking at the menu online but I got the No Bull Brisket instead.

My plate's the one at the front and as you can see I went with mac and cheese (obviously!) and coleslaw for my sides. Nick went with mac and cheese (obviously!) and potato salad. Both plates came with slices of that cheapo white bread that everyone secretly, or in my case not so secretly, loves.

I'm going to focus on the mac and cheese first because it's mac and cheese Monday and OMG it was delicious. Super creamy and cheesy and perfect, I ate all of mine and stole loads of Nick's whilst he wasn't looking because I'm the worst. I was not a fan of the brisket but anyone with a normal tolerance for heat / pepper would love it. Texturally it was some of the best seitan I've ever eaten and I've eaten a lot of great seitan. The coleslaw was super perfect too and I was very happy with the size of the sides. I will definitely be revisiting BBQ Revolution in May and I have my fingers crossed for soy curls or even the tempeh ribs!

Next up on our mac and cheese tour is Pulse Vegan, somewhere that was recommended to me because of their french dip sandwich but somewhere that I decided was a must visit because they have mac and cheese on the menu.

It's situated in a fun food truck lot which looks like it would have live music in the evenings. Bananarchy are located here too and there was also somewhere to get shaved ice sno cone thingies which are often much needed in Austin. I ordered The Frenchy, the sandwich that was recommend to me, with a side of The Mac.

As you can see The Frenchy comes au jus with gravy for dipping which means that I loved it. Any seitan filled sandwich that you dip in gravy is a win in my book and my only complaint was that the onion on my sandwich was a little thickly sliced making it kinda hard to keep together. The mac was a total win, it wasn't particularly saucy but it was thick and creamy and just a little sweet. I think there may have been some butternut squash in there somewhere. I was also super surprised when I found out the pasta used here is gluten free, it was really good! This was a much more gourmet tasting mac than I was expecting to find at a food truck, it's described on the menu as awesometacular and I would not disagree. I'm also pleased to have found another way to use the word awesome that I had not previously considered!

The third Mac & Cheese option available to you in Austin comes from Wheatsville Co-op home of Red Rabbit doughnuts, huge amounts of vegan meats and cheeses and one of my favourite sandwiches in the world ever the Popcorn Tofu Po'Boy.

I'm pretty sure this mac is, or is at least very close to, the New Farm Mac & Cheese recipe that has been flying around the internet for years. It's one of my favourite ever creamy, saucy, noochy mac and cheeses and I was very into eating this in the car as we were driving!

I loved the nod towards broccoli too...those little flecks of green? Yeah, that's it! If you really want actual broccoli you can add some from the hot bar. I will definitely be eating this one again.

Mac and cheese is not the only deliciously cheesy thing Wheatsville Co-op has up it's sleeve, they also make a vegan blue cheese dip that's great with blue corn chips and popcorn tofu for dipping.

Look at that tofu! It's ridiculous!

The blue cheese dressing is also excellent in the Buffalo Popcorn Hero or Popcorn Tofu Po'Boy sandwiches they make where it sits alongside that amazing looking tofu - I get the Popcorn Tofu Po'Boy which isn't meant to come with the blue cheese but with blue cheese dressing as an add on because I can't handle buffalo tofu at all but I need that dressing! I also get all of the veggies minus the jalapeños. Yum! Nick and I ate this three times during our trip and took one with us for the flight home.

That's all the cheesin' we have for today folks but Mac and Cheese Monday will be back next week! I'm not 100% sure what I'm going to be doing for next week's instalment yet, maybe I'll actually cook some mac and cheese myself from scratch for once because sadly in Brighton there's nowhere to go to get your mac & cheese fix!

Sunday was mine and Nick's 10 year anniversary and whilst we agreed not to do gifts I knew he was taking us to Terre à Terre for lunch and that he can't resist buying me pretty flowers, something I love but that I just never spend my own money on, so I couldn't help myself. And why when celebrating 10 years would you stick to one gift when you could get 10 gifts?! Nick loves chocolate so I gave him one of his favourite kinds of chocolate every hour for ten hours, well, eleven hours really because on one of the hours he was eating churros with chocolate dipping sauce at Terre à Terre and that seemed like enough excitement for one hour!

Photo Credit for Hotel Chocolat Gianduja Chocolate Bombe Veganoo

In no particular order here's the lowdown on the chocolatey gifts:

1 - Montezuma's - Very Dark Turtles 73%. We both love Montezuma's, one of their flagship stores is about a seven minute walk from our house which means they're one of our go tos when we're buying gifts or picking up treats. I got to eat a few of these yesterday and they are indeed delicious.

2 - Hotel Chocolat - Gianduja Chocoalte Bombe. Hotel Chocolat are located a couple of doors down from Montezuma's and whilst they don't have as large a selection for vegans they do make these amazing pralines as well as dark chocolates with pistachio and dark chocolate covered marzipan. Their Hazelnut Bûche is also totally ridiculous and a Christmas essential in our house.

3 - Go Max Go - Cleo's Peanut Butter Cups. I'm more of a Justin's PB cup person myself but Nick's on team Cleo. If I'm going Go Max I usually pick up a Twilight!

4 - Vego Bar. I feel like this one doesn't need an introduction but just in case, Vego is a huge vegan milk chocolate bar made with a whole lot of hazelnut paste and stuffed full of whole hazelnuts. It's rocking vegan's worlds right now. Personally I'm kinda over it but Nick's still very much in love.

5 - Humdinger - Dairy Free Buttons. I use these for topping cupcakes, Nick likes them as a quick chocolate pick me up!

6 - Montezumas - Dark 54% Giant Button Bag. These buttons are SO great. Just the right level of sweetness and they're huge!

7 - Co - operative Truly Irresistible Fairtrade Ghanian Dark Chocolate 70%. I blogged about this bar last week, you can pick it up at the supermarket and it's not too expensive.

8 - Plamil - Organic Orange Chocolate. I don't really understand the appeal of this one but Nick loves it. It's probably the one he buys most often so don't let my opinion put you off trying it!

9 - Seed & Bean - Sicilian Hazelnut. This is probably my favourite out of all of them. I discovered Seed and Bean earlier this year and so far every bar I've tried has been a hit. My favourite is either this one, which is full of Vego-esque hazelnut paste but minus the whole nuts, or the Cornish Sea Salt bar. I might love them both equally but I was certain Nick would enjoy this one more.

10 - Montezuma's - Sunrise Truffles. Super orangey and delicious, I'm hoping Nick might share one of two of these with me!

It's another chocolate day today, yay! I first heard of Endangered Species chocolate on the PPK forums, originally I was drawn in by talk of high quality fun flavoured chocolate but I was even more excited when I heard that they give 10% of their net profits to organisations that support species conservation and habitat prevention. How cool! Each bar also has an adorable picture of an animal on the front and I think they're an entirely vegan company. It took a lot of standing around in the chocolate aisle deliberating before I decided to pick the Raspberry Orange Créme filled bar. The other bars I was considering were Sea Salt & Lime Créme, Almond Butter Créme and Lavender Mint Créme. I think that list should explain how hard the decision was!

Now I don't know about you but when I think of creams and cream filled bars I think of quite a runny fondant but that was not what I found inside.

After a couple of seconds of confusion when I initially snapped the bar I realised that this is a créme not a cream! And what a delicious créme it is, or should I say was. Whilst it totally wasn't what I was expecting the sweet tart fruity orange and raspberry filling compliments the rich 72% dark chocolate perfectly and I intend to eat my way through the rest of the range next time I visit the US.

Yesterday afternoon I was nearing the end of my to-do list when I felt a familiar rumble that signalled dinner time was fast approaching. For the last few nights Nick and I have eaten cereal, microwaved some Amy's mac & cheese and yesterday I even made Nick grab us take out on his way home from work. Whilst these were all fine and filling dinners I felt like I should probably cook something proper today. I was racking my brain for something easy and decided to head over to my cheese board on Pinterest to see if anything simple but theme worthy jumped out at me. Right there at the bottom was this pin, 5 Quick and Easy Vegan Parmesan Pasta Recipes from Maple Spice, one of my favourite blogs.

Now I was super tempted to go for the really, really easy option of the Buttery Parmesan Pasta but I had a courgette calling my name so I decided to go for the Vegan Lemon Parmesan Spaghetti becuase Debbie suggests mixing in courgette to add some veg, good call Debbie!

The parmesan recipe itself is SO easy to throw together, easier than any other parmesan recipe I've tried and that's saying something. I think it's because it calls for ground almonds which I always have on hand anyway. You don't even need to get the blender out.

I whipped up a quick single serving batch in my pestle and mortar.

As soon as the pasta was ready I mixed in the margarine, parmesan, garlic powder, pepper and a little pasta water and added the courgettes to my portion - no way was Nick going to eat courgettes!

This was such a great easy meal, it literally came together in ten minutes. I'll definitely be trying the other four quick and easy pasta recipes from Debbie's post, the spring vegetable pasta sounds particularly delicious and even Nick will eat asparagus, peas and green beans these days!

