Mango, Wetherby

My Dad and his other half live in a little Yorkshire village called Tockwith, and their nearest town is a place called Wetherby.  Although Wetherby is a lovely picturesque town, it's one of those places that still think that vegetarians eat fish, however for some unknown reason, not only does the Morrisons sell Fry's nuggets and schnitzels (when the one in Bolton town centre doesn't) it has a vegetarian Indian restaurant called Mango.

I've been wanting to visit Mango for AGES but we just haven't got round to it, however last weekend we went to visit my Dad, and since I had just finished my Live Below The Line challenge I decided I deserved a nice vegan curry at Mango.

On walking in I was presently surprised, I'm so use to veg*n places either looking like canteens or looking a bit hippish, but Mango is well decorated and looks like a upmarket Indian and somewhere your everyday omnivore would feel comfortable in going and not feel intimidated by a load of "hippy Sh*t".  Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the decor so just a imagine a modern looking restaurant with tasteful Hindu artwork.

Glancing at the menu, it didn't take me long to decide that why limit yourself to one curry when you could get a Thali, which included a starter, a main with three different curries, rice and bread and a dessert?! The Boy got a Mango Thali, which was bigger and came with five curries for the main.  I didn't go for that one as it didn't say there was a vegan option, I was kicking myself that when we ordered the waiter assumed he was vegan too and offered to veganize it- gutted!

Both thalis came with the same appetizer and starter which were served together.  The appetizer was a papad with a mango chutney, a bread made with black lentils and the starter was the the chef's starter, which was dhokra a kind of gram flour savoury cake.

It looked very fancy and I loved how they have formed the papad into a free standing cone, however the star was definitely the dhokra, which was like a very light cake but savoury.  I've never seen these anywhere else but I'll definitely look out for them next time I go for an Indian!

Next was the mains, little pots of three different curries- a daal, vegetable curry and my favourite, chana masala.  The Mango Thali has those three curries plus two more- a aubergine curry and a paneer curry, which obviously would be subbed for something else in the vegan version. This came with rice, bhatura, a kind of pomegranate chutney instead of raita, and what looked like puffed up poppadoms, which I've seen before and I'm sure has a special name that I can't remember!

My favourite curry was the chana masala, as always and I loved the bhatura, which looks like a naan bread and made of wheat flour, but is super light unlike a naan.  It was really tasty and it was great for dipping in the daal and because it was so light, I didn't feel like I'd just filled up on bread.

I was a bit worried about what the dessert might be, as although I love Indian food I don't really like the sweets, I was relieved that it was ice cream, especially since I was feeling pretty stuffed after the main and I find that ice cream is a good dessert when you need to something refreshing and not heavy after a big meal.  It was an added plus that they had vegan ice cream, which I'm pretty sure was just vanilla Swedish Glace, so nothing fancy but I happen to love Swedish Glace ice cream and the added chopped pistachios was a nice touch and gave it a bit of a boost.  Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the dessert.  Bu picture a small bowl of vanilla ice cream with pistachios and your there!

I was really impressed with Mango, and the presentation was stunning plus they were super clean- our waiter was wiping down the table after each course! I can't wait for the opportunity to visit again.

Vegan in Newcastle

I love a good accent, and one of my favourite accents is the Geordie accent, which developed from a crush on Dec of Ant & Dec fame in my early teenage years.  Although I am (mostly) over that crush now, geordies such as Si King, Ross Noble and Sarah Millican means that I still love a Geordie accent.

Therefore, it's always been a ambition to visit Newcastle, so when me and The Boy got a three day weekend together we decided to make a short visit.

Not only is Newcastle a amazing city to visit, there are plenty of vegan friendly places to eat too.

The first stop once we got off the train at Newcastle station was Scrumpy Willow and Singing Kettle, which is an veggie friendly place by day, but completely veggie in the evening.  If I was to change anything about our visit is that I wish we had planned where we were going better and gone to this place in this place in the evening.  Instead, both times we went here, we went in the daytime, and both times I forgot to take a picture of my food.  On the first visit I went for a falafel pitta, which was nice.  As they did vegan dessert, I had to have the chocolate passion cake, which is a chocolate cake with a hint of ginger, that I really enjoyed.  On the second visit, I went for the daal which was delicious, but really filling so I didn't have room for cake. I may not have pictures of the food, but I have a picture of the inside, which was homely and welcoming.

