We got here about a week ago, and so far it has been absolutely amazing. The town we're staying in is so beautiful and has so much to do! I really feel lucky to be able to experience all of this.
Coming to London though I was a little bit nervous about where I would find good things to eat. I knew I could rely on salads, but I knew that would drive me crazy to only eat salads for 5 weeks!
however, that is not the case at all!!
Honestly, I feel as though London is much more vegetarian and vegan friendly than Philadelphia! Or anywhere in the states for that matter.. it's crazy!
Every restaurant has a "V" for vegetarian next to food items (not vegan though..so make sure you point that out..) and on all the food products they have little symbols as well..
yes, even the ketchup..in case you didnt know it was vegetarian, haha. :)
Also..another thing that is awesome about london in general for vegans, is that ALL the coffee places have soy milk!! I hate that being home my only option is usually Starbucks to get a coffee with soy milk.. or smaller coffee places, but as far as chains go, its usually just Starbucks. Not quite the same here..every place we've gone so far has offered it! :)
that would be a most delicious soy latte from this really awesome coffee shop right down the street from our apartment!!
The first place we found that was all vegan was a place called Veg. It's a all-vegan chinese buffet!! It reminded me a TON of New Harmony in Philadelphia, which I'm in love with and has the most amazing food! We were soo excited to see this place here in london..plus its SO very cheap. and we've passed a lot of them as we're walking around, so it must be a all vegan chinese buffet chain??? CRAZY! :)
The front of it..they all look the same and are really easy to spot! :)
The inside..was SOO cute and beautifully decorated. I will say, that is what impressed me about it over New Harmony..not that new harmony doesn't look good, just the decorations here were much more intense.
and of course, the food!! They had a lot to choose from on the buffet, and i'm not sure if it changes up any time or if different locations had different things. but the food we had was awesome, so i wouldn't mind if it stayed the same. they had plenty of tofu and seitan dishes, vegetable dishes, sesame toast, a fruit salad that looked amazing but i avoided (fruit in other places never is a good idea for me!! weird, i know..)
but yes, this place is awesome, and for only 3.50 pounds for take-away, i think it was 4.50 pounds to eat there for lunch, it was quite the deal!! :)
While we were in Central London seeing Big Ben and The Eye and all that fun stuff, we looked up a vegan restaurant to stop in for lunch while we were down there..
I found a place called Vita Organic, and it was absolutely amazing as well!!
The entrance for it, although the directions did make it a little hard to find! Luckily someone we stopped and asked for directions were already on there way down the street and had told us how good the food is! :)
all vegan and some raw!! :)
The buffet of food. You got to choose how many "scoops" you wanted and which ones you wanted..only a pound a scoop! another awesome deal!
My plate.. I chose 3 things, a chickpea curry, the green vegetable dish, and the other spicier vegetable dish. They were all really really good and tasted good all mixed in with each other too!
They had a huge juice bar as well, and some vegan cakes and desserts..although they were a bit pricy. Everything there looked amazing though. We'll definitely have to go back again before we leave!!
So far in London I've encountered no problems what so ever finding something delicious and vegan! So i'm very excited about that and I can't wait to try out more vegan restaurants here!!
We're off to Valencia, Spain this Saturday though, so we'll see what the vegan food is like over there!! :)
