Vegan Edinburgh – The Auld Hoose

Posted on November 23, 2017 by hastalavegan

It’s time for me to tell you about The Auld Hoose. This place is pretty special. This place is home to Edinburgh’s biggest nachos. It may not be a veggie or vegan, but there is quite a lot to choose from on this menu, and I guarantee that you won’t walk out hungry.

I’ve eaten at The Auld Hoose quite a lot, it was the first place I tried in Edinburgh and as my regular readers will know, I like a food challenge. I like to think my belly has no limits….this place taught me that there is an end to my bottomless pitt of a stomach. I have never left anywhere in quite so much pain before, the portion sizes are ridiculous.

So let’s get started and show these nachos I’ve been talking about. Let me present you with Vegan Nachos for 2

That’s right. This is for two people. This isn’t the biggest size, they also do a portion big enough to share between 3-5 people. I’ve never had enough folk willing to eat vegan cheese with me to even see this, but I can tell you that the regular size is fricking huge.

I managed to eat an entire one of these to myself but it was no easy challenge. Logan and I were also sharing onion rings at the time….let me just show you them

So, what was I saying? Ah yes, I was eating an entire regular nachos (tortilla chips, vegan chilli, tons of jalapenos, guac and what feels like an entire block of violife cheese) and half a stack of these onion rings. I also wanted a portion of cheesy chips but was strongly and firmly advised not to even try it by bar staff, who regularly have to warn folk about the portion sizes here.

Now, when someone tells me I won’t be able to finish something, a horrible, childish rage and determination builds up inside me. I am telling you right now that the only reason I finished this meal was because I was told I couldn’t do it. I put myself in a lot of pain for my defiance. Was it worth it? I like to think so. I think Logan was secretly mortified but he did sound proud when I finally emerged from the bar toilets to be told that the person serving me, who doubted my eating abilities was impressed.

It may not have felt like it. But I won. OK?

So since that day, I’ve been back a few times. I haven’t had nachos since, but I’ve tried their vegan chilli dog, the cheesy chips and the haggis breakfast sandwich, which were all really tasty.

I really like The Auld Hoose, it’s a great place to take friends visiting the city, especially if they’re hungry. I prefer to visit earlier in the day as it’s a studenty area and it can get pretty busy in there, also later on in the day the music gets quite loud, so it just doesn’t suit anxious me with hearing difficulties at all. When it’s quieter though, this place is an absolute dream.

So what are you waiting for? Get yourself down to The Auld House for Edinburgh’s biggest nachos!

Vegan Edinburgh – Bross

Posted on November 22, 2017 by hastalavegan

I’m so excited to write about this hidden gem today! I had heard nothing about Bross until Vegan Bear took me along for lunch when I went to visit him at Earthy Foods in Portobello.

What a find! This wee Bagel shop is pure joy. Fresh handmade bagels from Breadshare with an amazing selection of fillings. I was so happy when I had a look at the vegan menu.

Look at that, fake meats, cheese, pickles, avocado…all my favourite things…on bagels!

I decided to go for the Little Apple – Patramheat, Violife Cheese, Dill Pickle and Mayo. We had a nice chat with the owner Larah while she made my bagel up for me. Jayson introduced me as a vegan blogger and made me blush throughout the whole exchange but Larah was lovely and even let me take a free bag home with my bagel. Bagels and Bags, Bross know how to win my heart.

We decided to takeaway so that we could walk down to the beach and eat with the beautiful view. I forgot to take a photo of that view because Bagel, but have a view of what went in my mouth.

This was such an amazing lunch. I loved my bagel, the filling was delicious, the perfect amounts of everything, nothing was too overpowering. The cabbage salad was also delicious.

I’m definitely going to have to have more lunch dates with Jayson so that I can try everything on that vegan menu. Finally a vegan bagel that is a little more than just a smear of vegan cream cheese and limp salad tomatoes.