After lunch, we headed to our hotel to drop our bags off.  We did try to come to Newcastle on another occasion but were put off by how expensive the hotels are, however we now realise that this is because a lot of the hotels (even the Premier Inn!) have views of the river Tyne.  This time we managed to find a hotel room for £45 at Jesmond Hotel, which is a 10 minute walk from Jesmond metro stop (note: Newcastle's underground is cheap and efficient!).  We were both impressed by the hotel, the staff were friendly and polite and although our room was small, it was really clean and tidy.

After dropping our bags off, we headed back into the City centre to explore and cross the High Level Bridge taking in the sights.

After a good walk around, we headed for tea at Mama Mia's, a Italian with a separate vegan menu, as well as vegan wine.  I ended up ordering potato skins with garlic mayo and the Italiano pizza, complete with vegan cheese.

The skins were OK, but were more like potato wedges, however I really enjoyed the pizza, there were a few choices but this one had artichoke which I love.  They also had a butternut squash risotto that looked amazing, but I just couldn't pass on the option of a pizza with vegan cheese in a non-vegan restaurant but if we went again I'd probably choose that instead.  They also had vegan dessert options, but it was just some kind of crumble which was a bit disappointing, or maybe I was just being spoilt after the chocolate cake earlier in the day!

The next day, we headed over to Sky Apple Cafe, a vegetarian cafe for breakfast.  The nearest metro stop is Byker, so it offers a good opportunity to sing the Byker Grove theme tune if you wish to do so.

This Cafe is the second best decorated veg*n cafe I've been (first being C-A-L-F in Scarborough), I loved the cloud effects and the chandeliers, which looks a bit odd when the place is a cafe, but would make total sense if you went in the evening when it becomes a restaurant.

A running theme with this trip was that we seemed to go to places at the wrong time of day, as although this place did breakfast, the lunch options seemed a lot more appealing.  Especially since the most interesting thing on the breakfast menu, the breakfast burrito was pre-made and therefore couldn't be veganised which was annoying as it would be so easy to make vegan. So I ended up with a small vegan breakfast.

The breakfast was OK, I prefer the vegan breakfasts at The Kitchen on Great Moor Street in Bolton, however the meal was saved by spotting the array of vegan cakes.

Now, I go by the rule that if somewhere offers vegan cake, then it's the law to get some regardless of the time of day.  I'm usually a sucker for chocolate cake, but the strawberry cake looked too stunning to pass by.

This cake was good, I was a little resentful after The Boy, who decided he didn't want a dessert (as it was too early for cake?!) and would just have "a little taste" of mine, ended up eating half of it.  It was good cake.  I was gutted to discover on Instagram the week after our visit that they had opened a vegan deli next door.

After our late breakfast, we headed to the bus station and got a bus across the Tyne to see Angel of the North.

After more exploring of Newcastle, failing to find the Painted Elephant vegan restaurant in the rain and having a bit of a tantrum because I was too thirsty to think about food we headed to Scrumpy Willow and Singing Kettle again for tea.  Along the way I noticed a shop selling Tyne Cheases, which on closer inspection was the Far Place Rescue shop.  I was impressed to find that along with Tyne Cheases they also sell Go Max Go bars and other vegan snacks as well as other charity shop goods.  I tried the Tyne Cheases at The Great Yorksire Vegan Fair, and I really liked the ale and mustard flavour.  It was really tempting to buy some, but as they are cashew based, one chease was around £9 and as well as being aware that I'd already spent a bit too much I don't eat enough vegan cheese to make it worthwhile. But the shop was a great discovery, and I'd love to come back another time.

I really loved Newcastle, the people were friendly and I loved being called 'pet'.  We would definitely like to go back as it was only a flying visit and there was so much we wanted to do.

Live Below The Line Challenge

For the last few years I've been wanting to take part in the Live Below The Line challenge, which raises awareness of world hunger but I've never quite got round to it.

However this year, I've managed to sign up and will be starting my 5 day challenge tomorrow.

You can read more about the challenge, my experience and donate here.

