Weekend Carnivore

If you have been paying attention at all to my food blog posts then you have figured out that I love hummus.  I honestly would sooner give up chocolate than hummus. It may sound a tiny bit crazy but it is also true!

A few years back, I was walking through Soho in London and noticed a new restaurant called Hummus Bros.  Loving hummus, I was immediately interested in going and trying this place out but I just didn’t have anybody that I thought would be willing to go with me.  Years past and I still hadn’t tried it.

hummus bros

Then, a few weeks ago my friend Kelly – another hummus lover – had some time to spare in central London. We decided that now was the time to lose our Hummus Bros virginity.  Boy, we were not disappointed!  It may just be the case that this is the perfect ‘fast food’ restaurant for me.

Firstly, any restaurant chain that uses a pun as their tag line is off to a good start with me.  Really, Hummus Bros, you had me at ‘give chickpeas a chance’. Still the truth is always in the tasting and as much as I love hummus (did I mention that?), there are few things as disappointing as being served a bad hummus. Perhaps this is the case simply because of the high expectations you carry with you from whatever your most recent mind blowing hummus had been.  You are chasing that hummus high and anything that undermines that hits hard.

Good thing then that the hummus on offer from Hummus Bros is so amazingly good! Firstly, it isn’t just about the hummus that you can get there but what you get on top of your hummus. The hummus is a base and then you can order any number of combinations piled on top. Then, you are given a wonderfully warm brown pita to scoop it all up.

The toppings range from the very vegetarian offerings such as chickpeas or fava beans to the decidedly carnivore such as slow cooked stewed beef.  Kelly and I ordered a few small dishes between us to try. The servings were generous and without a doubt if I was going on my own it would be enough to order one small hummus. However, this was more like the hummus sisters throwing a party. So,we went nuts and tried a number of them. Each one was super good.

If there is one food item that rivals my love for hummus it would be mushrooms. So, when I saw the mushroom topped hummus I knew that had to be one I tried. It was vegetarian delight of stewed mushrooms and caramelized onions nestled on top of their creamy hummus. They give you the option of adding sun dried tomatoes to that mixture and I didn’t have to think twice about saying yes. It was truly an amazing combination.

Hummus Bros Mushroom Hummus

What I found particularly interesting about the hummus sold at Hummus Bros was that the tahini was served in a dollop on top of the hummus.  Which meant you could swirl it in yourself in the amount you desired. I love tahini so it was all in with that sesame goodness!

Another plus for Hummus Bros is the attention they pay to making their food fit into your nutritional requirements. Not only does their website have a full break down of the calorie and fat content of each of their dishes but they also have reduced fat hummus available. If you have gluten issues, you can also ask for the pita bread to be substituted with rice cakes, gluten free bread or carrot sticks.

When we went, we did have to ask them for the reduced fat hummus because we didn’t see it mentioned on the menu. However, when we did ask there was no problem at all in getting it. All this praise for their hummus and we had the reduced fat version. I bet the full fat must be even better.

If you have a soft spot for hummus and are in London then make sure you find your local branch of Hummus Bros and give them a try. Oh, and don’t forget to wash all that chickpea goodness down with a glass of their fresh mint and ginger lemonade!

British folk are often heard to moan that the UK doesn’t get much of a summer. This summer they really have nothing to complain about because for most of the time since May it has been not just summery but down right hot and especially so in London. Air conditioning not being common at all, especially in private homes, in the UK has made it uncomfortable at times but the solution to counteract that is to get out and explore.

I had a day off work and decided to do just that and head down the coast from London to the seaside town of Brighton.  The train journey from my home in London to Brighton is very easy and with only one simple change takes just over 90 minutes door to door. So, you would think I would have travelled there more often but before this visit I had only been there on a flying visit about a decade prior to this trip. I had been wanting to go back and properly explore Brighton and with the weather so good if felt like there would be no better time to do it.

Brighton is known as a hip and trendy area of the modern UK with a bit of an artsy flare that attracts a youthful and diverse  crowd. The popularity of the seaside town goes back centuries though and since the turn of the 19th century one of the main tourist attractions in Brighton has been the Palace Pier which is now known simply as Brighton Pier.