Yesterday was so much fun! I met up with my friend (and fellow blogger and MoFoer) Randi who just moved here from Philly and we spent the day eating our way around London. Our first stop was Shoryu Ramen in Soho because I've been missing great ramen since my trip to Japan earlier this year. Shoryu only has one vegan option on the menu because ramen is traditionally made with pork or fish broth but I appreciate the nod towards accommodating veggies especially as it's vegan as it is, no sub's needed. Here's the Natural Ramen.

There was so much deliciousness in this bowl! Tofu! Sweetcorn! Spring onions! Nori! Bamboo! Spinach! Sesame! Kikurage mushrooms! Pickled ginger! All in a wheat noodle filled shiitake and konbu soy broth. If you're gluten free you can replace the wheat noodles with rice noodles. It brought memories of Japan flooding back as soon as I tasted the first spoonful. The ramen at T's Tan Tan in Tokyo was more peppery than this version but I thought both were equally delicious.

Dessert was next on the agenda and we only had to walk around the corner to get to Gelupo Gelato.

I was a little disappointed that Gelupo's coffee sorbetto contained egg but the rest of the sorbetto menu, including the chocolate, was vegan and any disappointment quickly faded away as soon as we tasted it. OMG! It was so rich and creamy and delicious.

The cones contain dairy (or was it egg? I forget!) but I'm remembering now that they also have wafter things that we forgot to ask about but that I've seen on other vegans Instagram pic's so next time I'll be getting a wafer if they're definitely a-ok!

After the eating we did some walking and went to cheek out a couple of galleries. I'd heard about the Miniature Ink exhibit by tattoo magazine Things and Ink at Atomica Gallery on Twitter and I was super excited that it coincided with a day I was already heading up to London.

Over 100 tattoo artists from all over the world contributed small original artworks which were all on sale for £60 to raise money for charity. Unfortunately the charity they chose funds animal testing so I was never going to buy anything but I was of course tempted as there were pieces by Jody Dawber, Tracy D & Shell Valentine among others but hopefully I can get tattooed by these awesome ladies sometime instead! I hope that next time a fundraising exhibit like this happens it's for a charity like Macmillan Cancer Support, I swear I'll buy something! If you want to check this exhibition out it's running until October 15th. Afterwards we headed across to Somerset House for the second tattoo related art exhibition of the day. I feel like I must have been to Somerset House before but it must have been a long time ago because I didn't remember what an awesome looking building it is. The architecture reminded me of Vienna.

The Time Tattoo Art Today exhibit contains original artworks from 70 of the world's most influential tattoo artists.

There were watercolours, oil paintings, sculpture and even a Japanese silk painting. It was cool to see work by the artists that's outside of their usual medium. It's running until the 5th of October so you should check it out if you'll be in London before then.

Mine and Randi's fifth stop of the day was Cookies & Scream one of my fave' bakeries ever and somewhere Randi had never checked out before. She went for a salt caramel milkshake and I got a Chico, their peanut butter choc chip cookie, heated up. I also took a PB & J cookie to go which I gave Nick to take to work today.

This is such a ridiculously good cookie. I actually ate at C&S two or three times before I realised that they're entirely gluten free as well as 100% vegan and it kinda blew my mind a little. Both this place and Back to Eden in Portland make me wanna step up my xgfx baking game.

After our cookies we were craving savoury and I needed something to munch on on the train journey home (it takes over 2 hours rather than the usual 50 minutes to get home from London after 11pm, England is stupid) so we went to Whole Foods and picked up a giant £3 pretzel each which was such a great idea!

After Randi and I parted ways I headed over to Shoreditch to The Old Blue Last to meet Nick and see Masked Intruder, one of my favourite pop punk bands who I'd never gotten to see live before. They were super fun and even the annoying drunken antics of some bellend in braces didn't ruin it for me! They even perform in their masks and I find their whole pretend criminal schtick hilarious.

Halfway through the show the "cop" decided to become a fellow criminal punk and danced his ass off in the audience. So silly! Check out their song 25 to Life on bandcamp if you're at all pop punk inclined or just want an insight into what I did last night.

Yesterday was pretty much the perfect day! Friends, check! Food, check! Tattoo / Art stuff, check! Hanging out with Nick, check! Punk show, check! Most excellent! I'm heading up to London again tomorrow for London Veg Fest where I'll be doing much more hanging out with both Nick and a whole host of my vegan buddies, eating everything in sight and even talking about vegan travel at 4pm in the Workshops room. Come and see me speak if you're into that kinda thing or just pop up and say hi to me if you see me!

Today was London VegFest and in a total break from any theme I'm just going to write about people, lovely vegan people. Today I spoke about vegan travel on behalf of The Vegan Society who are the people who invented the word vegan, cool right? I was pretty nervous and every single person in that audience made my first ever public speaking appearance a pleasure. Looking out and seeing encouraging smiling faces was the best! Seriously I had so much fun and people clapped and came and chatted to me and asked questions at the end and nobody crumpled up their handout and left it on the floor so I'm calling that a win. I'll blog more about the talk, with links to some of the things in the handout, and about Veg Fest (tomorrow!) when I'm less tired but today was a total blast! All of these rad ladies came to my talk AND they're all taking part in VeganMoFo! How cool!

From left to right we have Randi from Laughfrodisiac who I hung out with in London the other day. Her MoFo theme Planes, Trains and Veganmobiles is most excellent and I love that she's managing to blog despite moving halfway around the world during MoFo. Then there's me, you know me! Hasta La Vegan's in the middle, she's doing the most ridic MoFo theme EVER where she veganises recipes from old and outdated cookbooks. Hilarity ensues every day and I can't believe I was so stunned from public speaking and new people and chatting that I forgot to give her a high five! Caroline from Tea and Sympatico's next to her and it was so good to see her again. I haven't seen her since I was in Manchester almost 18 months ago. Her MoFo has been tea themed and despite not being a tea drinker myself I've spotted plenty of delicious and tempting things on her blog this month including these white chocolate and matcha green tea truffles. One of my BFF's Sal from Alien on Toast is on the right and if you've never checked out her blog you should, for MoFo she's veganising Jamie Oliver recipes, making dirty sandwiches (like this tuna mayo and sweetcorn one with peanut butter!!) and more. Charis from Floral Frosting wasn't around by the time we took this but it was awesome to meet her - one day I need to make her mint choc chip ice cream, it looks Uh-Mazing! I also got to meet The Food Duo who are MoFoing too as well as loads of other great non-mofo peep's!

Right now I'm ready to crash but I'll post about the food tomorrow fo' sure and don't worry cheese and chocolate do feature!

VegFest London was yesterday and I had a super fun day. I was speaking about vegan travel on behalf of The Vegan Society and I blogged a little about that yesterday so today's all about the food. I've been having some stomach issues recently (to go along with my joint pain issues - don't worry I'm seeing some good doctors!) and yesterday I was having a mega flare up of all of the issues all at once. Ugh. Good timing body! I started the day with a fresh juice because the idea of eating was making me feel icky. These guys were lovely and their juices were great. I think I had carrot and orange but it could have been carrot and apple. Either way it was delish.

I knew I'd be feeling better soon enough so next we swung by the Ms Cupcake stall to pick up one of my favourite treats, the Peanut Butter Snap, because Ms C always sells out early.

Nick got a Peanut Butter Snap too and an Oreo Brownie which he ate for breakfast because he's a winner. I ate my PB Snap today for breakfast which was a most excellent decision. I also got to watch the lovely Ms C herself win a Veg Fest Award later in the day in the Cakes, Sweets & Desserts category which was well deserved and I'm super happy for her.

Right opposite Ms Cupcake was Ananda Foods who make the Round Up which is a vegan Wagon Wheel. They're so great! I was always a big Wagon Wheel fan and these fill that spot perfectly. I picked up a couple for later and entered to win this giant wagon wheel! Epic! (I did not win!)

Next we spotted the Wood Green charity who, among other things, rescue animals and find them forever homes. They were great and they had this excellent pop up thing (what are these called? Do they even have a name?) where you could be a dog or a cat. Look how cat-like Sal looks!

I eventually decided that eating something solid was a must and I headed straight for the Vegusto stall. I love their mock meats and cheeses and I wanted to feed my poor sad stomach something familiar and easy.

They were making the hot dogs with both their Farmhouse Sausages and their Frankfurters. I am super in love with Vegusto's Farmhouse Sausages so of course I went with one of them.

It was so good, this is totally my kinda food! I skipped the onions but went to town with the ketchup and mustard.

I wish I could have tried some of the other fun new (to me) options too. I thought Happy Maki's menu sounded great. I would love to try their hoisin duck maki one day.

Rupert's Street had a great looking menu too, I bet the Fresh Corn Tomales would have been amazing.

Everything from Paradise Unbakery looked beautiful especially the Almond & Cranberry Cheese and the Cashew Cheese & Tomato Tarts. Another time fo' sure.

We wandered around the stalls and Sal and Nick took advantage of the Nakd bar samples and deals. 18 for £8 or 2 for £1 are good show deals if you're either super into Nakd bars or want to give a couple of flavours a whirl.