The Great Yorkshire Vegan Festival

Last weekend I got the chance to visit The Great Yorkshire Vegan Festival in Leeds.

Disguising myself as a hardcore vegan, I arrived at the venue, Leeds Town Hall ten minutes before the festival opened.  I felt a bit like those teenagers that camp outside Manchester Academy all day waiting for their favourite band to show up, but only a bit- I'm much too old and wise to sit out all day. There was a method to my madness though, as usually at these events the first 100 (or so) people get goody bags, and the goody bag was well worth getting up at 6am on a Saturday.

After sussing things out for a while inside, I wandered outside to meet for my friends India of Let Us Go Fly A Kite, Pamela of FemVegGeek and Pamela's other half,  Adam. Whilst waiting I took the opportunity to sample some free Frys products at the entrance to the festival, on offer were the burgers, sausages, prawns, nuggets and schnitzels, I skipped the burger as I've had them before (I've also had the sausages before, but I just couldn't resist!) but tried everything else and was really impressed with the schnitzel, I will definitely keep an eye out for when Holland and Barrett have an offer on them.  We also met Miracle, of Miracle's Mission who we ran into throughout the day- I think her presence made this my favourite vegan fair so far this year, she was so friendly and was obviously loving all the attention!

After dragging ourselves from Miracle (eventually) and chatting to some familiar faces, I made sure we headed towards Deb's Pantry, a stall I had spotted earlier on and was desperate to go back to, as they were selling VEGAN LEMON CURD!!!!

I made the stallholders laugh when I did a little involuntary dance when I spotted this, and after tasting it, I was determined to go back to their stall and make sure I got one- I'm sure I was just on time too, as I think I bought the last jar, and even if I didn't, I was close as they sold out in two hours! This stuff is super tasty and I'm using the fact the instructions say to eat within 10 days of opening as an excuse to have it on toast every night.

The organisers of Veganuary were there, and were offering of Ten Acres crisp and popcorn in exchange for a small donation to the cause. I ended up donating twice and getting two packs of the chicken flavour ones, which I'm saving for a dirty crisp butty at some point. Although I was really impressed by their new Lime and Sea Salt popcorn.  Animal Aid were selling off short dated/just gone past their sell by date snacks, including peanut Trek bars for 50p- at that price it would be rude not to!

I also got a bit tipsy thanks to the lovely people at the cider stall who let me taste all their delicious ciders before I settled on a half a pint of their medium-dry.  I don't like beers or ales, so I often feel left out at festivals, but it was great to see a stall dedicated to vegan cider and a chance to try different types.  After browsing round the stalls and grabbing some food, we headed into Leeds town centre in order to visit Out Of This World, which is a local independent shop, which offers a array of vegan produce (although not a fully vegan or veggie).  Now that I no longer work in Manchester and don't have easy access to 8th Day, I take every opportunity I can to visit vegan friendly independent shops and came away with some Green and Black's dark chocolate and ginger, two cliff bars and a jar of my Zest vegan pesto (my favourite!).  We then headed to Costa for a sit and a drink, and me and Pamela amused ourselves by taking pictures of our new soft toys we bought/won at the festival in various poses.  Meet Caja the Pig and Bertie the Badger!

After finishing our drinks, we headed back to the festival to see what bargains were to be had, Pamela and India managed to get some good bargains, I settled on a new bag instead, as my kitchen cupboards are full to bursting point,

I'm not to sure of the name of the company who made them, but I've added myself to a mailing list for when they have a Facebook page and I'll update this post.  I love that her bags are made from recycled materials (so this bag was a pair of jeans), and I love foxes- blame a childhood growing up with Farthing Wood!

I really loved The Great Yorkshire Vegan Festival, and I hope to go next year.  However, I'd be tempted to get a VIP ticket for £10 and allows you to queue jump and includes a VIP goody bag, given what I got in the free goody bag, I have high hopes for the VIP one!

What to do in Madrid

I realise that when I do posts about trips to other countries, I concentrate mainly on the food, which is fine because its a vegan blog, but I do more than just eat on holiday!

Madrid is an amazing city, its one of those places that you could go back to several times and do completely different things.  In fact, it can feel a little overwhelming having so much to do in a short space of time.  Hence why I wanted to do a short guide on Madrid.