Still operating today, it harks back to a bygone era of domestic British seaside holidays. Filled with penny arcades and fair ground rides, it is a lot like what Americans would call a boardwalk but instead of going along the beach it stretches out into the sea.  Sure, it resides just on the wrong side tacky for most modern tastes but if you go with the right mindset you can enjoy the cheese and the step back in time.

Brighton Pier

The main purpose of my Brighton day trip was to practice my photography. With so much of the old and new in Brighton and the seaside and all its creatures to boot it felt like a good place to take my camera and see if I could get a bit better at what has become a favourite hobby of mine.

I arrived in Brighton at 8am so that I could hope to capture the beach area of the town as it was coming alive. There is something I really enjoy about observing places are they are waking up for the day. I did a mixture of colour and black and white photography just to see what I liked the most.  I  found myself enthralled by the remains of the burned down pier that still resides in the water at the other end of Brighton Beach to the Brighton Pier. I  spent a lot of time trying to get decent shots of that before moving onto photos of Brighton life – both human and animal.

Here is just a small selection of the Brighton photos I took that day. If you are interested in seeing the whole day’s shoot then feel free to check out my Brighton Flickr Album.

Remains of Brighton West Pier

Brighton Sea Bird

Brighton Pier Game

Of course, as somebody that runs a food blog, enjoying the food that Brighton had to offer was also high on my agenda. Not least because along with the slightly new age reputation Brighton has developed, the town has also grown a reputation for having a good vegetarian food scene.

It was pretty clear that I wasn’t going to find this promised vegetarian food treasure on Brighton Pier.  Sure, it had tons of food and much of it would technically qualify as vegetarian but it was mostly candy and junk food. It was fun to look at but my teeth hurt just thinking about eating any of it.

Brighton Candy

So, I moved away from the Brighton waterfront and moved into the modern Lanes shopping area of the town.  Sure enough, tucked amongst the quirky and fashionable shops were a number of vegetarian restaurants.  My main dilemma was to decide which one of these Brighton vegetarian restaurants to try.

The first vegetarian restaurant that I stumbled on was the Infinity Foods Cafe which looked really lovely and inviting. What I liked the most about the look of it was that it looked like it was fitting so well into the cafe culture of the street and wasn’t sticking out as “the vegetarian restaurant”. Just a few minutes down the street the same people also run Infinity Foods which is a giant (by the standards I have seen) vegetarian food co-op store. If I had a bigger bag and budget I would have filled myself up with goods. Instead, I just bought a few little things to try (green tea soba noodles was one..trying those out shortly) and packed them away as I continued the search for the place to grab my vegetarian lunch.

Infinity Foods Cafe, Brighton

In the end, I settled for a vegetarian burger joint that was on the other side of the street from Infinity Foods Cafe. I would love it if there were so many vegetarian options so close together in London.

I had heard of the Red Veg vegetarian burger place before. They used to have a branch in the Soho area of London but I had always been a bit shy to go. Not the least because I was fairly sure I wouldn’t be able to convince any of my meaty friends to join me when I hadn’t even tried it out on my own before. Face it, you can get really good veggie burgers but you can get really horrible ones too.  I was punished for putting off trying out the London branch of Red Veg because it closed down and I never did get a chance to try it out.

When I walked past Red Veg Brighton I new that it had to be the time to give them a try.

Red Veg Brighton

The menu board outside of Red Veg made it easy to see the selection of vegetarian food on offer. Not only do they offer a good variety of different kinds of veggie burgers but their vegetarian menu was expanded to cover various falafel and salad dishes. Plus, they had all the chips and onion ring sides you would expect to find at a burger joint. The prices were also pretty attractive with the most expensive of the veggie burgers costing £3.50.

Red Veg Menu

With feet aching and the beginnings of a sunburn, I ventured inside Red Veg. The interior was fun and a bit funky without the feeling of trying too hard.  Still being a Weekend Carnivore and not a full time vegetarian, I felt that it wasn’t the kind of place that I would feel out of place. It was clear that even those of us still trying to give up meat would be comfortable chowing down on a burger here. The bright red inside and the giant windows helped to make the place feel bigger than its truthfully tiny nature.

