The Green Roll at Chelsea Market, NYC: Sushi for Sushi Lovers

Dearly beloved, we’re gathered here to discuss East London’s relatively new fancy joint named Plates. I know, it’s getting hard to keep up with all the new vegan dishes, stalls, and restaurants in London, with something exciting seemingly popping up on our radar every day. I’m not that hungry guyzzz can we take it down a notch? My husband thinks I’m weird because I prefer cooking my own food or eating salads (and he thinks I’m extra weird because I’m okay with calling just a bowl of lettuce a ‘salad’ and he says that’s not okay that’s just lettuce anyone have an opinion on this nope okay moving on). But then on the other hand, well on my other hand right now I have a cut from where I knifed myself while making some of my aforementioned ‘own food’ which I guess is a point in the column for ‘going out more’ but ANYWAY, on the other figurative hand, I do want to try everything because as I recently explained to aforementioned husband about why I was forcing him to watch the worst movie ever written, “Sex & the City 2”, you can’t complain about things you haven’t seen. Applied to the topic at hand: you can’t recommend things you haven’t eaten. The former argument is more my speed because y’all know how much I loves complaining (LOVES IT) but the latter is nice to do too, and although I have some caveats about my recent dinner at Plates, I do recommend trying it for yourself.

You need some background info before just rocking up to this place, because well you can’t do that. To build off of the uncanny and undeniable feeling of exclusiveness that most of Shoreditch and the near surrounds gives off (not to mention the ‘you can’t sit with us’ vibe that seems to emanate from the invisible pores of most of its inhabitants), Plates is open to plebeians like us only on Saturday nights, only at three seating times, and of course only by reservation. From the sibling duo of Kirk and Keeley Haworth, Plates is one of the few places that is entirely vegan and doing fancy tasting menu dinner, the kind we see usually at Michelin starred places. That makes sense, because head chef Kirk (“God bless Kirk!”) and artistic director Keeley clearly learned something from their father, renowned Michelin-starred chef Nigel. Plates is also one of the many places nowadays that doesn’t use the word vegan, because it scares people, and instead calls themselves ‘plant-based’. I despise the phrase plant-based for many reasons, and while I do understand that it’s less intimidating to the ignorant masses, it also is unclear, weaselly, and ripe for corruption. In fact, I’ve seen corruption already. Companies have learned that ‘plant-based’ has the healthy allure of veganism without the aura of strictness that turns some idiots off and so I have seen goods and products with the ‘Plant-based!’ stamp on them that happen to have a plant ingredient but aren’t vegan. Like they’ll contain apples or spinach or oats or something but then also milk and egg or whatever, so they are technically based around a plant –> plant-based. I KNOW! God I hate people. Luckily Plates is entirely vegan so this rant is unfair to put in a review of their food but I just really want that phrase to stop being such a little bitch. Well most of all I want people to stop being afraid of the word ‘vegan’ but let’s try to keep our wishes realistic. 

Anyway so we heard about Plates and we were like we love fancy dinners (see e.g. the Vegan Michelin series) we gotta go! We booked our table via their website, which as you can see is the type where you book your table by paying for your dinner in advance. I know that sounds terrifying (what if you can’t go after all and you’ve already paid ahhh) but it is really awesome to finish eating and then just get to leave, especially in London where customer service is hilarious and you can wait for hours trying to get someone’s attention just to be able to GIVE THEM MONEY. Anyway, so I approve of the pay-in-advance system Plates is doing. We ironed out details with Keeley, who is very responsive over email which makes a nice change from well everyone else in the world, for their first offered seating – 8pm. I know, I had to eat dinner like a normal young-ish person living in a big city and not like I already moved to Boca.

Plates is located in a lovely little upstairs room on Kingsland Road right near the Hoxton overground station. The entrance is down a little alley off of Kingsland, actually, but luckily a waiter was at the entrance and saw us looking into a salon confusedly and saved us. There’s lots of steps up to the dining room, and I forgot to ask about accessibility but given how most of this city is, I doubt it. It’s a clean and simple space, as you can see in the picture above. Everyone eating there seems a whole lot cooler than you, as is usual in this area. One girl was literally wearing a long thin black robe like they give you when you get a haircut and I was like um hon but then it had a designer name emblazoned across the back and so I was like ‘oh I bet she’s an artist’ and I bet long thin black salon robes become the next big thing. 