Madrid Metro
Starting with Madrid's Metro. The Boy is fascinated with both trains and underground network, so first thing he susses out when we book a trip is if they have a underground system, one of our dreams is to create a guide book of underground systems around the world and how to use them.  I've been on New York and Barcelona's underground systems which whilst the trains are air conditioned, the stations are not, and in hot weather it makes waiting five minutes for your next train feel like a year in the sweltering heat.  The great thing about Madrid's system is that BOTH the stations and trains are air conditioned.  This makes Madrid's metro my second favorite underground network so far- number one is Prague's metro, just for the crazily fast and super steep and long escalators and the fact that you can tell the train is approaching just from feeling a sudden gust of wind!

In terms of tickets and prices, there are basically three options for tourists, a single ticket for if you just want to make the one trip and don't plan on using the metro that often, a ten trip ticket for around 12,20 Euro that does exactly what it says on the tin and then tourist ticket that allows you to purchase unlimited travel on the metro for a certain number of days.  We went for a five day tourist ticket for zone A (City Centre and Airport) at a cost of 26,80 Euro, which works out around just under £4 per day at today's exchange rate. Zone A covers everything are that you want to see as a tourist, and I doubt that you could get as good a deal on London's underground, plus the tourist tickets include unlimited travel on buses and Madrid's train network within Zone A. In addition it includes the 3 Euro airport station surcharge.

Tourist Bus
The Boy's parent's really like the tourists buses that you find in big cities and we tried the one in La Palma in Gran Canaria and were massively disappointed.  However we knew that on the hottest day we were there, we thought going around on a bus might be a good way to keep cool.  The tourist bus ticket in Madrid is 21 Euro, and includes unlimited use for 24 hours, or 48 hours for around 5 Euros extra.  It was a lot better than the one in Gran Canaria, firstly because the ports you plug your headphones in to listen to the talk actually worked and also because it covers a massive area of Madrid, in fact there are two tour bus routes to cover all the various sites as well as extended tours for each of the routes.  It's definitely a good method to suss out Madrid and although we did the tour on the third day, its a good thing to do on your first day to help plan your itinerary.

Temple of Debod
I did try and do a bit of research on things to do before setting off and one of the things on my to do list was to visit the Temple of Debod, which is an ancient Egyptian temple that was given to Spain by Egypt, dismantled and then rebuilt in Madrid.  I've always been fascinated by the ancient Egyptians, and I really want to visit Cairo and the pyramids one day, until then, this was a great opportunity to see an real Egyptian temple.  We ended up stumbling on it completely by accident whilst walking through Parque de Oeste looking for the cable car. I was expecting to just be able to look at it from the outside, so I was excited to see that you could actually walk in it, and touch the inscriptions on the wall!

Cable Car
Near Parque de Oeste you can catch a cable car that gives you a birds eye view of Madrid and takes you to Casa de Campo park, Madrid's largest park. The views are stunning.

Metro Museum
Chamberi metro station is an abandoned station on Madrid's metro system and four years ago they converted it to a museum. It's free to visit and you get to step back in time and see how Madrid's Metro use to look before they modernised it.  Madrid's metro was apparently built around about the same time and London's underground, so the design of the platforms is very similar to London's with the patterned tiles and it also reminded me a bit of Victoria Baths in Manchester too.

The museum has very limited opening hours and is only open Friday 11am-1pm, 5pm-7pm, Saturday and Sunday 10am-2pm. Also last access is 30 minutes before closing time, so plan your visit carefully!

Parks
What Madrid lacks in beaches, it makes up in parks, and there are tons of them dotted all around the city!

Campo del Moro and the Sabatini Gardens, next to the royal palace.

Parque Juan Carlos I, which is a park full of various sculptures.

The Botanical Gardens, which is a hot house inside Atocha train station.

There is also Casa de Campo and Parque de Ouse that I mentioned before.  The park we kept on coming back to was Retiro Park which is one of Madrid's best known parks, and has a boating lake and two palaces that you can walk in- Palacio de Cristal, a glass palace, and Palacio de Valazquez, which is now owned by the Ministry of Culture and holds various exhibitions.

These are just a few of Madrid's parks and you can find a full list here.

This is just a taster of the things there are to do in Madrid, I hope you find it useful.  You can find more ideas at www.gomadrid.com/.