If you’re in Portobello or fancy a trip for a nice lunch by the beach, definitely pop into Bross! They are open Mon-Saturday 9am-3pm and Sunday 10am-2pm

Vegan Edinburgh – The Herbivore Kitchen

Posted on November 21, 2017 by hastalavegan

Next up in my Vegan Edinburgh series is The Herbivore Kitchen! This place is really close to Considerit, who I blogged about yesterday. Whilst it’s not 100% vegan, the majority of the menu is suitable for vegans and it was an absolute delight to eat there.

The Herbivore Kitchen is where you want to go if you’re looking for really good Breakfast Pancakes in the city. As soon as I found out this place existed, I insisted Logan join me for brunch. We were not disappointed.

When we arrived we sat down on one of the beautifully laid out tables and checked out the menu. It took me ages to decide which pancakes to go for, but I knew for sure that I wanted the Oreo Biscoff Shake, so I ordered one of those right away. It was between the Maple Sgaia Bacon Pancakes or the Vegan Haggis with Giant Beans Pancakes. I eventually decided to go for savoury over sweet so that I could pick up some cake to take home afterwards. Luckily Logan went for the Bacon ones anyway, so I got to try a bite.

Wow. These really were as delicious as they looked. They were so good! The Haggis ones were my favourite, the pancakes were beautifully light and fluffy, the giant beans were packed full of flavour and what isn’t there to love about vegan haggis? The combo worked perfectly. The Maple Bacon ones were also good, but I was happy that I went for the savoury option.

The pancakes were price at around £7.95-£8.50, which is quite dear, but it was a nice large portion that left my belly full and I know the Sgaia meats and the veggie Haggis are pricey. It was well worth the money. The shakes were also really really delicious, they also came with cream on top!

We left with some cake and brownies which I forgot to take photos of, but they were also really tasty. I’ve since come across The Herbivore Kitchen at Leith Market and a Vegan Fair, their stuff is always really good. I love this place!

Vegan Edinburgh – Considerit

Posted on November 20, 2017 by hastalavegan

Welcome to the beginning of a small series I’m going to be blogging, Vegan Edinburgh. Readers of my blog will know that I spend a lot of time up here visiting my boyfriend, and that I also recovered from surgery up here for 2 months. This involved me eating a LOT of amazing food. To save me from blogging only reviews for the next couple of years and because I’ve fallen head over heels for this city, I’ve decided to smash through these reviews over the next couple of weeks to tell you all about my tasty food experiences.

I thought I’d start off writing about a new vegan place that opened up just last week. Considerit – a brand spanking new, completely vegan space selling fresh doughnuts, luxurious chocolates and ice cream. What isn’t there to love about this picture?

I can’t described just how happy I was to hear about Considerit opening up their own place. I met Claire quite a few years ago at a London Vegfest as we had stalls next to each other. It was a tough weekend, our stalls weren’t in the best place so it was quieter than previous years. I have fond memories of that weekend because not only were we next to a table full of incredible vegan chocolate, but Claire was a real joy to be around all weekend too. I’ve followed Considerit on Twitter since and was so happy to bump into their stall at Stockbridge Market in Edinburgh a few months ago. I got to try some amazing oreo doughnuts and stocked up on some creme egg chocolate bars too.

Considerit opened their doors last Wednesday and I made sure I was in town on the Friday to stop by. It was a beautiful day.

I was greeted by a full counter of amazing looking doughnuts. They had Cinnamon Sugar, Jam, Raspberry White Chocolate, Oreo, Biscoff and Honeycomb White Chocolate. I had offered to drop some by to Vegan Bear and his colleagues at Earthy Foods in Portobello, wanted to treat another few friends and Logan had bravely offered to stuff his face with doughnuts with me too. I ummed and ahhed before going for a box of 6 (this gives you a 10% discount) an extra to takeaway and then one for me to eat in right there and then.

For the selection box, I went for Jam, Raspberry White Choc, Biscoff, Oreo and 2 Honeycomb White Chocolates. I got a Biscoff to take away especially for Logan and ordered a Raspberry White chocolate for myself. I was also given a few mini cinnamon sugar doughnuts to try free of charge and Claire threw in an Oreo for me as well, so kind ❤

I waddled over to the seating area to take photos and try my first doughnut.