Because of the whole pay-beforehand thing, you also pay for whatever drink pairing you want in advance. Husbo P had a wine pairing and I had a soft pairing. Although I am content to always be drinking water, I forking love it when restaurants offer a soft drink pairing for those of us who don’t  drink and/or think wine tastes off. They brought us tall glasses of yellow juice to start, I think mine was pineappley and Z’s was the same but with alcohol, and it was nice and refreshing. Most important, they brought this:

THAT’S RIGHT BITCHES I GOT A PITCHER OF WATER! My favorite thing. I don’t know why some restaurants think it’s fine to give a thimble of a water glass and then disappear for the entire meal but luckily Plates is doing things the smart way. And they were very good about replacing it, so huzzahs are in order.

Our first course was what I think is called their Plates Slammer – a sharp shrub-like beetroot shot with a tiny wedge of pineapple and basil salt. You’re supposed to eat the pineapple and then drink the vinegary juice…or maybe you’re supposed to drink the juice and then sweeten down with the fruit. We both heard different things so we ate this in different ways so one of us was wrong but we both liked it. It’ll definitely wake you up, which at 8pm I needed. 

This intro course also contained little potato bites – it was heritage potato (yes thank you my heritage is potato), pickled shallot, avocado, and nori. I definitely got potato and I definitely got pickled shallot, and while I definitely don’t get why these two items were paired together when they don’t really go together, they were all pretty good! As you’ll see, the plating was beautiful and even more, the plates themselves were gorgeous. When we mentioned this to each other Z was like ‘well yeah in a place called ‘Plates’ the plates better be good.’ True true.

Next was a mixed up little dare I say salad of young leeks, green grapes, and cress. I love the addition of tiny little sour grapes here to offer some bite. It was a lovely little light green pile, my favorite kind of food pile. 

Next came my other favorite food, bread. Actually, it was licorice bread, with a subtle hint of that flavor, just enough to make things interesting but not enough to be weird. It was really nice and it was still warm. The bread came with a carrot puree, which I love using instead of butter or oil because why not get another vegetable in there, and some crackery flatbread jawn that was fine but nothing special and I would have eaten more licorice bread instead if poss. 

As you can see, the drinks in my soft pairing were beautiful in color. This one was probably my favorite although I can’t tell you much about it other than it was pink. And it probably had beet? 

Next was their take on the soup course. We had a bowl full of peas, mint, and spring leaves, and the waiter came over with hot dashi (a seaweed) broth and poured it into the bowls. I love table-side theatrics! We both really love fresh peas so we were pretty pleased when we realized that there were more than just the few that floated up to the surface, there were a ton in the bottom of that bowl. Yay peas! It was a very tasty, very simple, kind of refreshing little soup to have before the heavier main. 

The main was a ‘pot roast cabbage’, braised and cooked into a meat-like hunk of…hunk of…burning love served with a crispy little layered potato and various purees. The white chunks on the side are I think turnip, which this country forking loves, or parsnips maybe, one of those nips. The green sauce was great and though you can’t see it under that awesome crispy purple latticework, the cabbage was really good. If I’m at a restaurant and they tell me my main was going to be a giant slab of cabbage I’d probably be concerned or angry but this was surprisingly delicious and satisfying. We were both impressed. The little potato jawn was the best part because was the exact size and shape of a Kit Kat, complete with the similar thin little layers. Lots of attention to detail there. The menu says there is ‘butterbean’ in this dish somewhere but I’m not sure where. In the sauce? 