I was excited to see that Moo Free had some new flavours and Christmas products. Fun! Nick was all over it!

Considerit are more my kinda thing when it comes to chocolate though, I like it fancy! They do fancy truffles as well as filled bars and of course I picked up a few treats including a caramel filled bar that I'm excited to try and review soon.

There were a couple of other amazing looking chocolate stalls but I couldn't afford to try it all! Cocoa Feliz's stand looked seriously amazing though. Maybe I'll order some for Christmas!

Goody Good Stuff were next on the agenda, I love this brand especially now that they're entirely vegan. I still see some of the beeswax containing flavours in stores but once they're sold they're sold and they'll be 100% vegan from now on.

They had some fun Christmas products on sale too, these were super tasty and I can see myself munching on this tub on Christmas morning.

My talk was at 4pm and I think I rocked it once I relaxed a little. Public speaking's not something that's ever come easy to me, at school I was that dyslexic kid turning beetroot red and stumbling over the words when we had to read aloud in class but I'm so passionate about vegan travel that I wanted to get over that, step out from behind the computer, and put myself out there. It was great and I'm super glad that I'm doing this now, I can't wait to speak at Vida Vegan Con next year. I love talking about travel and public speaking's really no different than talking with a group of friends...it's just a slightly bigger group than usual!

After the talk my stomach was feeling a little better so after chatting to new and old friends and answering some travel related questions I was ready to get eating! I had a second hot dog from Vegusto - with the Farmhouse Sausage again and it was so great. I also picked up some of their Piquant cheese to take home because it was only £4 a block, bargain!

Sheese was next and I was happy to taste test a few flavours of the hard and spreadable cheeses before deciding which ones to purchase. They were doing a 3 for £6 deal which Nick and I took advantage of. We got the Medium Cheddar and Smoked Cheddar hard cheeses and the Cheddar Cheese Spread. Apparently we like cheddar!

Lastly I remembered that I hadn't really eaten any sweet treats all day, not cool! I spotted this beautiful chocolate ganache covered cake topped with blueberries on the Essential Vegan stall and I knew I had to have it.

It was every bit as delicious as it looked, the cake was so light and it was exactly the right level of sweet for me. I'll definitely be trying to find more of their cakes in the future, apparently they usually sell their wares at Boiler House on Brick Lane or at their pop-up cafe on Portobello Road at weekends.

I'm still feeling shattered after the weekend and I can't believe there are only two more days of MoFo left - I've totally been off of my commenting game but I'll be back on it tomorrow!

It's my favourite day of the week, Mac & Cheese Monday! Yay! I wasn't quite sure what to make today and then I remembered Cheezish! If you read my pal Lindsay aka Vegan Chai's blog then you must have heard of Cheezish. It's her favourite! I knew I had to try it and what better day than today. The recipe comes from the Glad Cow cookbook and it's also here on the cookbook author's Facebook page. It was so easy to make, you just whiz the ingredients together in a blender and then stir in some margarine at the end. As well as being ridiculously easy it was also totally delicious.

This stovetop mac is tangy, creamy and cheesy and the recipe makes a tonne of sauce which is the best. It has both roasted red peppers (pimentos if you can get 'em, I couldn't) and a tonne of nooch which are two of my fave' mac & cheese ingredients. I left out the hot sauce. I wanted to get cavatappi (or spirali as they seem to call it over here) because it's Lindsay's favourite but the supermarket I went to didn't have it so I got Pipe Rigate instead which is still an excellent vessel for cheesy sauce.

I will definitely be making this again soon. Probably tomorrow.

I got tattooed earlier (check my Instagram for a pic) and I know that what I need during a tattoo appointment is sugar so I made cookies to share! I heard about this recipe for S'mores Cookies on Lindsay's blog Vegan Chai but it originally came from Amanda at Will Draw for Cookies. You should definitely check it out because it's an illustrated recipe and it's super adorable.

Now when both of these ladies made them they turned out super well, they were all perfect and round, y'know just how you'd expect a cookie to look. Here are mine pre-oven...

...and here they are post oven.

I think that Freedom Mallows maybe melt less well than Dandies and by that I mean they melt like craaaaazy, everywhere. Either it was the fault of the mallows (which I totally did cut in half to make mini mallows) or I'm a terrible baker...I'm going to keep blaming the mallows. I subbed rich tea biscuits for the Graham crackers because we don't have those here, I was planning to use digestive biscuits but every single kind at the supermarket I went to had milk.

I realised after taking the first two off of the tray that I was going to need to let them cool completely before popping them on the cooling rack, ten minutes wasn't quite enough. Ooops!

A good 75% were attractive enough for sharing which actually worked out wonderfully because it meant that the other half needed eating stat. That was really tough for Nick and I because we totally hate cookies*! *we do not totally hate cookies. Despite not being the most beautiful these were super delicious. I'd definitely make them again.

I'll leave you with two pic's of what these cookies are meant to look like!

Photo Credit Amanda

Photo credit Lindsay

It's been a super fun VeganMoFo y'all. I can't believe it's over. I'm feeling a little emotional about writing the very last round up on the official VeganMoFo blog later! If you've enjoyed my MoFoing rest assured that I still have plenty of posts in the works for after MoFo and I'll be posting regularly for the rest of the year and beyond!

Aside from being situated in the very same city these two restaurants have absolutely nothing in common. VBites is entirely vegan, Casa don Carlos doesn't even have v's marking the vegetarian items on their menu. Why, you might ask, would I even bother visiting the latter when the former exists? Well, it's my dad's favourite restaurant and last night was the night my family got together to celebrate his birthday. Usually we come to some kind of dining compromise and end up at Pizza Express but on my 30th we all ventured to Terre à Terre so for my dad's 70th it seemed only right that I back down and venture into his preferred restaurant.

Things didn't start of overly well at Casa don Carlos, there was no online menu for me to scope out but, as I had to go in at lunchtime to confirm our evening booking, I took that quiet opportunity to warn them that there were two vegans in our group and was handed the gluten free menu. This is something I've heard much talk of, the confusion people seem to have between the two vastly different dietary restrictions, but it had never happened to me until now. After some explaining the proprietor told me that it might not be very exciting but that I wouldn't starve. Just what every paying diner wants to hear!

The olives we started with were far from unexciting though, in fact I'd go as far as to say that they were ridiculously good, some of the best olives I've ever eaten and by far the best I've tried in the UK. These were green and not at all oily and I polished off at least one dish full all by myself. There is no picture as the first plate was demolished almost immediately and the placement of the second meant there was no good meat-free shot and nobody wants to see that. I also dived headfirst into the bread which I ate with olive oil rather than the garlic mayo it was served with. I do not understand the appeal of mayo on bread. Chips, sure, bread no. I didn't feel like I was missing out! I also ordered the Potatoes with Mojo Sauce, the Gazpacho and the Garlic Mushrooms.

We were told that the Mojo sauce on the potatoes was going to be very hot but I wanted to give them a whirl as I thought the dish looked to be one of the more exciting ones on the vegetable side of the menu. These were really delicious, the potatoes were perfectly cooked with their skins on but the sauce was not at all spicy, as you might've heard I'm very sensitive to chilli based heat and these didn't even register. I'd totally order them again but if spicy is what you're looking for this isn't going to be the dish for you. The gazpacho was great, it's pretty hard not to impress me with gazpacho though. I love it and I've never met one I didn't like. I was pretty excited when I heard that the Garlic Mushrooms were cooked in oil and not butter but I was less impressed when, upon tasting them, they tasted nothing like garlic. I mean, I could see plenty of garlic bit the dish was pretty flavourless. Next time I'd skip this one and try something else but I'm happy to report that there will be a next time. My dad will be pleased! We'll definitely avoid friday night next time though, the incredibly loud group of 30 or so throwing things at each other from table to table, drunkenly shouting and inappropriately groping each other on their way to and from the bathroom was annoying to say the least.

VBites is an entirely different dining experience to Casa don Carlos, partly because they're entirely vegan and partly because you can't eat there in the evening even if your dining companions are up for a vegan meal. VBites recently extended their opening hours until 7pm but despite trying to eat there at 6:17 one day I was told that the kitchen was closed. This seems pretty stupid, nobody who finishes work at 6 could get there much before then which crosses VBites off of the list for the post-work crowd. I was actually wondering why I don't eat at VBites much after this delicious meal and I realised it's totally because of the hours, I tend to eat out, or get take out, with Nick and as he works pretty regular retail hours we hardly ever get to go to VBites together.

Anyway, my vegan meet up group met up last sunday for a spot of adventure golf which is essentially sport and therefore makes you hungry. Fish and Chips was on the specials menu and I couldn't resist despite also being tempted by my regular order, the Hickory Chick Burger, or one of the pizzas.

The Fish & Chips comes with two fishless fish steaks, hand cut chips, minted peas and tartare sauce. They also happily gave us a generous amount of mayo and ketchup for the table with no charge. I'm always pleased when places do this as charging for condiments just makes a place look cheap.