Just look at that. So beautiful! This doughnut was so good, the dough was spot on, there was plenty of topping and whilst it was sweet, it wasn’t over the top. I tried to make it last but it vanished off my plate pretty damn quickly.

I managed to try a little bit of all the other flavours too and I’ve gotta say, they were all amazing. It’s hard to pick a favourite, the Honeycomb, Oreo and Biscoff were right up there though, they are definitely my kind of doughnut.

Considerit also sell tea, coffee, hot chocolates as well as handmade Chocolates and also Ice cream. Not sure if the chocolate was up and running on Friday as I was too excited by doughnuts but I know ice cream is on hold for a wee while, just while they get themselves sorted with opening the new place.

I am so excited to return and try more tasty treats, I definitely think this is my new favourite place in Edinburgh.

So if you’re in the city, stop by and try out a few delights from Considerit chocolate. They’re nice and easy to find as they’re just opposite Summer Hall. Go go go and tell all your friends!

Vegan Mofo 2017 #29: Vegan Quarter at Leith Market

Posted on October 29, 2017 by hastalavegan

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A Vegan Expe.rience of Surgery & Recovery: I had chest reconstruction surgery on August 22nd 2017. For Vegan Mofo 2017, I will be writing about my experience preparing for surgery and my ongoing recovery.

I spent the majority of my recovery staying at my partner Logan’s flat in Edinburgh. He lives in an area called Leith, not far from the city centre. During recovery I found myself getting quite restless, so it was exciting to hear that every Saturday there is a market in Leith that showcases a variety of awesome local businesses. Even more exciting was when I discovered that the first Saturday of every month is the Vegan Quarter at Leith Market.

Whilst the Vegan Quarter isn’t solely 100% vegan, all of the stalls are encouraged to have options and this is the one Saturday of the month vegans definitely shouldn’t miss

I didn’t have the energy or my nice camera to take lots of photos, but I thought I’d do a quick roundup of all the exciting stuff I found!

First up is Earthy Foods. These guys have a few shops in Edinburgh selling a great range of local, seasonal, organic, wholesome food stuffs. They’re not a vegan business but they know what to offer us and have a variety of tasty foods. They’re at Leith Market every Saturday with vegan options, but of course there’s more during the Vegan Quarter. My beautiful friend Vegan Bear runs the stall so it was a great chance to see him too.

They had a variety of really great stuff. Amazing vegan sausage rolls that I’m now addicted to, brushed with a chilli jam on top, I can’t just stop at one of these. I’m hooked.

They had a few vegan cakes, I decided to try the Pumpkin Cheesecake because it was made by Vegan Bear and his bakes are wonderful. It was indeed wonderful, so sweet and creamy and tasty.

They also had some REALLY delicious dips that I fell in love with. I particularly loved the Satay Sauce and the Preserved Lemon Hummus was really fantastic with fresh crusty bread and olives. Yum!

Next I headed over to Grumpy Food as I’d heard great things about their Kuku and I was desperate to try it. Kuku’s are these tasty Frittata type things. They have a variety of fillings, there was Cauliflower, Sgaia Mheat, Aubergine…you can get them with salad or just as they are. These things are SO tasty and I was happy to see Grumpy Foods at the market the following weekend to pick up a few more slices.

Opposite Grumpy Foods was The Herbivore Kitchen who I neglected to take a photo of! I’ll be doing a write up on this cafe soon because they do some incredible vegan food. They were selling a selection of vegan brownies, cheesecakes and layer cakes. Myself and Logan got a selection of 4 browies for £10. They were so good, the flavours were Biscoff, Peanut Butter & Oreo. I’ve found a picture of their amazing cheesecake from their Facebook for you to get an idea of what they’re selling

herbivorekitchen

My final great vegan find was Knights Kitchen Street Food who were doing a load of delicious vegan treats. I took home a slice of this Plantain Pie and it was SO good. Nice and spicy and the slices were HUGE. Great value for money, definitely check them out.

