Vegan – Page 2 – PB Eats, PB Travels

PB Travels… Halong Bay

So one of the reasons why I decided to come to Vietnam again was to go to Halong bay – again. I had been there in December, when it was freezing cold and foggy. All we did was sit on a dingy little boat, sleep in a dodgy little cabin, and the only thing I did was go to the surprising cave – which wasn’t very surprising but very pretty.

So this time round I was booked to go on a Pelican ‘luxury’ cruise. With no expectations, we set off (they pick you up from your hotel / name on bus was different to the cruise company – there are hundreds out there). 4 hours, including a half hour stop at a proper tourist trap of a place, I arrived and was transferred to a pretty tidy boat.

Where am I staying?

On board the Pelican 3. My room is big, bold and beautiful, with double doors opening so I can lie in bed and watch the bay (which I did) or sit in my armchair and watch the bay (which I did). Stunning!

Ratings?

Grubbiness factor: non existent. Everything was pristine
Bed – 9/10. So comfy, I didn’t even realise I was on a boat!
Shower 9/10. Nice hot water, big, I didn’t even realise I was on a boat!!

What did I eat?

What didn’t I eat – ask me that. This is why I didn’t have many meals in Hanoi – this food was still in my system! They had been warned about my dietary requirement before hand, and has honoured them. This was good, seeing that all my meals were included. So. Lunch. A set menu. This is what everyone else was having.

This is what I had. Pumpkin soup to start, pleasant enough. The fresh spring rolls were excellent – stuffed with noodles and herbs galore, they came with a soy chilli mixture. I love these babies. Refreshing, chewy, herby flavour bombs with every bite.

Next course – the omnis got a prawn cocktail, basically got bhajias 😂. Soft potato covered in a crispy crispy but sweet batter. Why and how they were so sweet, I don’t know but I didn’t enjoy them. Or finish them. It was literally like having a sweet waffle batter around a slice of potato. No thank you.

I was almost stuffed at this point – and the mains hadn’t even arrived yet. 4 more dishes to come!!! The ubiquitous sticky rice dish, a shockingly disgusting yellow curry. It was horribly bland with NO flavour at all. Eugh. What had oodles of flavour was the tofu in soy sauce, ginger and chilli. Perfectly balanced flavours and soft melting tofu, it was perfect with the rice. Top it off with some braised lettuce, perfect meal and I was spectacularly full.

Omni courses? Mixed rice, same horrible yellow curry with chicken and apparently a very tasty fish dish. This meal was 45% local, 55% touristy.

Onto dinner. Ho boy. To start, a really tasty and creamy sweetcorn soup for me, seafood for everyone else. A golf ball portion of papaya salad. Veggies were nice but there wasn’t any other flavour – no chilli or sourness. Hello tourist version! Omnis got the same with a prawn on top.

Veggie spring rolls on pineapple (dramatic presentation) were really yum. I do like a good Vietnamese spring roll. Dipped in some chilli lime sauce – excellent. Predictably so, I was pretty stuffed by this point so I left the tempura – or rather scraped it off (as sweet as before) and just ate 2 giant pieces of broccoli – mmmmm. Broccoli! I also got a plate of oil laden chips. Which were also left alone.

The omnis on the other hand were oooing and aaahing over their food. A seafood boat with barbecue prawns and oysters, beef with vegetables, fish with broccoli.

The last dish for me – ‘pasta’ with noodles and.. Lets be honest. A tomato jam. I took one bite and couldn’t eat any more. It was a bizarre dish – full of oregano, garlic and sugar. Dessert? While everyone else had this banana cream tart, I had a mango hedgehog. Delicious after that heavy meal.

So onto the final meal on the boat – there were two breakfasts available, one at 7am (before a visit to the surprising cave) and after at 10am. After all that food yesterday, I couldn’t face breakfast #1, so lazed until 10am. Another billion course menu. Now bear in mind. This is breakfast. First course? Soup. Broccoli soup. Nope. Thank you. Not in the morning and definitely not for breakfast. Insipid and watery.

Next? These super sweet, super naughty and super tasty deep fried balls of goodness, filled with taro and coconut. Piping hot, crispy, soft interior, pretty, sweet – YUM. Apparently they are made for special occasions.

Onward and well, downward into my gut – veggie fried rice (YUM), deep fried sweetcorn (you know, that breakfast staple – toooooo heavy) and mixed veggies – aubergine, carrot and potato in a pool of oil (the bits not oil soaked were actually nice). All in all another bizarre and filling meal. Oh. And for dessert – sweet sweet pineapple.