This was legit delicious, the fishless steaks are one of my all-time fave' VBites products but they really need to be eaten alongside chips which I can't often be bothered to cook at home. I was suspicious about the minty peas as I'm not usually a fan but, despite there being a little fresh mint in there, they really didn't taste very minty - this will be either a positive or a negative depending on your opinion of minted peas! The chips were amazing and there were the perfect amount of them, one of my fellow golfers suggested the meal would have been better with half of the chips but they clearly aren't as committed to carbs as I am - this was perfect, don't go changing! I also happily polished off all of that tartar sauce as well as a decent helping of mayo with my chips. I really want to go out and eat this again right now but obviously by the time I manage to put on a bra and grab some shoes they'll be closed so I'll just have to cook my own damn dinner.

Excitement levels are high with ice cream fans in the UK this week because Almond Dream is finally here! For some reason when UK based companies make ice cream they go with chocolate, vanilla and strawberry almost every time. I can't lie chocolate is right up there with my favourite ice cream flavours but I already have a favourite chocolate ice cream (Booja Booja) and I don't feel the need to try every other brands version. This on the other hand, this is exciting. Almond Dream, which is now being sold at Waitrose stores all over the UK (Check hannahbananabakery's Instagram for the full list), make Mint Choc Chip, Salted Caramel and Praline Crunch alongside their Velvety Vanilla.

I found out about this thrilling development whilst I was on some serious sedatives in hospital (I'm fine!) and the first thing I did was call my local Waitrose to see if they had it. I figured Nick was driving me home from hospital anyway so obviously if there was ice cream to be had we should go home via Waitrose despite my body still feeling like it was made of cotton wool - they gave me the good stuff! Sadly my local Waitrose told me they didn't have it and didn't know if they were getting it. The sadness! The upset! But then, a new twist! The next day still blurry from the drugs they gave me (I was beginning to understand why I wasn't to be left alone!) I saw pictures of people in Brighton buying and eating the ice cream!! Waitrose lied! Okay, they probably didn't lie they just messed up but that sounds more dramatic! But now we had no car and Nick was (unsurprisingly) not up for hiring another one just to go to Waitrose so I waited. And waited. And felt jealous of everyone all over my Instagram eating their amazing ice cream. Yesterday, finally able to walk places alone, I set my alarm and got to Waitrose bright and early to get my paws on the good stuff. I wasn't gonna wait a second longer than necessary, I knew that the Twitter and Instagram storm surrounding this product was going to be making it fly off the shelves! I knew people would be all over this stuff! I picked up both the Mint Choc Chip (one of my all time favourite ice cream flavours) and the Praline Crunch. I would have got Salted Caramel too but my little cool bag only had space for two tubs. Decisions had to be made.

Knowing that Nick was as excited about the frozen fun as I was instead of tearing into the tubs as soon as I got home I waited (and waited!) for him to get home from work at 7:30. We even waited a little longer and ate a proper dinner first (summer rolls, so yum!) but then we settled down on the sofa, popped New Girl on the telly box and dug into the tubs with gusto. And spoons.

It's been years (years!) since I chilled on the sofa with a whole tub of ice cream and this stuff didn't disappoint. The Mint Choc Chip was decent but almost too minty, a little toothpastey, and there were nowhere near enough chocolate chips for my liking. I think this'll be great covered in chocolate sauce (I think Tate & Lyle make a vegan one) or some homemade magic shell but as is it wasn't quite hitting the spot. The Praline Crunch on the other hand? OMG! This is seriously one of the best ice creams I've ever eaten! Sweet but not overwhelming and with the perfect amount of praline pieces scattered throughout. There's also something about the familiar tub size reminiscent of the Häagen Dazs binges of my teenage years that was just perfect. The price point of £3.74 also makes these ice creams a somewhat realistic weekly treat, as I said before I love Booja Booja's Hunky Punky Chocolate but at around £7 a tub I can't justify it too often - don't get me wrong I don't think that's too expensive for what it is. The raw ingredients that go into it are pricy and Booja Booja are a small company who need to make some money from their product, but the price makes it an irregular treat. Sadly for Brighton peeps where Almond Dream is concerned Waitrose (as of around 7pm last night) is down to vanilla only. If you live here and you want to see it back in stock asap call them! The more enquiries they get the more likely they are to get loads in stock next time and then we can all have our ice cream and eat it whenever we desire.

I have big exciting news that I quite literally can't hold in any longer! If you can't deal with people abusing exclamation marks I'd just close this now and move on, I'm probably gonna be expressing my excitement via the medium of punctuation a whole lot...

In January I'm leaving Brighton and going travelling indefinitely!!! INDEFINITELY! Such a huge word needs caps lock. After months of talking this over with Nick, throwing around ideas and making plans, the reality of just how big a deal this is has only sunk in in the last week. It's been my dream to travel, and not just to go on holidays and sojourns away from home, but to really travel, since I was a teenager. And it's happening. Like, really seriously actually happening. Flights have been booked. Backpacks have been purchased. I'm spending more time than usual devouring travel blogs and guide books. I'm in possession of a head torch and I'm so ready to add some more pins to my map. Although there won't be a map because I won't have a pin board. Or walls.

The wheels are in motion and I'm having so many feelings about leaving Brighton. Aside from the missing my favourite people issue weighing on my heart I didn't think I'd be all that bothered about leaving Brighton. I've been here for ages and it's definitely time for a change but I am definitely bothered. I've lived here for over 12 years, I moved here when I was 19. I made best friends here. I removed toxic people from my life here. I met Nick here. I discovered feminism and veganism here. I grew up here. I became me here. Hell, the name of my blog says everything about how attached I am to this place! To me Brighton feels like a huge vegan friendly village and I adore that feeling. It also feels like my home...I guess it is my home, my roots are tangled all over the place.

There are so many amazing memories attached to Brighton and it's going to be hard to leave.

I've already put Operation Icing on an indefinite hiatus (which I totally feel guilty about btw - I hate disappointing people and I know that people love cupcakes!) because there's just so much to do before I can just up and leave. A whole lot of work needs to be done to make my house rentable, Nick and I are in the middle of it now hence the lack of blogging in the last week or two, painting and sanding and sorting and having builders and scaffolders in and out of the house the whole time is exhausting and dirty (I'm a total clean freak, I'm not ashamed to admit I cried about the amount of dust everywhere last week) and not conducive to creativity at all. Hence this blog post, I need to focus on why I'm doing this! I want to see the world. I want to step way outside my comfort zone. I want to experience new places and smells and tastes. I want to meet and engage with new people and spend time with friends who are scattered around the globe.

Where am I going? Bangkok to start with to take on SE Asia. I depart mid January (My SAD is very happy about the shorter winter!) and will be heading straight to Thailand's islands for some relaxing beach time. It seems like the perfect way to ease into this new lifestyle. A month later I'll be at Elephant Nature Park, somewhere I've wanted to volunteer at ever since I heard of it's existence. Next I'll be travelling around Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia for sure, Indonesia, Malaysia and more if there's time.

I'm speaking at Vida Vegan Con in Austin (about travel of course!) in late May and to make the flights super worthwhile I'm going to be sticking around for five weeks before flying back to the UK to pick up a camper van (a teeny tiny camper van!) which I'll be living in and travelling around Europe in all summer...or until it gets too cold to be living in a van with no heating. Currently my plans look like this but I'm sure they'll morph into something a little different once we're on the road.

Then where? I'm not sure! Maybe back to Thailand for the Vegetarian Festival, Tesagan Gin Je, and to explore some of the parts of SE Asia that I didn't get to on the first trip. Maybe Australia and New Zealand. Maybe Central or South America. Hawaii? China? Fiji? The possibilities are endless and not knowing where I'll be this this time next year is part of the appeal.

I'll be doing all of this with Nick and I'm so excited that we're ready to embark on our next adventure. He's one of the main reasons that, to channel Chandler Bing, I couldn't be any more excited about this trip - I'm going to be spending every day having amazing adventures with my bff4lyfe and it's going to be so fucking rad! We both juggle anxieties (and I'm allergic to chilli!) so I don't for a second think that our journey is going to be easy or stress free but I want to be challenged, I need to do something new. Whether we're gone for one year or ten I'm ready.

Of course I'll still be eating all of the vegan food I can find and writing about it here. I'm working on some fun updates and tweaks to the blog but the name and site are staying the same, moving my real location is enough upheaval without moving my virtual locale as well! I'll always be Vegan in Brighton in my heart even if my physical self is elsewhere. ♥

For a whole multitude of reasons one of my favourite things about Austin is the weather. For starters I like being outside and I like being warm, I also love to swim outdoors. I can pack less stuff when I'm travelling to a warm destination too and, most importantly, I can sit outside at any time of day and eat. I love eating and I love how casual a dining experience stopping by a food cart is. Maybe I fancy Italian and my travel buddy wants Indian, when picking a restaurant this isn't usually going to work out especially if you want either meal to actually to be good, but with food carts it's totally possible to pick a spot with options for everyone or to cruise around to a few different places

My absolute favourite food truck in Austin, no, in the world, is 100% vegan taco spot The Vegan Nom. I lost count of how many times Nick and I swung by for breakfast tacos during our vacation.