There was also this adorable water station for dogs that was super cute ❤

Overall I was really impressed with The Vegan Quarter at Leith Market. Edinburgh is a very vegan friendly city but it was nice to have these options outside of the city centre and a little more local to me. There was a great atmosphere and it was awesome to see so many stall holders embracing the vegan options.

I do think it’s a little unfortunate that not all the stalls were taking part. There was a crepe truck that would have been amazing if they could get together a vegan batter for fresh hot crepes and also there were some fishy/meaty stalls that had zero options at all. I understand that they’re at the market each week but it would be great to have everyone taking part or getting a small vegan business in instead.

I’ll definitely be back for The Vegan Quarter again, sad I can’t make the next one but looking forward to visiting again in the future!

Vegan Mofo 2017 #28: Welcome Back Pizza at The Old Abbey Taphouse, Manchester

Posted on October 28, 2017 by hastalavegan

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A Vegan Experience of Surgery & Recovery: I had chest reconstruction surgery on August 22nd 2017. For Vegan Mofo 2017, I will be writing about my experience preparing for surgery and my ongoing recovery.

I had my first day back at work on Thursday and spent the day before travelling back down to Manchester. It was sad to leave behind Logan, Edinburgh and my Pressure King Pro but it also felt like time to get back to normality too.

I’m on a phased return for the first two weeks, so my first day back wasn’t too horrendous but I was incredibly tired by the end of it. This was partly to do with the fact I wasn’t napping and was active that day, also because Michael C Hall popped in to get some shopping and I lost my shit and went round telling everyone how exciting I found it. This was legit my face.

I was super pleased when a work friend suggested going out for pizza when we finished our shift. This was a good idea because 1) Pizza 2) It stopped me falling asleep as soon as I got home and 3) Pizza.

We had planned to go to Double Zero in Chorlton, who do amazing sourdough pizza bases and vegan cheese, but when we arrived at 7pm to a 2.5 hour wait we decided to head further afield. We were keen to stick with pizza so I suggested we jump on a bus and visit The Old Abbey Taphouse, which I have heard so many good things about.

We arrived at around 7.30pm and unfortunately there were no tables inside for us to sit at. Two large groups were taking up the space and there was also a band setting up. This place is very very small, which I didn’t expect, so I’d recommend getting stuff to takeout or going when the weather is okay enough to sit outside. It wasn’t too cold so we grabbed a table outside and looked at the menu.

There were quite a few vegan options; Roasted Veg Sandwich, Vegan Chili, a selection of pizzas and then the option of chips to go with. There were also vegan milkshakes and a selection of ice creams & Brownies for dessert. I chose to go for a Chocolate Milkshake and ordered a Zucca Pizza (White Base, Spinach, Roast Squash and Roast Garlic) with chips.

The milkshake came first and I was eager to get it in my face as quickly as possible. Oh yess, this was tasty. Not my favourite milkshake (I have a milkshake I created over at The Ice Shack that is awesome and I love the V Rev Cookies n Cream Shake) but it was rich, chocolatey and had a really tasty whipped cream on top, so it’s up there on my list of shakes for sure.

Then the savoury arrived. This pizza was really really tasty. It was absolutely swimming in vegan cheese, which I loved and the toppings worked really well together. It was pretty rich because of all the cheese so I was absolutely stuffed when I finished that and the chips.

I was so sad that I was too full to try ice cream and brownie but very satisfied with my meal. I’d definitely like to go back there to eat, maybe more in the Spring/Summer as we did start to get cold sitting outside.

The only thing that disappointed me was that I was under the impression that all the pizzas had a vegan option, including the ‘meaty’ ones. When I arrived and saw just a handful with VV next to them I was a little bit sad but assumed that maybe I’d remembered wrong, but having checked the website it does state they offer vegan options for every pizza. Maybe this has changed as it seemed odd to have VV next to only a few dishes. When I next go I’ll check as a fake meat pizza would be a great addition on the menu

I definitely recommend heading over or grabbing a takeaway from The Old Abbey if you get a chance. It was a great welcome back meal and a good chance for me to catch up with a friend, I can’t wait to go back and try dessert!

