Club Mexicana: I Guess There Is Good Mexican Food in London!by Randi / March 11, 2015
This past weekend was the Brighton edition of VegFest UK, and while the food and vendors were nearly identical to the London VegFest, it wasn’t nearly as fun! So sad! Was it because of the crowds? The lack of free samples? The liiiines? The difficult-to-navigate venue? The absence of Vegan in Brighton? Let’s talk about it while I share random pictures! Shall we do it with our preferred method of ranking?
THE GOOD
First of all, I need to give a huge thank you to Stephen at Friends Gazette for having a VegFest ticket giveaway and to the powers that be for ensuring that I won! If you don’t get the Gazette, you should sign up for its free articles about moral veganism and other good things. I’m pretty sure free tickets were the only thing bringing me down to Brighton on a Saturday, when the trains are notoriously 40 minutes slower than usual and it was freezing rain and the venue was on the water so the rain was like sideways and the wind was so strong and man alive it was just really cold and gross out there. But I was excited to see what magic awaited me inside.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much magic. My favorite part was my early food buying — the early part is key (more on that below). How thrilled was I, coming in from the awful weather, to be immediately greeted upstairs by a fresh juice bar! Damage Limitation (what a name, amiright? Luckily I peaced out before any talk of what the pureed produce would do for my toxins or whatever) had set up a large area for juices and smoothies and it was wonderful. For only $3.50 (listen, I don’t have the pound sign on my computer and I don’t feel like copying and pasting one from the internet or dealing with like writing my own code or some bullshit that people go to years of schooling to learn how to do so just assume I am saying pound, ya dig?), you could choose from two juices or two smoothies. The menu is limited, yes (just like the Damage!), but it made for a much faster-moving line because they could make so many orders at once. I got a ‘The Alkaliser’ smoothie, which included cucumber, zucchini, pear, spinach, ginger, and lemon. It was a splendid combination although I would have liked it to have been blended with ice, and blended a little more successfully (I don’t think they were using Vitamixen).
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Next to the juicy peeps was my favorite food maker of the event, Cashew Catering. Considering that their showing at the Moshimo sushi night event was actually one of the few edible things that night, it’s no surprise that I loved their selection of canapes at VegFest. For $6, you could pick 5 different little handheld yummy bits, including a butternut & pea samosa (wrapped in flaky phyllo, so good), red onion bhaji, cashew cheese stuffed peppers, seitan on a stick, pesto-stuffed mushrooms, black bean empanadas, and edamame and mushroom gyoza. Everything I had was really delicious! I especially liked the gyoza, though I wish everything had been warmer (although I understand how much more difficult that would have been for such a large display).
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Oh Cashew Catering, you saved the dayyyy with your short lines and quick service and good food! |
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But I wasn’t done! No sir I was just getting started. I began the day so ravenous because of how long it took to get there and so I was a bottomless pit that couldn’t be filled. But we had to try. Next up, I beheld the most beautiful sight mine eyes have seen in like days:
STEAMED BUNS! Some rando Chinese stall had STEAMS BUNS! They were GOOD too, filled with meaty somethings! I did the dumbest thing ever when I saw them early in the day and I bought and immediately devoured one. I bought ONE. I went back just one or two hours later and the people in front of me got the last ones. It was probably the dumbest thing I’ve done, not buying more when I had the chance. If I had a time machine, I would go back in time and buy all of them. Or, no, if I had to time machine I would use it as payment to give to someone who can make vegan steamed buns and I’d hire them for life as my personal bun maker because I’m sure most people would be willing to swap devoted services for such a find. I mean but then they couldn’t be allowed to use the time machine because what if I wanted a steamed bun one afternoon and I was like ‘hey amigo where are you I want a steamed bun?’ and like I found a post-it on the fridge saying ‘hey I went to 1768 be back later!’ and like what do I do then.
More things that we ate! I had Loving Hut’s soy meat skewers (a whole stick for $1! Can’t beat that even if its sauce will convert you into a follower of Supreme Master or whatever their shtick is), which were really yummy and made me want to go to the/a London Loving Hut even though that seems weird because I’m not traveling and I have other options…but I do like the LH sooo I guess I should. And then my friend and I shared a ‘palito’. I don’t know what this is, but it was something fried-looking on a skewer and it was $2.50 and seemed worth trying. It was pretty good, could have used a dipping sauce, but it was all worth it because while we waited to order, we asked the guy in front of us (who had just been given his palito plate) what exactly it was that we were all buying, and his eyes got really big and he laughed and stage whispered “I HAVE NO IDEA!!!!!” It was pretty hilarious. It was like fry dough filled with meat and veggies?