My first order was a combo of the #1 and #2 breakfast tacos. #1 consists of tempeh bacon and tofu scramble and #2 is the classic tofu scram and potato combo. I added avocado because if you're somewhere where they actually have ripe delicious avocados I feel like you have to take advantage and order them at every available opportunity.

The Vegan Nom serve their full menu all day so you can pick up a Bean Diablo or some Rockin Vegan Migas any time. This made me happy as I fell in love with The Vegan Del Ray, a mock fish taco topped with cabbage, avocado, black pepper and an amazing cilantro lime crema, one afternoon and then proceeded to eat it at breakfast every day from then on. It is, in my opinion, taco perfection.

I'm hoping that The Vegan Nom get involved with Vida Vegan Con in 2015 on some level, I'd certainly love to be able to grab a taco from them on conference days. I will be in Austin for five weeks around the con though so I think they'll be seeing a lot of me!

Another new to me spot was Unity Vegan Kitchen and whilst the lasagne and the crab cakes from their regular menu came highly recommended it was the Chick'n and Waffles Plate that sucked me in.

This Labour Day weekend special is legitimately one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten.

The gravy had just the right amount of pepperiness, the waffle was perfectly cooked and crisped at the edges (something my crappy waffle maker just won't do) and the breaded chicken was plentiful. I'd eat this again in a heartbeat.

Biscuits and Groovy is somewhat unsurprisingly a biscuits and gravy food truck! Cool. It's also somewhere where I totally misunderstood how to order food.

I have no idea how ordering went this wrong! I mean, who would order this little food?! Nick's was even more ridiculous because as he didn't say the word biscuit when ordering he just got the tiny amount of toppings and had and no biscuits at all! Just a tiny bit of tofu scramble and one piece of vegan bacon! How could anyone have thought that was a real order? They must have thought we were super weird! I ended up sharing my single biscuit with Nick and obviously we got more food somewhere else afterwards, we would have just ordered more biscuits but we didn't fancy waiting another 20 minutes or explaining that we had failed to order properly the first time around. The tiny amount of food I did eat was pretty tasty though so if any Austinites would like to accompany us to Biscuits and Groovy during our visit next May we'd love to know how to order a sensibly sized plate of food!

Swiftly moving on from that ridiculousness and onto more ridiculousness I am the absolute worst at remembering to eat fruit and veg whilst I'm travelling. Seriously, the worst. My three favourite food groups are probably mock meat, pizza and deep fry so unless the veg comes on top of or on the side of one of those I'll probably forget to eat any for a week or more. That's why I was excited about this next place, Mister Fruit Cup. This cute colourful truck makes eating fruit easy and fun! Pro tip - it's situated behind the university co-op and is a pain to drive to if you don't have the correct address because of all of the one way streets. Put the multi story car park behind the co-op into your GPS and go from there!

Mister Fruit Cup has lots of delicious fruity combos to choose from or you can create your own. I won't lie I was pretty gutted when they said they were out of the vegan chocolate chips, the thing that convinced me to go eat some fruit in the first place, but I had coconut flakes, a squeeze of lime and a drizzle of agave on my mango, strawberry, blueberry, orange cup and it was great.

When fruit's this easy I'll happily eat it especially when it's hot outside. This bodes well for Thailand especially now that it's been confirmed that I'm properly allergic to chilli rather than just a bit intolerant. I think I'll probably be finding most meals a little challenging and relying on fruit might be a necessity. Any advice on avoiding chilli when travelling in SE Asia would be gratefully received!

One of my favourite spots from my last trip to Austin was The Vegan Yacht. It's since moved location to the back of Spiderhouse, a quirky cafe / bar in the U district, that I really enjoyed hanging out at despite them giving me a root beer with honey in even though I asked them to check and make sure it didn't have honey when I ordered it! They were super nice and switched it for something else but I'm a little sad that people are ruining root beer with their damned honey. Leave the bees alone!

Anyway, I'd been dreaming about the mock chick'n sandwich from TVY for almost two whole years so of course that's what I ordered. I got it in a wrap this time around because I fancied a change and it was definitely the way to go. You can fit a lot more in a wrap this size than you can in a sandwich.

I loved the amount of sprouts and shredded carrot they managed to stuff in there alongside the amazing mock chicken. Perfect. I was totally tempted to order a second but I needed space for some Sweet Ritual so I resisted. Spiderhouse is extra fun after dark as they have plenty of fairy lights and neon all over the place and there was even a lively pub quiz that we started taking part in but were too focused on ice cream to finish!

This certainly isn't it for Austin food trucks though, oh no, I wrote about BBQ Revolution, Pulse Vegan, Bananarchy, Arlo's and Via 313 during Vegan MoFo and there are plenty more that I didn't make it to that I'm sure you can read about on dedicated Austin blogs Lazy Smurf's Guide and Red Hot Vegans. Stuff mentioned in this post aside I will say that the mac & cheese from BBQ Revolution and Via 313's pizzas are unmissable.

Writing this post has been so much fun, often when I'm writing about a trip I've been on I get that kinda sad feeling of not knowing when I'll ever get to go back combined with the bummed out feeling of being back home when all I want to be doing is travelling the world, but not this time! This time I'm writing with the knowledge that I leave Brighton in two months to head to SE Asia and that I'll be back in Austin in May. Epic! My house is going on the market later today which means that for now DIY is over, thank goodness, I hate it and I'm terrible at it. Nick hates it but is at least good at it. Now I can devote my time to more enjoyable tasks like attempting to sell some of my stuff and researching for the trip. Yay!

I used to love a Wagon Wheel back in my pre-veggie days so I had high hopes for the Round Up by Ananda Foods. I first picked one up at Animal Aid's Christmas Without Cruelty Fair in London last year and quickly developed a habit. I can't believe I haven't blogged about them before but to be honest I usually tear into them so quickly that there's simply no time for photographs! You can just imagine how excited I was when Infinity Foods started selling them as it's basically my corner shop (for the next two months anyway!).

If you've never eaten one a classic Wagon Wheel is completely coated in chocolate but it's also thinner and smaller than the Round Up. The Round Up consists of two soft chocolate biscuits sandwiched either side of a layer of fluffy marshmallow with a strawberry jam centre. The sides are totally coated in thick chocolate and there's a chocolate drizzle ontop. I think this is the perfect amount of chocolate as it means you can eat it without getting your paws completely covered in melted chocolate.

Okay!

To me this is the perfect treat. Marshmallow, check. Chocolate, check. Jam, check. Amazing. For my xgfx buddies these now come in a gluten free version which is available to purchase on the website.

Aside from loving how freaking delicious they are (look at that jam!) I also love that these are handcrafted by a small company using fair-trade chocolate. Something I've been increasingly more conscious of lately is the child labour / slavery used in cocoa production and I'm a bit obsessed with checking which companies chocolaty products are a-ok on the Food Empowerment Project's website and app. If you don't see a brand you're interested in purchasing from listed their volunteers are great at reaching out and since I e-mailed about them both Vego and The Co-operative supermarket have been added to the recommended list.

Infinity Foods recently rebranded and reopened what was the Infinity Foods Cafe and what is now Infinity Foods Kitchen after a month long refit and revamp and it looks gorgeous both inside and out.

They now have canteen style dining for lunch and there are rotating specials which, over the last week, have included pasta and Autumnal veggie bakes, Shepherd's pie and a Japanese platter that I'm kicking myself for missing out on because it sounded perfect. Next time!

It's so light and bright inside and I love the revamped upstairs area, instead of one large table near the window there are three small counter style tables facing out on the street. They're absolutely perfect for dog / people watching.

They've added some great new options to the breakfast menu including pancakes. Pancakes! So exciting! You can add syrup or fruit or go big and add both syrup and fruit which is clearly the best option.

These were some seriously fantastic pancakes and I love that they've gone with European style pancakes rather than American style. They were really delicious and I loved the medley of maple syrup, berry coulis and fruit. This is even a situation where banana totally worked for me! Thankfully some of the classic Infinity Foods breakfasts are present on the new Infinity Kitchen menu (I suspect it's because they knew I'd riot if they took my favourite breakfast away!) so my dining partner ordered that and we shared both dishes.

This is a seriously great breakfast, the toast's perfect, I love the fried polenta and despite thinking it could do with a touch more salt or maybe some nutritional yeast I love that they're making tofu scramble now. They do my favourite sausage in town too and they're the only place in the city that includes veggie bacon as part of their brekkie, my fave. Yum town!

Delicious breakfasts aside I'm always in the market for a sweet treat and Infinity Kitchen have decided to make all of their desserts vegan which is so rad. There are almost no un-veganisable sweets these days if you know the correct egg substitution and I love it when places make a real effort with the vegan desserts. I tried the Raw Chocolate and Almond Cake and a Magic Energy Ball a few weeks ago and a Pistachio and Orange Blossom cupcake a week after that.