Red Veg Interior

The member of staff that took my order couldn’t have been more pleasant either. She was bouncy and polite and was engaging the customers in genuine conversation while they waited for their takeaway orders. I listened on the sidelines as she explained to a customer that any burger could be made vegan.  She apologized for not offering vegan cheese but explained it was too expensive for them to offer. Her explanation was truthful and believable and showed she knew the product she was selling.

As a rock music fan myself, it was fun to listen to her talk to her friend about the songs that were coming on the radio too. It made me feel as if all the local concert posters on the wall of Red Veg weren’t just there by accident but because it is the sort of thing both the staff and the customers would be interested in attending.

Red Veg posters

After pondering the veggie burger menu for a short period I was sucked in by the mushroom Swiss burger. I find it nearly impossible to turn down the promise of anything involving mushrooms. Plus, one of my all time favourite fast food items was a mushroom Swiss burger that used to be available at the Hardees chain in the States.   I was mighty tempted by the spinach and pesto burger too but  the shrooms won out in the end. With a view to conserving calories I didn’t order a side order. I did attempt to have a diet cola but they didn’t have anything diet. So, I resorted to an organic lemonade.

I took a seat and waited for my veggie burger to arrive. The first thing I liked about it was how it was served just like the more famous burger chains. If you had ordered it as take out nobody would have thought it was anything but a ‘real’ burger. When I unwrapped my veggie burger I was also happy that it looked like a traditional burger. There was nothing ‘tofu burger’ about the way that it looked. The veggie burger looked meaty, the veggies were piled high and the sauces were just as drippy as the big international chains.

Red Veg Burger

More important than looking good, the Red Veg burger tasted great. Meat substitutes are getting to so good now that if they are handled properly in the cooking process they more than “pass” for meat and end up tasting good on their own. The veggie burger pattie in the veggie burger tasted as if it had been flamed grilled even if that might not have been the actual case and it gave the whole veggie burger a great slightly smoky background taste. The mushroom and Swiss combo was as good as ever and the cheese was melt perfectly.   Now I wish that I had gone to Red Veg when they had a Soho branch and I didn’t have to wait to go back to Brighton to have another great veggie burger from them.

Red Veg Veggie Burger

After my burger I went back onto the Brighton streets and continued my photo safari for a few more hours. When my feet were just too sore to continue I made my way back to Brighton station and jumped on a train back to London.  I decided to have a bit of a sweet treat on the journey home and opened up a raw chocolate bar I had bought at the Infinity Foods store.   It was the Fresh As! bar from The Chocolate Heart company. The packaging was very attractive and gave hope for the promised lime and Acai Berry flavour.

Raw Chocolate Bar

Sadly, I have to report that I wasn’t really won over by the actual taste of the raw chocolate bar. I don’t have a lot of experience with raw chocolate so perhaps it is simply how it tastes but it lacked the creamy texture that I am used to with chocolate. Each bite left me with a bit of a chalky after taste that by the end of the bar had reached the level of being downright unpleasant.

The bar looked good so maybe it isn’t the raw chocolate but more a case that the flavour combination of the lime and Acai was leaving that after taste. Either way, I will certainly try a raw chocolate bar again just to make sure but I am not going to rush out and replace my normal chocolate with them. Not the least because you pay a fairly high premium for raw chocolate.

Raw chocoalte bar

All and all I had a fantastic day trip to Brighton. The town is vibrant, there is loads to photograph and there is a ton of vegetarian food on offer.  I shall be making sure it doesn’t take me another decade to visit Brighton again and next time I will be trying that spinach and pesto burger!

The weather in London this past week has been dangerously close to being summery. Honestly, we have gotten to go outside without our coats on and everything! We don’t even always get to do that in the actual summer months.

This past weekend, I had a friend that was performing a stand up comedy show at a pub in Camden.  So, I figured I would take advantage of the freakish weather and take a stroll through the market before his show. Of course any visit to Camden Market for me means a trip back to the wonderful food stalls in the west yard of Camden Locke Market. It was good to see that so many of the places I had seen on previous visits were still running strong. Also, there were a number of new places that had popped up to seriously tempt my tastebuds.