Vegan in Madrid- Part 2

If I was travelling with fellow vegans in Madrid, I would have just eaten my way round all of Madrid's vegan establishment, of which there are plenty.  However as I was travelling with three omnis and a veggie I had to make a compromise.  In addition to the usual suspects (Italian and Indian), we also visited some veggie friendly places.

The first place we visited was La Pizzateca, near Anton Martin Subway station. A pizzeria that sold a vegan pizza, complete with vegan cheese. We had a 20 minute wait whilst they cooked the pizza but fortunately, they had lots of interesting arty books to help pass the time,  This one was my favourite, it was pretty bizarre and I really couldn't read the Spanish explanations.  I hope it wasn't anything too horrific?!

Although they had a few seats where you could eat your pizza inside, we decided to get them to takeaway and took them back to the hotel which was several metro stops away and involved changing lines, so by the time we got back they were cold.  Luckily I like cold pizza.

The pizza was pretty decent, the courgette was finely sliced and well cooked, although it was not Violife the cheese was nice and melted well.  It's a shame they didn't do any mock meats, as I think it would have made it more memorable. Although I should be more grateful that I found a pizza place with vegan cheese really!

The second place we went to was for a quick lunch at a place called Bolero meatball, which is (unsurprisingly) a meatball place that sells vegan meatballs.  The meatballs themselves contain quinoa and tofu along other ingredients.  The menu is completely in Spanish and is a little confusing, but basically you order your meatballs and then you can choose to have them on their own (platter), on a sandwich, or with rice, chips or pasta. I went for meatballs with rice and we took a seat whilst we waited for our meal.  I really liked this slogan on the wall.

Once your food is ready, you are called to go and collect it. I got a bit panicky when I saw them sprinkling something that looked like cheese on mine, but when I asked the waitress it turns out that it was peanut pieces, as the vegan meatballs come with a peanut sauce.

OMG! This was delicious! The sauce was amazing, and this meal was my favourite of the entire trip.  However I wish I'd also got a portion of chips too as I managed to nick one of The Boy's chips before he smothered them in mayo on purpose so I couldn't nick anymore and they were great too.  I really regret not getting the chance to go here again.

This was it in terms of vegan/vegan friendly places we visited in Madrid, well apart from the standard Italian and Indian places. I would say the food in Madrid on occasion is slightly more expensive than you might find in other areas of Spain, but it is the capital city and for the whole visit we never spent over the equivalent of £10.50 for a meal- well barring my Loving Hut splurge that still probably didn't even come to £15! I really loved Madrid, and my next Madrid post will be able things to do in the city other than eat!

Vegan in Madrid- Part 1

I've just got back from a five day break in Madrid with The Boy and his family.

The trip started with the flight to Manchester Airport, and although I've learnt now to bring a bucket load of snacks with me on planes and I definitely had more than enough to eat, I couldn't resist buying this falafel sandwich from the WH Smith at Manchester Terminal 3.

To be honest, it wasn't the most amazing sandwich I'd had, the falafels were a bit meh and as a general coriander hater I found the coriander was a bit over powering .  I do realise that it probably wasn't the best idea to buy a sandwich that clearly stated that it contained coriander hummus but I was too excited.  Plus by buying it hopefully WH Smith will be encouraged to keep stocking it and maybe expand the range.

On day one, we headed towards Opera Metro stop and the nearby Plaza Mayor where we stumbled on Mercado de San Miguel, which alongside fresh produce stalls also sells various tapas.  Although most of it was non- vegan, they did have a fruit stall that sold fresh juices and cups of fresh fruit at 3 Euros each.  The Carrefour Express across the road was selling cups of fruit cheaper, however it wasn't as fresh and delicious as the ones at the market.  There were also stalls selling olives and nuts that looked like they may be safe options.  We ended up here for breakfast on two occasions, on both times I got a cup of fruit and the last time I also go a cup of fresh strawberry juice that tasted amazing.  

I also loved the mountain of strawberries that the stall had. They were advertising 1 kilo of strawberries for just under 9 Euro!