These were all excellent and I was just super surprised to note that the chocolate torte was sugar free. It was really, really good and sugar free isn't my usual jam. I loved the energy ball too and it makes a great on the go snack. The pistachio orange blossom cupcake had a dense almost muffin like texture and I liked that the icing wasn't too sweet, it's a super fun flavour too and I'll definitely be picking up another one soon. I've also tried the chocolate gateaux (yum!) and Nick loved the chocolate and vanilla cheesecake he tried this afternoon.

There's also a new grab-and-go fridge full of sandwiches, soups, dips, salads and drinks which makes Infinity Kitchen a great place to grab lunch on the go.

They even have vegan panninis which include Vegusto Melty Cheese & Tomato and Sausage and Spicy Sun Dried Tomato Pesto.

You can get them heated up to go or to eat in making them a great new North Laine lunch option, I love a hot melty cheesy sandwich.

Yum indeed! Infinity Foods Kitchen is open from 10:30 - 5 Monday to Friday, 10 - 5 Saturday and 11 - 4 Sunday. They serve breakfast from 10:30 to 12 Monday - Friday, 10 - 12 on Saturday and 11 - 2 on Sunday. I've also noticed that they often discount sandwiches and things in the last hour or so of business so if you work in the area you can grab a bargain before you head home for the day. Keep an eye on their Facebook and / or Twitter accounts for the daily specials.

Disclaimer: Infinity invited me to come over for a complimentary breakfast because they're the nicest but I paid for everything else.

Last Thursday saw Brighton's Moshimo hosting an event that's always a highlight on my foodie calendar, The Great Moshimo Vegan Challenge. Once a year Moshimo go vegan for an evening and chefs from all over the city compete to create the most inventive, beautiful and delicious small dishes. The event was thought up by owners Karl and Nicholas as they pondered what would happen to Moshimo if fish socks did run out. Obviously my vegan perspective on this is that they should stop using fish altogether to help save the oceans and to cease contributing to any animal cruelty but I do appreciate that they were one of the first places to remove blue fin tuna from their menu, to add vegan options and to focus on sustainable methods of fishing. Steps in the right direction for sure and it's a great spot to eat at with non vegan friends an family who aren't so open to a vegan meal.

The opinions expressed here are a mix of mine and my dining companions as due to my chilli allergy I had to skip or eat a modified version of some of the dishes.

The first dish out of the kitchen was a sample platter of three dishes from the vegan bento box that will be appearing on the winter menu shortly. I was excited by this strong start to the evening as my only real criticism of last years event was regarding the lack of Moshimo's own regular vegan menu items. In 2011 and 2012 there were plenty of their own small plates available for sampling, from edamame to dumplings via their inventive maki, but last year there was none of that which everyone at my table thought was a shame. I'm glad they responded to feedback and sent their own dishes out again this year.

The seaweed and inari tofu salad, sweet potato croquettes with ume and steamed pumpkin were all excellent. I've never been happier to have a pumpkin hating diner sitting next to me! This actually turned out to be one of my favourite dishes and I can't wait to go and get myself a bento box as soon as it appears on the menu.

The first competition entrant was Terre à Terre with their pickled lotus and kimchee dish with bean sprouts, lychee and coriander.

This could have been great, it seemed to have a vegan creamy cheesy sauce thing going on in there (something I'd love to see appearing on Terre à Terre's own menu!) but unfortunately it wasn't great. One of my dining companions described it as "like that curry they serve on BA flights to the USA", not great praise I'm sure we can agree.

Edamame was next, not a part of the competition but always a favourite snack of mine.

Cashew Catering went next in the competition with a dish that was one of my favourites for sure. The mixed mushroom and edamame stuffed mochi scored well across the board gaining some of my highest scores for taste, innovation and presentation.

I've never had hot mochi before and deep frying it definitely changed the texture from gelatinous to soft and almost potato croquette like. It was excellent with the accompanying ume but even better dipped in soy sauce. I'm pleased to say that the other diners agreed with my high scores as Cashew Catering came third overall.

My favourite dumplings from Moshimo's menu were next, they're deep fried to perfect crispiness and they're incredibly delicious. I usually order a couple of portions every time I eat there.

Next up was a dish that could only have been made by VBites who were the overall winners of the challenge yet again. This sprouting maki was inspired by donburi one of my favourite Japanese dishes. Donburi pretty much translates to bowl and in an inventive twist VBites put the rice both inside maki and shaped into onigiri and topped them with teriyaki vegan chicken and wasabi caviar. Mine arrived sans caviar but you can see Randi's in the background and Moshimo owner Karl was lovely enough to drop a sample off at our table and later we found out that it was Caviart brand, something I'm already a fan of but I'd never have considered picking the wasabi flavour!

Whilst this scored highly for innovation and won the competition I'd have preferred a straight up teriyaki vegan chicken maki. The teriyaki chicken itself was a favourite across our whole table, it was definitely one of the best things I ate all evening and something I'd love to see added to either VBites or Moshimo's menu. If either of them added a donburi dish like this one from LOVE Pacific Cafe in Nagoya to their menus I'd be there quicker than they could say deep fry!

The next dish from Indian Summer was one I had to eat a modified version of but the consensus from everyone at my table was that it was kinda tasteless and unenjoyable texturally. In fact when Randi and I compared notes she's just written "weird, very weird" and I had written "very odd". We think that just about summed it up.

More dishes from the Moshimo menu came out next to bridge the gap between competition dishes. I love both the cucumber and avocado maki, especially on a Monday or Tuesday night when everything on the menu is half price to Moshimo Members card holders, then I super love them!

Dish numer five was a Japanese rice cracker dish with a gochujang and miso glaze and a cucumber and tigers milk salad. My table enjoyed this Korean and South American fusion twist from 64 Degrees and agreed that it had a nice level of spice. I found the texture of the rice crackers themselves really moorish. The texture was strange, chewy and almost gummy inside but I just couldn't stop eating them!

The flour tortilla used here made this one immediately stand out as La Choza's entry. It was stuffed with habanero chills, squash, avocado and it came atop a wasabi sauce. Apparently the heat overwhelmed the flavours. It also made Randi sneeze into her water glass twice which was kinda hilarious, bonus point?!

Dish seven stood out to us as a potential winner despite the excessive use of quinoa. I loved the nori cracker and we all thought that the tofu fish was really inventive. The yuzu ketchup was super tasty too. It was also fried. Yup. Always the sign of a winner! This dish came in second and could only have been better if they'd used less quinoa.

The last dish was, and I'm not going to pull any punches here, definitely the worst thing we ate that evening. It sounded promising, thinly sliced kohlrabi topped with shiitake mushrooms, mizuna, sesame dressing and toasted sesame seeds. Unfortunately this thing was swimming in oil (and you know I'm no oil phobic vegan) and topped with a truly excessive amount of sesame seeds. It was ridiculous. Blech.

Thankfully dessert was on it's way and Moshimo had veganised the chocolate mousse from their regular dessert menu. They did this once before and my feedback wasn't great (it was super bitter) so I'm super happy they listened and gave this a whirl again but this time with some sweetener in the form of agave. This was spot on and of course I suggested that they add it to their menu instead of the dairy filled version.

Overall we had an enjoyable evening but the quality of the entries was, if I'm completely honest, way down on previous years. There were still some good dishes but they were all surpassed by Moshimo's own creations and nothing stood out in the way that some of the dishes from 2011 or 2012's event did. I can't help but wonder if this is because everyone taking part is doing it out of their own pockets? This years event was for charity but if the companies involved are paying for both ingredients and covering staff costs it must be difficult to choose the pricier ingredients or more laborious prep methods year after year. Maybe a shake up of the entrants is in order?

Life's been super hectic recently and I've been neglecting everything that isn't packing, fixing my house, talking to estate agents, franticly eBaying all of the things I've realised that I no longer need, tying up loose ends and spending every spare second with the friends I'm going to miss once I'm no longer on this island. I have been managing to eat though so you don't need to worry about me. I always have time for food!

Yesterday saw me heading to London early to get my My Little Pony tattoo touched up by the artist who did it for me at the Brighton Tattoo Convention back in February (see what I mean about tying up loose ends?!) and meeting my oldest friend for a much needed catch up - I last saw her at my wedding which was almost five years ago now but thankfully when you've known someone since you were three picking up exactly where you left off is easy.

In-between all of that I managed to catch the one and a half hour lunch window (12:30 - 2) at Itadaki Zen which, as I'm missing Japanese food always, I was stupid excited about. I almost skipped there despite the tattoo pain!

The lunch menu is small but despite that I still had trouble choosing between udon dishes and donburi and I eventually settled upon the Tempura Bento set which came with miso. They were super accommodating about my allergies and were able to leave the peppers out of this dish for me.

The miso was warming and didn't scrimp on the tofu and the bento itself came with light crisp tempura vegetables, a fantastic spring roll (one of the best ever), rice with vegetables which included the teeniest little mushrooms, sesame green beans, a salad which had the most perfect soy based dressing and sesame tofu which I could eat for every meal and be happy.