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As for the main room stall vendors, my favorites were repeats from London VegFest, including moo free chocolate, with their decent sale prices and giant and generous samples; Landgarten, one of the actually new-to-me vendors there, with delicious chocolate-covered small things; Cocoa Feliz fancy chocolate makers just for their gorgeous beyond belief display; Great Food with their generous falafel and hummus samples (see it’s not just chocolate!); and whoever makes the $150 personal massager. Seriously, I want that massager so badly. It’s amazing. They used it on my shoulders and back again and I felt like I could actually stand up to my full heighth potential and not mimic Quasimodo like I usually seem to do because ow.
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Also, this is hilarious. It’s a ginormous bag of like hemp shavings for building a house or shed. I don’t know.
One more great thing!!! On our train back to London, this old man walked by us up the aisle to exit at an earlier stop, aaaand he farted the entire way. LOUDLY. Like one unbelievable continuous sound for about 10-15 feet. We were CRYING, yet no one else seemed to notice or mind! I guess that it’s common for Brits to pretend not to notice such things but we aren’t British so we lost our minds. The luckiest thing was that this was the one time I wasn’t on the aisle so he pretty much farted in my friend’s face. And lots of other faces. Oh man old people just don’t care. I love it.
THE BAD
Most of my ‘bad’ choices aren’t so much commentary on the vendors or companies but on the context of the situation and just lemony snickety events. First up is Titbits Catering. (I mean, first of all, your name is funny. I get that here it’s not very funny, but it’s funny to me because Murka.) The problem? Their stuff looked great, but by the time I was hungry again, they were sold out! NB, it was like 3pm. That’s pretty early for an event going until 7pm, sooo next time know to stock more? At this time, it seemed like most vendors were running out, actually! And if they still had food, the lines were prohibitively long.
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Next: Ananda, oh how I adore your Waggon Wheels, and I thank you for all of your amazing marshmallowy products. But where was your giant Waggon Wheel giveaway this time around?! Why couldn’t I enter to win a 4 foot diameter marshmallow cookie sandwich or however big that miracle was at London Fest? Was it, heaven forbid, actually there and the awful crowds just kept me from seeing it? What a shanda that would have been. But not surprising, because the crowds really were insane and kept us from getting close to or even seeing lots of vendors. We had a very important message for Ms. Cupcake, but it took us a good 40 minutes to find her, even though we were in the correct room. What a mess.
Also, sorry, but if one were to spend $10 on round ups, I would expect a better free gift than a stupid mug. Like another round up.
Another possibly new vendor was cho!, a bottled gazpacho purveyor. This product was not my favorite, as cold garlicky soup can’t really improve upon bottling. I wish them the best though. My issue was that I walked up to the stall once when it was actually empty, no crowd crowding me, which was a minor miracle on this day, and the vendor didn’t even notice me. She wasn’t unpacking boxes or busily settling things up or anything. She just kind of looked through me. For a moment I thought I had become actually invisible and was like whoaaa what should I really do with this superpower besides wait for vomity garlic juice, but then my friend said hey what’s up so I stopped wondering. So I don’t know what was going on here but like that’s enough of that miss.
I do like that they use the Spanish style punctuation and that there is a butt in the picture.
THE UGLY
So what was the worst part about Brighton VegFest? It wasn’t that the Big Fat Vegan Bakery sold out so early or that the Beezlebub Doner Kebab stall had up to an hour wait the entire day. It wasn’t even that Teese and Sheese and Frys and other famous food companies were nowhere to be found. No, it was the attendees. I’m sure we’re all lovely people, us UK vegans, but en masse we are f-ed the f up. I witnessed some of the most atrocious behavior I’ve seen in social situations in a long time. Perhaps now that I have experience on the other side of the stall I am more attuned to how rude customers in crowded settings can be, but I was shocked at what I witnessed. People literally shoving others aside so they could attack free samples, others just ignoring the fact that people were in their way and charging through, one man — no joke, we watched this one happen for 5 minutes — eating an entire table’s cheese display while 15 people waited behind him to actually buy the product (he did not). It was rough, guys. All crowds are terrible, it’s true. I just keep having hope that yayvegans! will be better at fighting the mob mentality that turns people into monsters (not animals, we love animals. animals are better than people) but sadly it’s not true. We’re just human I guesssss. But given my time so far behind the stall, here are some tips I have for you for the next vegfest or fest or crowded event you go to:
1) Say hi to the vendor. Acknowledge that they exist.
2) If you eat free samples, thank the vendor. Or at least acknowledge that they exist (see #1). (Seriously, I saw maybe 2 out of 200 people make eye contact with the person giving them the free food. Others just pretend they don’t exist.)
3) Look around you to see if there’s anyone who might be waiting to get to where you want to go. If there is, don’t just cut in front of them.
4) In general, just don’t be a dick. Don’t push. Or shove. This is not Times Square. Unless you’re in Times Square, and then all bets are off because you gotta get to that show before curtain. (Remember to turn off your phone.)
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Dinner at Plates: East London’s Plant-Based Craze Gets Fancier
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.
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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.