And that brings us to the main problem I had with Plates – the lack of protein. Yes they are focused on presenting vegetables in tasty, beautiful ways, but without using beans or tofu or seitan or tempeh or even really nuts, it’s clear that something is missing. This meal looked, tasted, and felt in every way like many of the Michelin-starred meals we’ve eaten over years. In fact, things were extremely similar to our latest two (which I haven’t written about yet because I haven’t written those travel guides yet), Wickens in Tasmania and Il Gallo d’Oro in Madeira. All of these were fantastic meals so this is overall praise for Plates, but at those omnivorous restaurants going out of their way to accommodate vegans, you expect that they will present plants in incredible ways but won’t be able to do too much protein-wise. (I know, I’m extremely generous with people who are forking Michelin-starred.) But when it’s a restaurant specifically for all vegan food, it seems like an obvious gaping hole to overlook that. So part of me is surprised, because this is an entirely vegan restaurant that should know better, but most of me is really not surprised because this isn’t coming from traditional vegan chefs (or, to my knowledge, even vegan people). They set out with Plates to create plant-based creative cuisine, and they really did focus on that ‘plant’ part. Maybe that’s why they are avoiding the v word and just saying plants plants plants. And they do really nice things with vegetables, but when veganism has made the leaps and bounds it has in the past decade, with omnivore-fooling sausage and pourable vegan eggs just to name things from the past week, this kind of food feels dated. It’s delicious for the most part, but it isn’t exciting in this current age of veganism. It’s what similar calibre restaurants have been doing for years.

Fortunately, dessert eased some of my disappointment at this realization. The coconut cacoa trifle was my favorite part, and it was almost like they heard my complaints and whipped up a dessert that was better than that at most of the aforementioned fancy meals. It’s not much to look at in the first picture so I’m sharing an inside look. 

You know what I usually am given, right? If you’ve read this blog you know all about how vegans are usually given fruit sorbet, or fruit AND sorbet, at fancier restaurants. (It’s not cute.) So getting chocolate cake covered in coconut cream was a real treat! And, it was delicious. It was served on a bed of rhubarb goop and meadowsweet, which I learned in Aussie is an herb, and it was good but I would have been fine with just the cake and cream. They did a really great job here, and maybe I’m just over-excited because it was not sorbet and it was chocolate, but still, ace. 

Dinner at Plates was lovely, and at only 40 pounddollars it’s a pretty good deal for such fanciness. The protein issue is a real issue for me, it being a vegan meal. But if you treat it like other similar non-vegan fancy places, it doesn’t disappoint. 

Plates, London, England, United Kingdom, Europe for right now
Water speed: They gave me a pitcher, and refilled it promptly every time I emptied it. I am happy. 
Service: Nice overall. They didn’t talk too much about the food or drinks which is fine, but sometimes seemed too little.
Bathrooms: There is one stall for men and one for women with a shared sink and it’s the tiniest sink I’ve ever seen but they were clean and nice so okay. And they had paper towels which is a nice change. I know it’s bad for the environment but sometimes I don’t want to stand for a minute at a hot air machine okay. 
Food: Very nice, creative use of vegetables, and not enough use of protein. The menu apparently changes often so perhaps if you go it will be better.
Bonus: It’s really cool to have a place like this, fancy but kind of casual at the same time, with nice food for not too much money. That they only serve people once per week makes it seem very exclusive and important to catch. 

Two weeks ago [this originally read ‘Yesterday’ but damn this took a long time to write and also I’m so tired after work how do people do things], London held its annual Just V Show at the Olympia venue in Kensington. You might think the V stood for ‘vegan’ or ‘vegetarian’, especially given some of the pre-show press materials published online from reputable sources (cough *reputable* cough like Fletcher Reed saying ‘honorable’). According to some sources, Just V Show aimed to provide a special event for those who abstain from meat or want to reduce their meat consumption. According to others, Just V was to be a gluten-free show with more awareness than most about other allergens as well. Alas, there were plenty (too plenty) of stalls that were solely actual-meat-based (boo) and plenty of stalls that were definitely not gluten-free, so I think the V stood for…um…verdigris, if nothing else. Maybe Van Gogh. Let’s move on before this all blows up like that Vesuvius, hoo boy. 