So if you go on this cruise, you definitely get your money’s worth. I think they chicks introduce smaller portions and save a lot of money. Drinks are chargeable, from the water to beer to wine – they have everything including 2 happy hours in the evening.

What did I do?

Take in the scenery from my room and on the upper deck. Some advice. If you want to come to Halong Bay, please don’t expect it to be as serene and calming as it seems to be in the photographs/on the Internet. Don’t get me wrong, it is a super majestic awe inspiring humbling place with stellar sunsets. Just be prepared to share it with 50 other cruise liners (yes, I am aware I contributed to this), speed boats, noisy chugging boats and 10000s of tourists (yes yes, like me).

So I didn’t go to the surprising cave, instead I went on a bamboo boat to this lagoon via a cave tunnel. Really stunning and peaceful.

Next stop – Ti Top, with a man made beach. Did not like it – too many people, and why people would swim in that water, I don’t know. Really good place to people watch though!

All in all, I suppose I’m glad I did it the second time and actually got to take in more of the bay, but it isn’t on my ‘I want to come back here’ list.

PB Eats… Caravan Bankside

Walking to this dinner venue was very very nostalgic for me – and even more so when I got there. Caravan Bankside is ‘housed on the ground floor of an old metal box factory’. 10 years ago, I worked in that very building on the third floor, and it was a dodgy building, with a dodgy lift and no air conditioning…. my my my… how times have changed! It is now a trendy hipster building (with air conditioning, no doubt) with a trendy hipster restaurant, and if this restaurant was there when I was, I would be there every day, no doubt.

Gin has become very popular and trendy over the last few years, but this is the first place I’ve come across that makes their own tonics! Had to be done – I went for an orange and cucumber tonic with Hendricks. Refreshing, light, a touch sweeter than I wanted, but really really good. Go home made tonic! We also had some juicy olives and almonds – so good that M ordered that again for dessert!

The meaties ordered a few dishes which they enjoyed; air dried beef and oxtail (meat good, black beans – hard).

I loved the fact that there were SO many options on the menu that were vegetarian and could be veganised. We went for a whole load of them, the highlight being the squash, with miso and herbs (no blue cheese). This was so good, the fresh thai basil, mint and spring onion perfectly complementing the soft squash and the deep, sweet miso. The spiced cauliflower (with pomegranate yogurt on the side) was also very good. Soft cauliflower sitting on this spicy harissa sauce – really really really good. We also ordered some potato bread (that came with olive oil instead of lemon thyme butter – thank you :0) which was soft, flavourful with an excellent crust. YUM! The crispy, chilli salt tofu was excellent too.. silken tofu, with a super crunchy coating, and lots of yumminess – black beans, coriander, soy sauce, spring onions.. I thought the portion size was a lot smaller than the other small dishes.

The other dishes we ordered were the quinoa dish (this dish contains honey – why? not sure, I don’t see the point. I only ate the peanuts, which were copious and delicious). The molasses roasted beets and onions with loads of seeds was super salty – I suppose the goat’s cheese curd (on the side, which was apparently VERY good) was to balance it, but I wasn’t a fan of the dish.

Overall it was a really tasty meal, really enjoyable and I already want to go back and try the other dishes I didn’t!

Another really good meal to mention this week, at another regular restaurant – Chawallas. I decided to go for a vegetarian thali instead of my usual Chana Masala, and other than the yogurt and dessert, I could eat most of the food. Really delicious and just under a tenner for all this food. I didn’t even take a pic of the three giant puris and the poppadom that came with it. Large enough to share, or enough for one greedy person. Yum yum yum.

Countdown to Asia is in full swing.. I still need to finish my packing and I only have a few days to go!! Sooo excited!

PB Eats… Vegan In London 1

There has been a lot of eating going on over the past few weeks, lots of home made food, lots of the usual stuff (Zizzi, Pizza Express, Wagamama, Haz), and a few interesting eats, which I’ll talk about here. So the first one was… wait for it… a vegetarian pizza restaurant! So this place is apparently the third in a chain, and not only is it vegetarian, but Indian – which means that you can order pizzas with lots of coriander or paneer!!

Mr Singh’s is just outside Gants Hill tube station, we rocked up early (pretty early, around 6pm) for dinner. We were the only ones there to sit and eat, but it filled up quickly. There were lots of people taking away or picking up orders. The menu is great – not only do they do pizzas, but burgers, wraps, lots of sides and lots of desserts. I decided to go for the vegetarian hot, with red onion, sweetcorn, mushrooms, peppers, jalapenos and fresh green chillies, sans cheese. They do a soy based vegan cheese, but I’d rather go without. My mama ordered a vegetarian supreme, which was essentially the same as mine, but without the green chillies, and obviously with cheese.