Vegan Mofo 2017 #27: Day Trip to Glasgow

Posted on October 27, 2017 by hastalavegan

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A month into recovery myself and Logan got offered 2 free tickets to see a double bill of Adam & Eve at The Citizens Theatre in Glasgow. We were both still pretty fragile and tired but decided to go along anyway and make a day of it so we weren’t rushing all the way to Glasgow and then heading straight back.

As you know from a previous trip I blogged about, I love Glasgow! It’s one of my favourite cities, I spent my birthday there this year just so I could spend a weekend enjoying all the amazing vegan food. I was really excited that we were popping over for the day.

The first thing I did when arriving at Glasgow Central Station was to swing by Gordon Street Coffee Cafe (which sits right at the entrance of the station) to pick up some sweet treats from Big Bear Bakery. These guys are awesome and I’m sad that I haven’t got round to blogging about them sooner as they made me a load of amazing Vegan Brioche Doughnuts for my birthday celebrations in April. These doughnuts are incredible so I was desperate to get my hands on them again. Luckily Gordon Street Coffee has a great selection of their goods, so we swung by there and picked some up. I can’t find my own photos of their doughnuts, but this is what they look like

Big Bear

We decided to return to a restaurant that we both went to on my birthday weekend in April. Now, it’s the most non vegan sounding place you can imagine, but the vegan options are pretty damn incredible at Steak Cattle & Roll.

What originally convinced me to try them was their dairy free Freak Shakes. I’d never had one of these before and they turned out to be pretty damn incredible. On both visits I’ve had the Whisk It Biscuit freak shake which consists of vanilla ice cream, biscoff spread and banana chips. Oh yes please

This is so sickly and delicious. It’s probably a good thing we have to travel an hour to get to Glasgow, or I’d be there at least once a week for one of these.

They also have a good selection of savoury dishes for vegans. There are 4 vegan burgers on the menu, including one made with seitan chicken tenders. You can also get loaded fries, onion rings, wraps, salad and side dishes of the chicken tenders.

This time round I decided to go for the China Town Burger, which is a pattie with carrot and cucumber ribbons, avocado, chunky cauliflower and beetroot salsa, sweet chilli mayo, smokey ketchup and bacon bits. Hnnnggghhh

This was so good. Absolutely massive and pretty hard to eat as it wouldn’t fit in my mouth, but my god was it delicious.

Logan and I decided to share the Vegan Loaded Fries, which are topped with caramelised onions, aioli, hot sauce and bacon bits.

We did not expect such a massive portion and when Logan declared himself full after his burger, I knew we were in trouble with these! I managed to cram my half in, they were so so tasty but I probably would only get these again if I was sharing them with at least another 2 people!

I’ve had the Chicken Burger before and know just how good the chicken is, so I ordered a side of the tenders too. I could barely eat them as I was so full, but I was more than happy to take these to go home with. They were amazing in a sandwich the next day.

We were relieved that the Citizen’s Theatre was a nice long walk away as we were both so ridiculously full. We slowly made our way down to the theatre ready for the shows. Here is a little bit of information on what we saw that night

adam eve

Adam and Eve, two complementary pieces exploring trangender and non-binary life can be seen together in one evening.

National Theatre of Scotland presents two new groundbreaking productions exploring extraordinary lives in transition.

Adam, by Frances Poet and Cora Bissett (Glasgow Girls), is the remarkable, true story of a young trans man and his fight across borders and genders to find a place to call home. Featuring a 120-strong virtual choir of trans individuals from across the globe.

In Eve, legendary playwright, performer, father and grandmother Jo Clifford tells the story of a child raised as a boy, when she knew all along that was wrong. What does that do to our understanding of what it is to be human in times of revolutionary change?

These were both two amazing plays and we really enjoyed them. Adam was my favourite of the two but quite difficult to watch, it was very sad and emotional. I definitely recommend going to see these if you get the chance, they were great and they both seemed to have an impact on the audience.

Once the shows were over we were exhausted and very ready to head home to bed. We had to recover from this for a few days after but it was definitely worth it for all the food and fun we had that day. I can’t wait to go back to Glasgow again!