Frustratingly, I couldn’t allow myself to indulge too much because I knew I would be eating at my friend’s show but I couldn’t let myself leave that food yard without trying something.  Just when I was having trouble deciding what should be my treat I walked around a corner and came face to face with Jaz & Jul’s Organic Hot Chocolate stand.

Organic hot chocolate in Camden Market

Normally, hot chocolate would be enough on its own to get my attention but this time it was watching the woman on the stall preparing the iced hot chocolate that got me going.  On the warm day it seemed like a perfect indulgence.  What I particularly found interesting was the wide variety of unusual flavours of chocolate they offered.

Hot chocolate varieties

All of them sounded really good and I was highly tempted to try the orange with cardamom and cloves because that just sounded wonderful. However, my eye kept being drawn to the bottom of that list to the caramel with a hint of lime variety. That was a combination I hadn’t heard of before and so decided that was they way I was going to go.

I placed my order for an iced chocolate and was very pleasantly served by either Jaz or Jul (not sure which) and I am happy to report that I was offered a choice of soy milk instead of cows milk. It is always nice when people make it easy to make vegan choices. I am not a vegan but I do have lactose intolerances. So, even on that side of things it is nice when the option to not have real dairy is so easily taken.  I did end up taking the lactose risk though and went for real milk.

Iced chocolate being served

I watched as she scooped chocolate powder out of the various containers on the stall and mixed everything together with cold milk and ice cubes. She asked if I wanted whipped cream on top and honestly couldn’t imagine somebody not wanting extra goodness on top of all that milky chocolate. At last, the iced chocolate was mine to drink.

iced hot chocolate drink

I am pleased to report that it was a really tasty drink that was perfect for the warm weather. The caramel and lime flavouring came in the form of flavour crystals that were mixed in with the chocolate. I imagine that had I gone for the hot chocolate option they would have melted more and given a more intense flavour. In the iced variety, they were more like little candy crystals that you could chew on as you were drinking. The lime felt like more than just a hint but that isn’t a complaint at all because I found it to be a really nice combination with the caramel.

I certainly recommend giving Jaz & Jul’s a try when you are next in Camden market but you can also order their mixtures from their website. I am certain I will be making another purchase in the future but next time I will go for the hot chocolate just to see the difference. Plus, it is unlikely that we will have nice weather two outings in a row. This is England after all.

I am on day two of a trip to the States. My mother has had knee surgery and my sister is too pregnant to be on recovery duty. So, I have come over from London to look after my mom in the early stages of her recovery. I thought while I was over here, I would share some of my Stateside vegetarian food discoveries with you all. Which, of course, will mean that all of you that follow Weekend Carnivore from the States will be going ‘duh, I know all about that!’ but hopefully you hang in there with the rest of us through our discoveries.

A number of months back, Jonathan Ross twittered about being on vacation in California. For a few days straight he would mention that him and his wife were going nuts on these ice cream cupcakes they had discovered.

Now, what about an ice cream cupcake doesn’t sound like a must try? Even if it is simply to have tried something that obscenely decadent. I would go so far as to say they would be the Las Vegas of cupcakes. More flash than you really need but yet you can’t help to buy into it when you are there.

ice cream cupcakes

The ice cream cupcakes were from the American ice cream chain Cold Stone Creamery (who really should make a play for the UK market because they would do well, I think) and I knew there was one near my parent’s house. So, I just couldn’t help but to try them out. I mean, it would be rude not to, right?

You can’t buy just one of the ice cream cupcakes. Instead, you have to buy them in a six pack which all but assures you won’t be able to have just the one naughty treat. Luckily for me, I am staying with my parents and I could share them out. The ice cream cupcake six pack includes three different varieties – sweet cream, red velvet cake batter delux and double chocolate devotion.

They all looked so good but I just couldn’t pass up the chance for red velvet anything let alone a red velvet ice cream cupcake. So, as much as it pained me to skip the other varieties I had to make the red velvet my vice for the night.

red velvet ice cream cupcake

The red velvet ice cream cupcake is so insanely indulgent that I almost feel dirty describing it. It starts off with a bright pink frosting topped with sprinkles. Bellow that there is a fluffy mound of white ice cream that tastes like red velvet cake frosting. The creamy kind rather than the cream cheese variety that some people insist on putting on red velvet cake. Then, there is a layer of actual red velvet cake that sits in the outlandishly decadent hard chocolate that sits where a paper cupcake wrapper would normally be.

