{"id":11718,"date":"2021-08-11T17:46:48","date_gmt":"2021-08-11T17:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/laughfrodisiac.com\/?p=11718"},"modified":"2021-11-09T21:46:33","modified_gmt":"2021-11-09T21:46:33","slug":"dinner-at-the-new-fully-vegan-alter-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/laughfrodisiac.com\/2021\/08\/11\/dinner-at-the-new-fully-vegan-alter-london\/","title":{"rendered":"Dinner at the new fully vegan Alter London"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
This week, we had dinner – out – in a restaurant – for the first time since, well, you know. All this shiz. It was our wedding anniversary, so a fairly decent reason to risk our lives for a great meal, I guess. Last week or so I wrote about our return to the theatre<\/a>,<\/em> and how thank god it was a great show because if we’d risked our health and well-being for a piece of shit we’d be really mad. Well, same for this wonderful dinner. Alter, the latest hottest all-vegan restaurant in London’s ever-increasing vegan scene, delivered the goods, and I cannot wait to go back and try the rest of the menu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alter is the brainchild of chef Andy Hogben, who has cooked at several trendy place and has done a number of popular pop-ups in recent years and finally has a restaurant just a few blocks from my flat (the most important detail). Fun fact, a few years ago, he did a special dinner at The Frog Hoxton that we had tickets to, and then I got sick (pre-Covid), so husbo went with a friend and sent me pictures and it was torture. I was all (Sherie Rene Scott impression coming) “thissss shoulda been myyy tiiiime” but finally MY TIME HAS COME.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alter’s whole concept reflects Andy’s sort of veganism (which is I think fairly recent? I could be wrong, it’s happened before, also what is time) – less focused on meat substitutes and the kind of “fun” food we find in abundance as a result of London’s obsession with vegan junk food bars. The menu focuses instead on fascinating flavor combinations from various cultures, especially those that are Not British. It’s very Thai-Malaysian-Chinese-other South Asian fusiony made hipster but in a great way. As my tastes go more towards vegetables than burgers, this is my kind of place for sure. Also, husbo and I debate a lot over the very stupid topic of ‘if you had only one cuisine to eat for the rest of your life what would it be’ and we usually narrow it down to Chinese and a few South Asian contenders, so this combo of all the bests really speaks to us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Okay enough rambling. You know how much we love overordering, and if there were maybe 2 fewer items on the menu we prob would have just been like ‘BRING US ONE OF EVERYTHING’ which was my family’s favorite pastime at V Street in Philly<\/a> (RIP). (Good thing we didn’t; we still brought leftovers home.) Instead, we finally decided on 3 from Column A (the small bites), 3 from Column B (the starter sizes), and 1 from Column C (the mains). Most of the dishes are shareable, or everything is if you’re with someone you don’t have to stand on ceremony with. I think we ordered a good amount, but there are a few changes I’d make for next time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n COLUMN A<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Our superb waitress (thankfully wearing a mask, although the too loud music made it hard to hear her despite how hard she was trying to yell; please lower the music so your staff doesn’t go hoarse! (also we couldn’t really hear each other either and we are NOT OLD I SWEAR)) recommended the Kung Pao crackers<\/strong>, so we got those as well as the rice-fermented mustard green miang laos<\/strong> and the salted watermelon and coconut miang khams<\/strong>. Now I don’t know what miang means and it seems important, so I’m going to look it up: Oh just as I predicted it means FORKING DELICIOUS LITTLE PIECE OF HEAVEN. <\/p>\n\n\n\n