Overall, there didn’t seem to be any real thread linking the exhibitors and vendors together. There were the standard vegan VegFest stalls, like Ms. Cupcake, Violife, Follow Your Heart, and endless cereals, bars, and gluten-free products because that’s the same as vegan. Here, there were a great deal more gluten-free exhibitors, including the big grocery chains like Tesco and Sainsbury’s plus well-known bakeries showing off their gf products, corroborating that this was indeed meant to be a gluten-free event and the whole allergen-free show idear. But then there were stalls that were ALL gluten or ALL egg-based things or ALL milkified shiz and like, there was no common thread! Then of course there were the endless quackified health and beauty stalls promising green glowing organs/detoxed water cells/improved oxygen in your toes and what not. Omg there was one selling a gadget to reduce the toxicity absorbed from your cell phone. So really it was a hodgepodge.

However, this hodgepodge was incredibly enjoyable, confusing as it was. Even though the Vegan Society was there (having helped ensure that the event as a whole would be very vegan-friendly), it was not a VegFest, and so the usual suspects of raucous pushers, overeager crowders, and animalistic sample-raiders were missing in their usual overbearing numbers. Halleloos! It made for a much more manageable event, calmer and less intimidating yet just as fun for the rational-minded not-as-pushy cruelty-freers as any VegFest in London has been. 

I’ll review my day in sections, starting with the extremes to get those scary things out of the way first. 

My second favorite was the greatest gluten-free cookie maker since, well, me. Heaven and Hellthy Free-from and vegan cookie company had the most delicious samples of their cookies, which were some of my favorite chocolate chip cookies ever! I really wanted to buy them, but they don’t sell prepared cookies – they sell do-it-yourself kits for baking them at home! They are not only gluten-free but all-allergen-free, made from interesting flours and lovely-sounding ingredients like cocoa. These boxes would be perfect as gifts for gluten-free friends, for those who aren’t great at baking from scratch, for housewarmings (hint hint), and for anyone who likes cookies. I’m not exaggerating, these were SO GOOD. Some of the best gf cookies I’ve ever had, and by far the best cookie sample I’ve had at a VegFest. The boxes retail for $12.95 (remember that is in pounds! which is now pretty much the same as dollars!) so it’s definitely more of a gift idea than a regular kitchen staple. Unless you roll like that, of course, and then by all keeps keep on rolling like that. The rep we spoke to was incredibly informative and kind and helpful, and I hope this company does well. We talked to him for a really long time not because he was pushy or anything (he was wonderful!) but because the longer you talk, the more acceptable it is to keep eating samples until you burst omg they were amazing. 

My Two BTs 
So those were my bests, how about my bads? Sadly, they both came from companies I like, but their representatives were so off-putting that they stuck out as the worst parts of the day! I mean, really, this shows how great the day was, because these aren’t like, oh I lost a toe levels of bad, but just really annoying experiences. The runnerup winner/loser is a lady from Ruby Bakery. My fest companion bought a thing, and then we asked if we could take pictures, and did. Brash lady came up close and was like yelling, “You’ll put them on instagram right??” and we were like, uhh, maybe. And she said, equally loudly, “What do you take them for if not for instagram!!!” and we were just like…um…first of all please take a step back, second of all, people took pictures for all kinds of reasons before instagram was invented…right?? Right? Am I misremembering what life was like before phone apps? Cameras existed before last year, right? Anyway here is some proof that pictures aren’t only for instagram.

First-place winner/loser champion was from a company I like even more, Plamil. One of their reps was tolerable at first, talking to us about some new products, but then it got out of control. He started going off about the history of veganism in the UK and how this company began many years ago, all without even noticing that we were trying to walk away. I was even waiting with chocolate in my hand ready to buy! But instead of letting me give them money, he then started railing about how the Vegan Society got soft and lets companies use their symbol that don’t deserve their recognition, and about how NO OTHER PRODUCTS EXCEPT FOR PLAMIL’S can really EVER be considered vegan because of trace contaminants and we were just standing there for WAY TOO LONG like, Hey Mr. Mansplainer trying to tell two intelligent long-time vegans in their 30s about the RIGHT WAY TO BE VEGAN, can we please step away from you and your overbearing demeanor now please? It was seriously like ten minutes of our time wasted, plus a lot of our mental energy expelled trying to stay polite. I waste too much energy trying to be polite when other people aren’t.