The only real problem, other than the obvious complete diet violation, is that they actually taste every bit as good as they sound. Which, leaves me with the question of just how long I can hold out trying one of the three remaining ice cream cupcakes that are left in the freezer!

The days on the run up to my wedding in July 2008 were fairly chaotic. There wasn’t all that much to worry about in regards to actual wedding but there was just so much rushing around on top of having to work right up until the last moment. I was starting to feel a bit dizzy with it all. So, when a friend from Recipezaar was visiting London and invited me to lunch I decided I deserved the momentary break from the whirlwind.

We ended up at an upscale Indian restaurant called Zaika. Though, calling something upscale in the Kensington area might be a tad redundant. I am not usually much of a posh restaurant goer – I am more of a homecooking type of gal – but it was for their lunch menu and it wasn’t too snobby so I felt just fine. I am pretty sure it is the only Michelin star restaurant I have eaten at so it was great to not feel intimidated.  We both had a taster menu which turned out the be really yummy. I especially liked that everything was very well spiced without being all that hot. Just right for my taste buds.

By far the stand out dish for me, was a spiced mushroom soup we had as a starter. It really was amazingly good. I am generally nuts about mushrooms anyway but this was just extra great. We played the ‘guess what is in it’ game and I made notes because I knew I had to try to reproduce it when I got home.

Of course, I was never going to come close to their level of cooking but what I came up with in my own kitchen wasn’t all that far away and I have been making it ever since. What made me especially pleased was that I managed to put my own stamp on the recipe and made it really low fat and even though it tastes really creamy, there is no dairy in it at all. In fact, this is a vegan soup recipe but you wouldn’t ever taste it and think it stood out as being vegan. Over the past few years, I have learned that I can make a nice creamy soup simply by using potatoes with their skins on in the cooking. When the whole thing gets blitzed up it all goes very smooth without needing the extra fat to do it. That can’t be a bad thing.

Now, this low fat mushroom soup recipe comes out whenever I am short on spare calories but need something with volume to fill my hungry belly.

Creamy spiced mushroom soup

low fat mushroom soup recipe

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
7 1/2 ounces onions, chopped
4 teaspoons garam masala
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
13 1/2 ounces potatoes, chopped with skins still on
4 ounces carrots, chopped
7 ounces mushrooms, roughly chopped
2 pints vegetable stock
3/4 cup fresh coriander, chopped

Directions:

1. Heat the olive oil in big pan and then add the onion and cook softly for about 5 minutes to allow the onions to soften.
2. Add the garam masala and ground coriander and stir into the onions.
3. Add the potato and carrots and just allow to heat through for 1 minute.
4. Add the mushrooms and the vegetable stock and bring to the boil.
5. Reduce the heat, cover and cook for 30 minutes.
6. Add the fresh coriander and either transfer to a blender and blitz under smooth or use a hand held stick blender to whizz it up right there in the pan.
7. Return to the heat and add any salt if you think it is needed and just heat through again to serve.

Serves: 4

I love Greek food but I am in the solid minority amongst my friends. So, even though I have been eyeing up The Real Greek restaurant on the Bankside area of the Thames for years now, I had never actually managed to talk anybody else into going there with me.

That all changed this weekend when we had some friends from Wales staying with us for the weekend. The female of the pair, Mandy, is as much of a hummus nut as me. We knew we would be near the Bankside around meal time and when I floated the idea of trying out the The Real Greek restaurant they didn’t take much selling.

Even before we tried the food at the Greek restaurant, I loved the atmosphere. It is located on the Bankside area of the Thames and is found right next to The Globe theatre. The day we ate there, just happened to be one of the days of the recent Thames Festival, so there was even more added atmosphere to the area.

As we walked up to The Real Greek restaurant, it was very inviting with tables set out on the walkway outside of the restaurant. There were chefs grilling some meat skewers outside which also added to the atmosphere even if it did make me slightly nervous about how vegetarian friendly the restaurant may have been.