Everything about the meal was wonderful, it was really light but filling and it transported me back to Japan at first bite. I ate at Itadaki Zen once a long time ago, maybe six years, maybe more, and I don't remember loving it anywhere near this much. Now I'm wishing that I lived in the Kings Cross / Caledonian Road area so that I could eat every meal there. If you haven't been yet I would highly recommend it. It's also not far from Cookies & Scream either which is where I headed for dessert, their warm cookies are amazing on a cold day. Or a warm day. Any day really!

As well as packing, eating and running around to see friends I've been finding the time to get pretty festive! This might be the last Christmas Nick and I spend in our cute little house for a while so we've been making the most of it. The tree is up, the mince pies have been eaten and the non-alcoholic punch has been mulling away on the stove. We won't be exchanging presents this year but we will be taking part in all of our favourite traditions: visiting the beach on Christmas morning, eating an excessive amount of roast potatoes and watching as many christmassy movies as possible, Love Actually, Elf, The Holiday and Miracle on 34th Street are my favourites what are yours?

I have a great competition coming up next Tuesday so watch out for that and I've been diligently eating chocolate so that I can give you the lowdown on some great new products before I leave. Not long now!

If you've spent much time with me (either online or in real life) then you probably already know how much I love marshmallows. When I was a teenager I used to stick them on the end of a nail file and toast them over a candle whilst obsessively re-watching Clueless and wishing I had Cher's life. I'm different now, classier, I have skewers. I'm also switched on to what gelatine actually is these days so vegan mallows are the only way to go.

Freedom Mallows have been a favourite of mine since they first appeared in stores and I was stoked when they agreed to send me their new repackaged and rebranded marshmallows to try and review.

I've always been a bit of a mallow purist picking up the white Vanilla Mallows every time. When something's this good it's hard to break away from it. These are perfectly sweet and pillowy and I love them. They aren't as puffy as Dandies, which aren't available in the UK yet, and they remind me a little of flumps, remember those? I loved those.

Next I tried the yellow coloured Vanilla Mallows which, if I'm totally honest I don't quite understand. I've always been unsure about purchasing these in the past assuming they must taste strange but they taste exactly the same as the white version. Do people have childhood memories of yellow marshmallows that I've missed? I have puffy pink mallow memories but nothing's ringing a bell with yellow. Do the people at Freedom Mallows just think yellow's a fun colour? I don't know, I do know that it didn't stop me eating them.

The Strawberry Mallows turned out to be a total revelation. Whilst I had fond teenage memories of eating pink marshmallows I had no recollection of them tasting like strawberry. In fact I found the idea a little odd at first but after my first taste I realised I'd been so, so wrong. I ate the whole bag in one go, they're so freaking good.

I was ridiculously excited to try the mini mallows but I wanted to hold out for an occasion, mini mallows aren't just for shoving into your mouth in handfuls y'know... Okay, okay, I totally did that but only with half of them.

I took the mini vanilla marshmallows along to my favourite local hot chocolate spot, Chocaffinitea. They do spanish style single origin hot chocolate which is always hot, always vegan and always and ready to go. It's pretty great as is but the marshmallows make it extra special. I kept adding more and more.

I had something special in mind for the mini pink & white vanilla marshmallows too, Krispie Cakes. I hadn't made Krispie Cakes for a long time, probably ever since Kellogs screwed up all of the vitamin D in their cereals and made them non-vegan, and I'd never had them with mallows. Randi and Sal were coming to sleep over so I veganised this recipe but with added mallows and chocolate krispies so I think I've changed it enough to feature it below.

Double Chocolate Marshmallow Krispie Cakes

90g Doves Farm Cocoa Rice Cereal
100g Dark Chocolate (try to find something hovering around the 50% cocoa mark)
60g Margarine cut into small pieces
3TBS Golden Syrup
1/2 bag Freedom Mallows (divided)

Melt the chocolate in a bain marie stirring constantly to avoid burning. Add the margarine and stir until melted. Add the golden syrup and stir in. Gently fold in the cocoa rice cereal and just under half of the bag of mini marshmallows. Spoon into 12 cupcake cases and top with the remaining marshmallows. Leave in the fridge to cool for around an hour and then eat.

The finished product! Nick, Sal, Randi and I devoured these pretty fast. They were most excellent.

Freedom Mallows are available from Infinity Foods in Brighton, The Health Store in Nottingham and Edinburgh's Real Foods as well as UK wide at Holland and Barrett, Whole Foods UK locations and many other independent retailers. Online stockists include Vegan Store and the Viva! Shop and if you're in Aus you're in luck because Freedom Mallows can be purchased online from both Vegan Perfection and Green Edge. Freedom Mallows have recently made it to Sweden too, you can pick up a bag from Astrid Och Aporna or some ICA and Coop supermarkets, hopefully the rest of Europe won't be far behind.

If all of this marshmallow talk has your craving a s'more or yearning to whip up a batch of my marshmallow krispie cakes then I have good news for you. I'm giving three people the chance to win two bags of mallows (white and strawberry) and a promotional Cedric the Sloth shopping bag. Yay!

To enter just leave a comment telling me what you'd do with your marshmallows. Winners will be picked at random. The giveaway closes on December 19th at 12pm GMT. This competition is open to residents of the UK and Sweden only. Please be sure to leave your contact details, e-mail, Twitter, Instagram, or your blog profile work for me!

I think the fact that I still have Austin eats to post is a testament to just how many vegan options Austin has, well that and how much hard work fixing up a whole house that had taps held together with gaffer tape and a leaky roof really is! I feel like house stuff has been non-stop since we made the decision to head off travelling in January. We have tenants lined up to move in now (yay!) and I've been Gumtreeing and Ebaying like crazy to make some extra cash. I've even packed my Pez collection, that's how you know shit's gotten serious! Anyway, enough about me let's talk about Austin!

Kerbey Lane Cafe is somewhere Nick and I visited last time we were in Austin because not only do they have a whole lot of vegan options for an omni diner spot but they're also open 24 hours a day! 24 HOURS A DAY!

I'm sure some of my Euro friends can understand the "OMG, woah, amazing" shock factor of this! In the UK, or at least in Brighton, almost everywhere serving food in a more casual atmosphere that isn't a pub closes their doors sometime between 4:30 and 6. Just when everyone's finishing work. It's so stupid. And one of the many reasons why I'm excited to get the hell outa here. A few weeks ago Nick and I went out to see a movie at 8pm, it was sold out and we thought surely there must be somewhere we can wander to to get some cake and a hot chocolate or something but nope. Only pubs or restaurants. Ugh! You can get huge pancake platters, tofu scramble and home fries anytime at Kerbey Lane. It's brilliant.

The day we went the pancakes were lemon drizzle and they were super delicious and, perhaps more importantly, absolutely fucking huge. The scram and potatoes were both too spicy for me because I'm silly and I forgot to ask whether they had any chilli going on but I will most definitely be getting middle of the night pancakes with some of my favourite people in Austin next May when I'm there for Vida Vegan Con.

Another rocking vegan friendly breakfast focussed spot is all-veggie spot Bouldin Creek Cafe. I always get the Garden Breakfast because it has tomatoes which are far better in Texas than they are in Sussex. It also includes Bouldin's famous noochy tofu scramble, spinach and toast. I always go for sourdough because it's the best.

We also went there for pie once at 11pm (hence the lack of a pic, it was really dark. I think they call that mood lighting) and they thought my slice was too small and brought me a second one for free making it one of the best days of my life so far. I'm not kidding!

Veggie Heaven was a kinda new discovery on this trip, and I'm so, so sad that I only made it there once because I just heard that they're closing. Veggie Heaven was a vegetarian, mostly vegan, Chinese restaurant that sold copious amounts of mock meats. Fried. You can see why I'm so distraught about them closing right?!

I read on a blog that the best dishes were to be found on the "Top 5 Vegan Dishes" page so the Protein 2000 I spotted there was the obvious choice. Mock meat, broccoli, steamed rice. Sold!

This meal is exactly the kind of thing I love eating, it was the perfect size and this spot was cheap too. Also note that this is a classic "How Jojo eats veggies" meal, pop them on the side of some deep fry and I'm sold. I hope somewhere else like this pops up in Austin soon.

One event that I was super excited to be in town for was the Vegan Sunday Brunch at Mr Natural. It happens once a month and as soon as I saw an example of the menu I knew it'd be right up my street. We were also lucky to have a tonne of great company to go with the great food including Joanna and her family and Marie and Daniel, the lovely peeps behind Red Hot Vegans. It was so much fun!

The brunch which is served canteen stye came with so many of the things I love, biscuits and gravy, tofu scram, fried chicken, pancakes. It was totally ridic!

The fried seitan chicken came with this totally delish agave mustard sauce and the biscuits and gravy were pretty spot on, the gravy could have done with a touch more black pepper, but other than that there were no complaints. There were also cheesy Daiya spinach puffs on my plate as well as some grapes (for health!) and a slice of delicious lemon chia bread. I also went for a piece of Boston Cream Cake because everyone told me I should and holy wow was this a strong piece of cake.