Whew, that’s enough of all that extremism! Everything in moderation, right, that’s what boring people say. Let’s move on to the basics that are usually at these fests and are usually things I need and want and pretty much know already.

The big, basic (and no don’t mean basic like how the kids are using it these days (me too) like with disdain about how someone isn’t cool enough, I mean like the regular definition of a word in our lexicon) point of a VegFest, for me anyway (and for others given how many stalls are devoted to it), is bar stocking. Not that kind of bar stocking. I mean protein bars, energy bars, granola bars. I had a gay ol’ time stocking up on my work snack bars, my travel bars, my leg day extra protein needed bars, &c. Bars bars bars. Trek, Nakd, and Nature’s Path – the standards – were there, thank goodness. The Nature’s Path rep was the nicest lady and gave us a free granola bar each! Trek and Nakd always have incredible deals at these Fests, and for people like me who buy them retail all the time it’s like Chrimble. And their sample setup is brilliant: the boxes of each flavor are set out on big tables with big bowls of that flavor crumbled up in front of it, so if you like that flavor, you grab the bar behind it to buy.  It’s really simple and quite astounding that others haven’t figured out how to run this as well. 

Another usual suspect for Veg Fests is some kind of bean-based pasta. I’ve tried several and liked them, mostly because it’s like eating beans that look like pasta. Well that’s exactly what they are. However, I’ve had trouble in the past finding good ways to serve them, as they definitely do not make as inconspicuous a switch for regular pasta as, say, whole-wheat pasta does. You can taste the mung bean, is what I’m saying. However, the new-to-me bean et al. pastas from Really Healthy Pasta company are an improvement on what’s out there now. They are much more pasta-like and less manipulated bean toys. I bought three of the five flavors/kinds/scents they make: the golden flax and buckwheat penne, the mung bean fusilli, and the red lentil fusilli. I really liked the golden flax and buckwheat, the one I’ve tried so far in my own kitchen. It really does taste like flax and buckwheat but in a nice, hearty way, not a this is gross what am I eating way. I would love to try their other two kinds – I think they are a black bean and a chickpea base – but they weren’t selling them at the faire. Again, Mr. Company, I’d be happy to have you send me some, please and thank you.

Another fun thing to expect at these things is CEREALLLLL! In all its forms! Dry and milked! That’s all its forms! Especially since we went sooo early in the morning, it was fun to have ‘breakfast’ first  by hitting all the cereal samples and seeing what’s new in granola. What is new in granola, you ask? Pretty packaging! (Primrose’s Kitchen) What’s new in wheat-bar-style cereal? Serving it with fruits and chocolate bits and syrups! (Nutribix, great sample table) What’s new in kid’s cereal? Giving me a cup of it! (Thanks Nature’s Path!)

You can also bet on always finding a good vegan pudding or two. And no, I don’t just mean ‘dessert’ like they do here when they say pudding (yes, seriously, like the dessert menu might just say ‘pudding’ at the top even though there isn’t a literal ‘pudding’ on it it’s very confusing but kind of cute and childlike). Two great options stalled it up at Just V: Pudology and Coconut Collaborative. Both gave excellent samples too! I buy Pudology in regular life but will now alternate with the CC because oh man their pudding is gooooood! As for other standard puddings in the British sense of the word, Raw Millionaire Bites are always around, and always seem to be on sale at Whole Foods too! I really like them. 

       Now listen, I’m not trying to be a b word. In fact, my totally woke af friends have taught me that I should stop using the b word because it makes me seem not as woke. Side note, these are the first two and the last two times I will ever use the word woke in this newfangled manner. Shit I just blew it. Anyway, let’s talk about the vendors who are always there but they never learn from their mistakes and/or never impress me much and I imagine if I’m not impressed that much that Shania isn’t either and no one wants to leave Shania unimpressed. So the big chain supermarkets like Tesco and Sainsbury’s had huge displays of their free from products out (p.s. that’s what allergen-free stuff is called here, ‘free from’, but mostly what that means in practice across this whole land is that it’s gluten-free because all any businesses care about anymore is gluten-free stuff because that’s where all their money is coming from because people like to jump on bandwagons I blame Goop) but not too much was vegan, unforch. Tesco did have some decent yogurts out but like, these are the companies with more money available to burn that probably all the other vendors combined are worth times eleventy billion so like, do a better job. Companies worth less than what the big guys like roll around in bed in should not outdo them at festivals. 