Luckily, my fears died down as soon as I got a look at the menu. The main style of food served at The Reel Greek is meze and souvlaki. Whilst most of the souvlaki menu was meat based, nearly all of the meze menu passed as vegetarian. They got plus points for not only clearly marking which dishes were vegetarian but also which were vegan. On top of that, they also listed the calorie count for each dish right behind it on the menu. Now, that is something I would love to see as a trend in other restaurants. Had, I been making myself stick strictly to my daily calorie count it would have taken all of the guess work out of it. Really, that alone tempts me back since it would take so much stress out of dieting. Mind you, it did mean I didn’t even want to look at the dessert menu.

We chose to take a table in the outdoor portion of the restaurant. With the weather being so nice and with so much hustle and bustle going on around Bankside it felt for sure the way to go. Clearly others had the same idea because the restaurant was busy with other people relaxing as they munched there way through some Greek meze. As we looked over the menu, I was amused and charmed by watching the others get served their meze on the very English sort of cake stands normally seen at high tea. It was such a lovely British twist to the Greek restaurant.

The Real Greek restaurant

They had a number of meal deal options on the menu which allowed the whole table to order a large number of meze dishes and share them amongst the group. Which was perfect since there were so many vegetarian dishes to try out.  In the end, most all of the vegetrian meze we ordered was very good.  A few items did particularly stand out such as the Greek flatbreads which we all agreed were truly outstanding.

Another of the favourite vegetarian dishes we had that afternoon was the Gigandes Plaki. This was made up of giant white beans – they looked like butterbeans – served in a rich tomato sauce. It was marked on the menu as being fine for both vegetarian and vegan diets.

Gigandes Plaki

Of course, as I mentioned, I am a hummus freak. So, there was no way we were going to a Greek restaurant and not sample their house hummus. The hummus at The Real Greek was so nice that in the end we actually ordered a second plate so that there was enough for us all to have healthy servings. It was the right thickness and tasted especially good smeared on those tasty flatbreads.

The Real Greek hummus

I would for sure go back to The Real Greek and not least because there was so many vegetarian dishes on the menu that there are still a large number left to try.  You have to love it when you go to a resturant where there is enough meat on the menu to please the full on carnivores in your life but there are enough vegetrain dishes on the menu to leave you with just as much choice.

Most of my temptations to eat meat come when I am out and about in the city. It is just so easy to call in at Subway and grab a sandwich or go for a burger. I know that there are tons of places in London to get a vegetarian meal or snack. The problem is that I can be a real wimp when it comes into going into unfamiliar food shops. I just get really intimidated by the thought of totally messing up the ordering process.

For example, there is a vegetarian restaurant on Berwick Street that I have walked past for years. Nearly every time I walk past the vegetarian takeaway restaurant I do a bit of rubbernecking to try to get a better look. However, they don’t have any signs up out front so I can easily see the menu and then there aren’t any prices on display and so I chicken out. One day I will go in and order, what looks to be, yummy vegetarian food but that day keeps being put off.

With my dedication to trying to eat less meat, I am also trying to push myself out of my comfort zone when I am out and about in London and try new places to eat. Most importantly, I want to keep it vegetarian and as healthy as possible. So, on Friday when I was in Soho all afternoon for one of my rare but treasured cinema marathon afternoons, I decided to go check out what was on offer in London’s Chinatown. I didn’t have time between films to sit down and eat something in an actual restaurant. Plus, going to eat a big meal on my own isn’t really wasn’t what I wanted to do either.

As I was wandering around the side streets of Soho’s Chinatown I spotted this Chinese steamed buns stand.

Chinese steamed buns stand

It struck me that the scene looked very un-London. Which, is part of why I like Chinatown so much because when you go there it is almost like going on a vacation without even leaving London. I also really enjoy trying food from other parts of the world, even if I am a wimp about trying to figure out how to order it. The steamed buns looked really good though and they were being sold for only £1 each. So, I stood back for a moment and watched how other people ordered. It was actually enjoyable watching the person that was operating the Chinese steamed bun stand preparing and cooking them.

