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!