I loved the chocolate glaze, the moist vanilla sponge, light cream and slivered almonds - I wish I was eating this right now.

Sometimes I do choose fruit over cake or fried everything especially as juice is so perfectly refreshing when it's hot... and it's Austin so it'll be hot. Nick & I swung by the Juiceland near to Barton Springs countless times on our trip and I'm excited that our Air B&B for next year's Austin adventure is located right near both Barton Springs and Juiceland. Yay!

The Peachy Green smoothie made with green apples, peaches, spinach and kale ended up being both of our favourites but I also loved the Rosie Cheek which has watermelon, raspberry, lemon and rosewater because it was super refreshing.

Juiceland also do some food which wasn't to my taste as it veered way too far into just a salad territory. I don't think it helped that it almost all had chilli which, although I didn't realise I had a serious allergy to it then, I knew that it broke me out in a rash and made me feel like a sad panda in the stomach region. Really the allergy should have been spotted earlier but my GP told me there was no such thing as a chilli allergy so I just kept on eating it. Ugh! The Everything Bar was probably my favourite thing they sold (aside from juice obvs) as I do enjoy a flapjack on occasion.

We ended the trip the exact same way we ended our last visit with dinner at Frank's, a bar with a veggie hot dog menu, that we really enjoyed last time we were in the city.

I went with a classic order of a sauerkraut dog which I added cheese to expecting it to come melted, it didn't but that meant I could put the majority of it on the waffle fries which was a truly excellent decision as the piping hot fries made it get a little melty and unmelted Daiya really isn't a good idea ever!

Next time I'm in Austin I'm going to have a kitchen which means I can try all of the amazing looking Tofurky and Gardein products I always gaze at in stores whilst wishing they'd made it home in one piece. I can't wait!

I don't really believe in new years resolutions. If I really wanted to do something why would I wait until the new year to start doing it? It makes no sense to me! I do like to look back over photos and flick through my journals and reminisce about the year that's just gone by though so instead of a list of resolutions I write an Awesome Achievements & Wonderful Memories list at the end of each year. I think that I do this to remind myself of the little successes that could get forgotten otherwise and to make myself focus on doing more of the stuff I love in the year to come. I haven't written 2014's list yet because who knows what could happen tonight and tomorrow! One fun new thing that literally just happened is that I've given the blog a new look that helps illustrate the journey I'll be going on as I leave Brighton to travel full time early next year. My adorable new header was designed by fellow vegan and lovely human Amanda Chronister, you can check out her other work here.

Despite refusing to take part in creating a list of resolutions I do love a good list so I thought I'd put together a Top 10 Eats of 2014 list and wow, this was one of the hardest things I've ever tried to put together. I've eaten so much amazing food this year and I had to make serious cuts to the list as I travelled to some of my favourite places and ate some of my favourite things this year. The Pad See Ew from Pukk in NYC and the Formosa Pancake from Formosa in Vienna, to pick a couple of examples, have been on my favourites list for years so I had to discount them. So ruthless!

So, in the order that I ate them because rating them 1 - 10 would have been far, far too difficult, and all in one post because this isn't driven by an inherent need to flood your timelines with click bait, here we go...

1- The Mac Attack from Vinnie's Pizzeria in Brooklyn

This amalgamation of my two favourite foods pizza and mac & cheese was always going to be a winner and I can't believe it took me until my third NYC trip as a vegan to try it. It was a thing of much beauty and wonder! Vinnie's also serve up BBQ Chicken pizza, amazing (and amazingly cheap) garlic knots and because they sell by the slice you can try all of the vegan options in one evening if you so wish.

Vinnie's Pizzeria 148 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn

2 - Crunch 'n Munch Roll from Beyond Sushi in Manhattan

The kiwi topped Crunch 'n Munch which comes stuffed with baked tofu, english cucumber and sprouts only just pips January's roll of the month, the Grilled Aubergine and Kalamata Olive roll, to the post by a hairs breadth because, as that one was limited edition you can't go and eat it yourself right now. The Crunch 'n Munch also comes with my favourite of Beyond Sushi's mayos, the miso mayo, which I would happily put on everything everyday forever.

Beyond Sushi at Chelsea Market, 75 9th Ave

3 - Croque Monsieur from Champs Diner in Brooklyn

Back in January I described this sandwich as The Best Breakfast I've Ever Had and I stand by that to this day. I mean it's melty cheese and mock meat sandwiched between two slices of French toast, I'm not sure it could ever be beaten especially if you order a pancake on the side like I did!

Champs Diner, 197 Meserole Street, Brooklyn

4 - T's Shoyu Ramen from T's Tan Tan in Tokyo

This simple but flavourful ramen is spot on perfect. Nick and I ate it for both our first and last meals in Tokyo and a few more in-between of course. T's in located in Tokyo station so it's easy to get to and it opens at 7 so it's perfect for early birds or jet lagged travellers!

T's Tan Tan Tokyo Station, 1F Keiyo Street

5 - Margherita Pizza from Vegans Cafe and Restaurant in Kyoto

As you can see this pizza is so much more than a margherita, it has potatoes on it for gods sake! It also has spinach and a creamy homemade soy cheese and I am to this day kinda amazed that one of the best pizza's I've ever eaten was from a vegan cafe in Kyoto. I loved it.

Vegans Cafe and Restaurant 612 - 0029 Kyoto-shi Fushimi-ku Fukakusa Nishi Uramachi 4 chome 88

6 - Three Bites Platter from VBites in Brighton

As soon as VBites put this on the menu I was right there ordering it. No joke. I live 10 minutes away. This platter includes their Hickory Chick Burger (my very favourite if I'm being pushed to choose only one), a fish burger with tartare sauce and capers, and a classic VBeefy burger with ketchup and mustard. There are also fries. So. Freaking. Great.

VBites 14 East Street, Brighton

7 - Vegan Terre à Tier Tea from Terre à Terre in Brighton

As you can see by my list it's not usually the upscale stuff that wins me over but Terre á Terre's afternoon tea was one of the fanciest things I ate all year and I adored it. It was also a birthday celebration with three of my favourite people which made the experience extra special. The tier's are made up of a savoury tier, a sweet tier and a scone tier. I was particularly enamoured by the sweet tier which included churros, filled mini polenta cakes and a divine chocolate raspberry cake.

Terre à Terre 71 East Street, Brighton

8 - Brownie Ice Cream from Veganista in Vienna

An all vegan ice cream store just hours away by plane, I'm there! I'm lucky to have wonderful friends in Vienna and I couldn't resist a visit after hearing all about Veganista. They have about 20 rotating flavours and brownie was my favourite. Other standouts included Matcha and Hazelnut. I will definitely be trying out some more flavours next summer so stay tuned for updates.

Veganista Neustiftgasse 23/3, 1070 Wien

9 - The Classic Cheese from Via 313 in Austin

"How did a third pizza make it onto the list?" I hear you ask, well one, I'm obsessed with pizza! And two, this pizza's amazing. It's Detroit Style which means that it's deep dish style and it's baked in a super well oiled rectangular pan which means there's a crisp almost fried thing going on with the crust which, when you add marinara and Follow Your Heart cheese, makes for pizza perfection.

Via 313 @ Violet Crown Social Club, 1111 East 6th, Austin

10 - The Del Ray from The Vegan Nom in Austin

If I was rating these from 1 - 10 this would probably have to be numero uno. This is, in my opinion, the greatest taco of all time. As a chilli allergic vegan tacos can be a minefield fraught with hurdles and disappointment but this is spot on delicious and needed no modifications. Crunchy cabbage, breaded faux fish, avocado, a perfect lime crema and plenty of black pepper meant that this taco rocked my world. I ate it more times that I can count on one hand on my last trip to Austin and I'm hoping to be counting my Del Ray encounters on both hands and feet during my next visit.

The Vegan Nom 120 E Northloop, Austin

And the honorable mention goes to... 7/11 onigiri

Without the help of Shawn and Chiaki from Vegan Japan my travels in their country would have been tougher for sure. They helped me suss out which convenience store foods were suitable for vegans and both Nick and I ate our weight in delicious 7/11, Family Mart and Lawson onigiris. You can check out my pictorial guide to Japanese convenience store food in my post Planning Your Trip to Japan.

MoFo '14 Day 22 - Mac and Cheesin' in Austin, Tx

MoFo '14 Day 23 - Sweet Like Chocolate

MoFo '14 Day 24 - Endangered Species Chocolate

MoFo '14 Day 25 - Vegan Parmesan

MoFo '14 Day 26 - London Calling

MoFo '14 Day 27 - London VegFest

MoFo '14 Day 28 - VegFest London

MoFo '14 Day 29 - Cheezish

MoFo '14 Day 30 - S'mores Cookies

Recent Brighton Eats: Casa don Carlos and VBites

The Scoop on Almond Dream!

Leaving on a Jet Plane

A tour of Austin in Food Trucks.

Round Up! Round Up!

Infinity Kitchen

The Great Moshimo Vegan Challenge

Itadaki Zen, London

Freedom Mallows

More Excellent Austin Eats.

Top Ten Eats of 2014