
Vegan Southern Feast: Sausage Okra Gumbo, Bacon Cornbread, Maple Bourbon Sweet Potatoes, Perfect Brussels Sprouts
Related Posts

Brighton, UK: The Great Moshimo Vegan Challenge More Challenged Than Great
It’s a contest, and the diners vote for the winner. Jojo at vegan.in.brighton invited me to join her this year, and considering how envious I have been in past years, I was all for it. Sadly, my suspicion that I bring bad luck around with me like a personal storm cloud was reinforced, because most of this stuff was hella gross.
Everything I have eaten that was actually made by Moshimo chefs has been wonderful. It’s this whole letting-other-chefs-use-your-kitchen-and-feed-utter-nonsense-to-unsuspecting-patrons thing that gets tricky. At this event, eight chefs from different Brighton restaurants and catering companies came in and shared a vegan dish that incorporated the vegan sushi theme and their individual restaurant’s style. It’s a chance for great local chefs to be really creative and exciting and impressive. Usually, they are. This year, due to my storm cloud (but mostly due to lack of effort, taste buds, and common sense), the dishes ranged from boring to inedible to almost good, the worst kind. Well no, ‘inedible’ is I guess worse than food that with a little more effort could have been solid, but the latter makes me angrier. Let’s see what went down!
First, let’s look at all the wonderful food that Moshimo sent out between contest dishes to keep us happy. Seriously, these dishes were the best part of the night. Moshimo is a conveyor-belt-style sushi place, so it was really fun to pick the best looking plate coming down the belt. And it was really smart to keep diners happy and full with actually decent food.
“My chicken brings all the boys to the yard, so I don’t really have to put in any effort”
The dish from catering company 64 Degrees was at least properly named. It was called Gotcha, which is mean but it’s honest. And yeah, everything about this felt like trickery. It wasn’t bad at all, as a snack, but it was odd as a meal. Who thought of this? I wish I could have been in the room when the following conversation undoubtedly took place:
“We should take those small square Japanese rice crackers that everyone knows well from bulk bins and are generically named “Asian Snack” and soak them in a sweet sauce until they get chewy. BUT NOT SOFT.”
— “Um, Pete, that’s really weird. We’re trying to impress people with how good vegan sushi can be.”
“F%*# vegans! All good sushi has fish in it. So let’s just take something that’s already vegan – rice cracker thingies, they don’t have a name – and serve it like it’s dinner.”
— “But that will be really…weird. It might be a decent snack, but that’s not a good meal. We’re trying to win a contest here by presenting dinner food.”
“If we win, then vegans win.”
— “What?”
“Do you want vegans to win?”
–“I…what?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
And that’s the story behind how we were served bowls of those crunchy rice crackery things soaked in a sweet miso glaze until they became unbelievably chewy and caramelized, and how we all lost teeth and gained future cavities.
Man alive, can you believe this showing? Do I dare attend next year? It can only improve, right? Even though a lot of the dishes were gross, I’m really glad I went this year. I now know so many businesses to avoid! But seriously it was a lot of fun, and it’s always good to get Moshimo sushi! Even if I had to eat a lot of other crap as well.

Zagreb Vegan Scene: Vegehop Restaurant
New in a city where I couldn’t use my phone’s Google maps to get around, I was extremely anxious (as is my wont) to find this restaurant on my own. Luckily, Vegehop is pretty centrally located, and even more luckily, it is well signed from the main street (the restaurant is in a sort of alley). With a sigh of relief, I entered the quiet, nicely decorated little room and took my seat among maybe 8 other diners.
The extensive menu offers cooked and raw dishes, vegetarian and vegan, as well as a daily prix fixe menu. I was tempted by the set menu, but I decided to refresh my travel-logged body with raw food. While I love cooking at home, and I love trying most anything when dining out, I’m always so tempted by raw food in restaurants. Probably because I can’t prepare it like they can!
Vegehop’s Raw Zucchini Cannelloni
It was worth the wait. Thin slices of zucchini wrapped around a gooey, salty cashew cheese and were covered with olive oil and a sort of pesto. I’ve made lots of cashew cheese in my life but this one tasted like nothing I’ve concocted. It wasn’t grainy at all, but was almost gummy (in a good way). I don’t know how it was made, but I loved it.
The only disappointing thing was that, since I was there near closing, all the good vegan desserts were gone. A huge reason I chose this restaurant was because a friend told me about the ‘Danube Waves’ cake. Of course, a woman seated a few tables away got the last piece right before I asked the waiter about it! Of course! Next time, I know to immediately ask if they have any and secure my piece before any hussies can take it away from me.
Vegehop, Vlaska Ulica 79, Zagreb
- Water speed: Not great. I learned here that my dining in the Balkans would lead to a lot of drinking from my water bottle. It’s just a different culture here. Not as thirsty.
- Bathrooms: One or two shared stalls, not bad.
- Service: Good. Appreciated the warning about the wait.
- Food: Overall, very good and recommended.
- Extras: The sign for the restaurant out on the main road is extremely helpful. I just wish they froze some of the Danube Waves just in case they run out and someone came from America JUST for that. (K that’s not true but still.)