After breakfast we went for a wander around Madrid and came across the Royal Palace of Madrid and by complete coincidence a Foreign Diplomat was coming to visit so there was a crowd outside along with royal guards, a bit like what I imagine Buckingham Palace to be like at the changing of the guard. However the highlight was definitely the three peacocks just wandering around!

Around 4pm and after surviving on some fruit and ginger oatcakes all day I was getting quite hungry, however, in Spain places start to close around 4:30 and re-open later on so we weren't having much luck.  Eventually we came across Shi-Shang which is a vegetarian Chinese buffet that was still serving food.  After telling the waitress "Soy Vegana" (yes, that is the extent of my Spanish!) she explained that all the savoury dishes were vegan.  I don't know what I had as nothing was labelled and I was too hungry to care but it was your standard Chinese stuff of rice, noodles, fried stuff and mock meat curries.

The mains were a bit on the cold side, as they were coming up to closing time and a tiny bit greasy but for just 8.95 Euro for an all you can eat buffet you can't grumble. For some reason, all the mock meat dishes included pieces of hot dog sausages, which was a bit random but they were actually really nice so I wasn't complaining.

I was also happy to discover that they had vegan options for dessert, which were vegan chocolate brownies, strawberries and vegan custard.  The custard had separated a bit, but you just needed to stir it past the point of it looking like scrambled egg and then it was actually quite nice with a lovely vanilla flavour.  The only negative point about the desserts was that they also served jelly, which to be fair they had marked as not being suitable for vegetarians or vegans but it was a bit strange to see in a place that is suppose to be vegetarian.

The next day we wandered over to La Biotika near Anton Martin Metro stop, a vegetarian restaurant with a small shop attached so I could buy a few snacks for the next couple of days.  I managed to find some Clif bars for around 2.15 Euro, which works out around £1.63, a lot cheaper than what they cost over here not to mention that nowhere in Bolton sells them.  They were selling blueberry, peanut and white chocolate and macadamia nut flavours so I grabbed one of each and they tided me over for three breakfasts.  Despite never being a fan of white chocolate, the white chocolate one was my favorite and I checked the ingredients numerous times just to make sure it was vegan! I wish I'd visited that shop again to stock up now I'm home.

This time we were a little more organised and went to get lunch a bit earlier. One of the places we tried to go on the first day was Madrid's Loving Hut however the opening times on Happy Cow were wrong and they were closed.  But this time we were prepared and went when they were open.  When I'd attempted to do a bit of research I came across a blog post about Madrid's Loving Hut and the writer described it as one of the nicest that she'd been too and I have to agree it was light and airy and I loved the pictures of famous vegans and vegetarians on the wall.

They were offering a day menu for £10.50, which included bread, starter, main, dessert and a drink. However on our first visit I was determined to try something from the main menu so I went for a seaweed and pineapple curry with soya cutlets.

I was a bit confused at first as the soya cutlets look a lot like aubergine, but on tasting they hadn't got my order wrong. It was nice, but I was starting to regret not ordering the day menu like everyone else.  Of course, when your in a vegan place, it's the law to have dessert even if you're full to bursting. I originally ordered the Loving Hut chocolate cake, but they had sold out, so I ended up with chocolate ice cream.

This was amazingly chocolaty and rich with chocolate sauce and peanut pieces and definitely didn't feel like I was missing out.

We visited the Loving Hut again on the last day, and this time I went with the day menu, although as it was a public holiday the day menu was slightly more expensive at 13.50 Euro. For starter I had a cabbage salad, which was nice, however it was still just a salad and I was hoping that they were still serving the spinach hummus they had as a starter on our first visit. However, I was pleased that one of the options for the main was the tofu and seitan curry that I was jealous of.

This was truly delicious and the texture of the seitan was spot on. For dessert I went for the chocolate mousse.

Unfortunately this contained banana, and as I'm not a fan of banana it spoilt it a little, however the other flavours were strong enough to mask most of the banana taste but I still got a hint of it now and again. I also tried a bit of the vanilla flan that was also one of the dessert options on the day menu and that was more like a custard and tasted of cinnamon, lemon and vanilla and was really good too.

Going on holiday with three omnivores and one veggie meant that this was it in terms of visiting specific veggie and vegan places and the rest of the holiday consisted of visiting and Italian (cheese-less pizza) and an Indian as well as two veggie friendly places which I'll write about next time,