        Aside from companies falling short of what they could afford to do, the other eye rolly thing is when companies have bad setups, or no deals, or no samples, or (gasp) a combination of these. Obviously they don’t have to do any of that, but if you’re not trying to sell your product, what are you doing there? If you it’s a product that is already available in every store, why would I buy it and then have to lug it around all day (and unrefrigerated, if that is applicable) if I can get it for the same price tomorrow? That’s a good question Randi oh well thank you. I love love Violife cheese products, and I obviously bought some because I’m not a crazy person, but they didn’t really have any discernible sale going on. And I love this raw chocolate (cacao) product from Pana Raw Chocolate, but they were selling it at the event for I think 10p less than what it sells for in all the natural shoppes. So like, yeah ok but NEXT! Same same for Fry’s Vegetarian products, who are always at all of these fests. It’s a pretty big company, yet their display is always so sad I feel like it should be in the John Lewis Christmas ad(vert). They have like their boxes out on display and like, that’s it. They don’t do samples, which I’ve been told is because it was a madhouse when they did do it, once upon a time. So I can understand not wanting to create a Hamilton stage door sitch. But then again, if all these equally popular if not more popular companies can manage to do it wisely, I’m pretty sure you’re just not trying. 

      So at this point in the day, I was pretty full of the most random assortment of chocolate, cereal, yogurt, bars, pasta, Linda McCartney beef burgers (too real!), and so much other stuff. You know what I wasn’t full of? LIQUID. This place had no water dispensers or fountains or any kind of system for obtaining water that was free. PRETTY SURE THAT’S ILLEGAL, OLYMPIA. You can bet your bottom dollar I’m going to be contacting them and they’re going to do well nothing about it but FORK THEM. Anyway, because of the venue’s unlawfulness and pretty much torture, I was extra thirsty (I was still drinking water, I’m not crazy, just not at my normal pace). And, I really like weird juices. The weirder, the better. So I was extra prone to being attracted to really weird juices in this thirstier state. And also I was like, I probs need some nutrition amid all this chocolate testing. Enter Big Juice.

    A great part of all this is that my fest companion, Jojo, is allergic to chili and all sorts of peppers so she was like, what the ACTUAL HELL is wrong with you? I don’t know, I thought they’d make my insides glow or some b.s. Maybe superpowers. Maybe make my scalp hurt less when I take ponytails out. I DON’T KNOW WHY. What I do know is that this was a painful experience. Really painful. Oh holy crap. The turmeric was pretty gross. Have you ever cooked with turmeric? I do, like every meal. You know how if you use too much it gives your food that weird chalky bitter something’s-wrong taste? This was a tiny cup of that. Next was the chili, and oh man, it was really really really really really really hot. I mean, yes, it was pure juiced cayenne pepper and that’s not something to be taken lightly but MAN ALIVE. The aloe vera was supposed to cool me down after that but it was not nearly enough and I was sobbing both inside and out and my legs started to go spaghetti-like so nice lady gave me some fresh apple juice. I normally poo-poo the addition of apple juice in my green juices because it’s filler and they use too much but oh man this was some damn good lifesaving apple juice.
    Here are some action shots, courtesy of Jojo, who I think is still shaking her head at me but who definitely helped keep me from falling when my legs gave out.

      Guess what, the winner of these two awards is the SAME COMPANY!  Pasta and sauce company Seeds of Change came out of this as a big winner in my book. Not only was their set up INSANELY beautiful, but they also had a delicious sample. It was like an entire side serving of really good spinach pasta (like green pasta, not spinach leaves in the dish) and really good tomato sauce and it was all just really good! Then, they had the NICEST staff members, one of whom invited Jojo and me to go salsa dancing, AND they had big pots at their fence that contained free seeds! Mostly only chili pepper seeds were left by the time we got there, but apparently they had basil and tomato seeds too! And you could take as many as you want! I took so many chili pepper seeds even though a) I was pretty awash with chili and b) our garden is a mess and everything’s dying and oh if anyone reading this wants to come over and help me figure out what to do, please let me know. I make muffins for guests. Anyway, so Seeds of Change is definitely a company I’d like to support. I bought one of their tote bags that for $5 came with a big bag of the spinach pasta and two jars of their great sauce. Pretty good deal! 

