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!