Chinese vegetarian buns

I have to admit that I was tempted by the steamed chicken buns but I was a good girl and set my focus on the steamed vegetable buns. Turns out, it is as simple at saying “Could I please have a vegetarian steamed bun” and handing over the money. Of course, I knew that it would be that easy once I actually did it but that it what I get for being a social wimp at times!

I took it over to Leicester Square and found a seat to enjoy exploring my newly discovered vegetarian snack. I grabbed a photo because that is the sort of thing I do and I thought other folks looking to explore new vegetarian foods might be interested.  On the outside, the Chinese steamed bun looks fairly plain and pretty much like a giant steamed dumpling. It is very white and has a springy texture when touched.

vegetarian Chinese steamed bun

When torn open, the vegetarian steamed bun, doesn’t look all that impressive. As you can see, it is simply a bunch of veggies cooked down and then wrapped in the dough that is used to make the Chinese steamed bun. From looking at it, it appeared that most of the vegetable filling was made up of cabbages and other types of greens with carrots and onions mixed in.

vegetarian dumpling filling

I am pleased to that report, that these vegetarian snacks not only passed the test but were down right delicious.  Anybody that loves the taste of green veggies and onions that have been sweated down to the point where they have that slight sweetness will enjoy these vegetarian treats.  I suspect, there is butter involved with the cooking down of the vegetables. So, they probably aren’t vegan friendly but for those of us simply trying to eat less meat they are a delicious alternative when out and about in the city and looking for a quick food fix without reaching for meat. Plus, as they they only cost £1 each they are both tasty and cheap!

Camden Market is a great place for so many reasons. Of course you have the eclectic shopping and if you are into people watching like I am then you are going to be hard pressed to find anywhere better. However, my latest trip to Camden Market focused on an aspect that I think if often overlooked – the food! Just about everywhere that you turn in Camden Market there is a different food stand trying to tempt you into buying a bite of whatever it is they are selling. A lot of the places are Chinese type food places with rather aggressive sales tactics and I think that may put some people off from giving the food of Camden a try. Which is a shame because the real food treasures of the market are away from that food court area.

In my view, the real Camden Market food gems are found in the West Yard section of Camden Lock market. The food court found here is vastly different from the one found on the main drag of the market. Instead of the endless stream of Chinese stalls selling the exact same food, you get highly individual food stands that represent all corners of the world. The last time that I was at the market, there were stands selling everything from Italian food to Sudanese food and many more in between.

The best part for those of us that love our vegetarian food is that so much of the food on offer is vegetarian food. They may not be the kind of food stalls that make a big song and dance about being vegetarian food – though some certainly do – but it would not be an exaggeration to say that more food found there was vegetarian than not.

Something that I really loved was that at these stalls the food is all made by hand and often right there in front of you as you watched. I had a great time simply standing on the sidelines watching the cooking. Of course, being me, I had to take my camera out and start snapping photos of all this great vegetarian food. The best thing about food photography is that you can feast on it all with your eyes without gaining a pound!

I caught this guy at the Italian stand making pasta to order for somebody who had just places an order. It doesn’t get much more fresh than that!

Pasta cooking at Camden market

Then I stopped by the Polish food stand – which I loved – and watched as the woman there prepared these perogies. The Polish stand did sell meat but without a doubt the star of the show were these perogies which are Polish dumplings filled with potato and cheese. They are then boiled and then quickly fried off in a pan and topped with fried onions. I loved that she was rolling these up by hand right there in the market. I have had a lot of perogies from my time growing up in the States but these were hands down the best perogies I have ever eaten and totally vegetarian too!

Preparing vegetarian perogies

Perogies ready to be boiled

Of course, we all know that vegetarian food isn’t always low fat and diet friendly.  The West Yard in Camden Market was also full of a ton of truly scrumptious vegetarian food offerings that are pure danger for anybody trying to follow a low fat diet.  Still, part of living is giving into a bit of pleasure now and then. So, I fully admit to having sampled a cookie and a cupcake but looking at these pictures can you blame me? At least they were vegetarian desserts!

Camden Market Brownies

Camden Market Cupcakes

Without a doubt, Camden Market is a treasure trove of temptation for anybody that loves vegetarian food.  You could eat like a king or queen and never have to think twice about eating meat. Now, thinking about your waistline is a totally different matter!