    Another entry that is actually from the same company – Follow Your Heart! Good job! The best and worst sale items were, respectively, the Vegan Egg: $3 and the Sriracha Mayo: Priceless. Why Priceless? Because it sold out before I could buy any! Wahhhh! So, fake worst. Should have stocked more! Just kidding. Good job selling all that goop. But oh man I was so excited about the Vegan Egg! I got it in London for like 8 or 9 pounds, which is an insane amount of money. So to get it for 3 pounds, which is now like 4 pennies post-Brexit? Amazing! Thanks Follow Your Heart! Even though one of your staffers was kind of a dick to me.

     By far, the most exciting aspect of fests like this is to find new (or new-to-me) products! There are always new things popping up, trying to corner this ever growing market, but the quality is all over the place. Luckily, I found a few newbies that I’m eager to find again in my offscreen life. We already mentioned some of my new favorites above in this post, like Loving Earth chocolate, BodyMe bars, Raw Millionaire Bites, and Coconut Collaborative puddings. But there’s more! One new treat that pleasantly surprised me was Frill, an ice cream company that was selling scoops (and giving tasters). They had one that was pretty much a green smoothie, just frozen. It was really impressive given its genetic makeup, but it was much tastier and treatier than my daily green sludge, I can tell you that. The sugary stuff (apple juice, dates, other fruits) come after water and the green veggies on the ingredients list, so that means it really is mostly vegetables. Crazy! It was really good for an ice cream that contained celery! Apparently, it is sold at Waitrose, so I’ll be heading to mine soon to see if it made it to the city. 

    Another company I loved was Naturelly, a jelly/baby food puree pouch like Ella’s but significantly less sweet (score!). I eat a lot of baby food so I’m really excited to have found this stuff (standard required linking when saying something like that) (it’s good to have those pouches on hand during hard long workouts instead of those weird chemical goos). Also, the rep was really nice and they had good samples. Apparently it’s sold in Boots, which is so super easy for everyone in the UK! I’m not sure how much it sells for outside of fest pricing but if it’s comparable to Ella’s, then I’ll be buying again. 

   MR BOB REDMILL HIMSELF WAS AT THE BOB’S RED MILL AREA!!!! Woooot! Biggest celebrity you could ask for at this kind of thing! He’s just a sweet old man! Look at him there! I took 19 photos! (I didn’t buy any of his products because they weren’t for sale? Or something weird? I forget what was going on but it was weird. Also expensive.) Anyway, I found this remarkable. Where’s he live? Did Just V Fest fly him out or was he here already? Did he see any shows? Why didn’t he ask me for advice on them! Does he always wear a hat like that? Why didn’t they provide a more comfy chair? So many questions. There was a long line of people waiting for autographs. I wonder if he has a real last name or if I’m right. I hope I’m right. 

SECTION H: BEST HAUL FROM A VEGFEST
​GET IT H IS FOR HAUL I DIDN’T EVEN PLAN THAT!

God we finally made it! Did you really read the whole thing? I didn’t even read the whole thing. So here is my final haul! It’s a pretty good one! Some of it was free from the gift bag (that everyone got!), some came free from vendors, and a lot I bought at really good sale prices. And lots of coupons for future fun times! My favorite thing from the free bag has to be that Chocolate Shot syrup, in the spicy orange flavor. You add it to milk (hot or cold works!) and it’s instant hot chocolate or chocolate milk and it’s RG. I guess you can really use it in a lot more ways than that.  My favorite purchases I think are the Really Healthy Pastas and of course the Loving Earth chocolate. And the BodyMe bars! I’m almost out, send me some Company! Okay that’s all. When’s the next VegFest?