It was only after I ordered I read that pizzas are deep pan, but you can request thin crust (which is my pizza of choice). The deep pan was about a centimetre thick, really well cooked and crispy – so no complaints there. I usually top my pizza with chilli oil, chilli flakes, and whatever else there is – but this time, I didn’t have to. The pizza was SO good – and the generous amount of green chillies really hit the spot. Super tasty! Definitely coming back here to try the other stuff on the menu.

Next? The food stalls at Spitalfields Market and Boiler House. Well we did check out all the fashion stalls – there is so so much there, all quirky and different, teeming with people – but I was here for the food.

There was something for everyone – virtually every different type of cuisine and dish available, and everyone, well, almost everyone was happy with what they got. I wanted to check out the vegan burgers at Pomodoro e Basilico. I had been seeing these ‘cheesy/mozarella’ sticks that they sell on social media for so long, I really wanted to try them – so I ordered one.. It looked like the real deal, tasted like the real deal, the only problem for me was that it was under seasoned. All it needed was hit of salt.

They also do different kinds of burgers, either with seitan or jackfruit. They even do a sweet burger. I went for ‘The Good’ with a seitan beef patty, beetroot ketchup, garlic mayo, cashew cheddar, carrot bacon, lettuce, tomato and onion. There is a lot of effort that goes into these burgers, but for me, it was too sweet! The bun was sweet, and the beetroot ketchup and carrot bacon just enhanced that. Also, my patty was really really small. I think that if the patty was bigger and thicker, it would change everything about the burger.

We also went for a slice of the spinach, peanut butter and banana cake. Amazing texture, moist, but it could have been a bit sweeter for me.

So some stuff was too sweet, some not enough sweet or salty – but overall, quite pleasant. I will try them again though, and compare the difference to this time…

Next highlight – din din with the cousins. We wanted to go to Iberica, but they didn’t have any availability until 10pm, so we ended up going to Sabor Iberico – tapas too, but much more rustic, cheaper and cheerful. It was a lovely place, lovely staff and a typical menu with all the expected fare… but what was unexpected was a lovely gin menu, with my favourite tonic(s) – Fever Tree.. I went for a Portobello Road Gin, which was jolly good.

There were a few meaties and I think they ordered the calamari and chorizo, but there were loads of veggie/vegan options. Olives – fat, juicy and so moorish. Delish! The pan con tomate was sensational – we ordered some plain and some with manchego cheese. Fresh tomatoes, fresh bread – it has got to be one my favourite tapas dishes. We also went for patatas bravas (acceptable), ensalada de espinaca with nuts, butternut squash and a really good whole mustard dressing. The padron peppers were appropriately charred, with a sprinkling of paprika..mmmmm. I was happy.

Other veggie dishes ordered were the tortilla with cauliflower (hmmm), the feedback was that it was ok. What went down well though was the broccoli in a nice buttery sauce, and a dish of mushroom and goats cheese.

Sadly I couldn’t partake in any of the desserts, so I settled for a cup of hot water with lemon (they had run out of fresh mint!) and watched the girlies enjoy the churros and tarta de Santiago – and boy, they did.

Sabor Iberico was really reasonable, the food good, the desserts and gin heavenly – will definitely return for a cheap and cheerful and tasty meal.

So those have been some of the eats (to be honest, the ones where I remember to take photos of, haha). I’ve been busy planning travelling phase 2 – Asia it is and some of the countries have been decided on, but I’m also doing a bit of ‘going with the flow’… I leave in 2 weeks – and I can’t wait! Whooo!

PB Eats… Yauatcha

I am enjoying being back home, making the most of the free time I have, and eating obviously. I met up with L for dinner at what has become my favourite place for dim sum – Yauatcha – I prefer going to the branch in the city. Over the years, I have experimented with what I can eat, what I want to eat, what I should be eating, and Yauatcha has always graciously supported my preferences. L managed to wrangle the current bookatable £29 deal – 9 courses (including dessert) and a cocktail. Yay! The table was already set with the usual fare – vinegary cucumber (yummo), and two chilli sauces, top right con fish, bottom right sin fish.

Our cocktail arrived – a cherry chaser with brandy, cherries, orange and a few..erm.. other things – yep, I can’t remember. Surprisingly refreshing and not very alcoholic given all that ice.

So the set menu has the following yummy nibbles – Har Gau, Crystal Dumpling Wrap (ve), Baked Venison Puff, Mushroom Spring Roll (ve), Shui Mai, Black Pepper dumpling, Prawn Cheung Fun and a lotus leaf sticky rice. Phew. Obviously most of the stuff was off limits for me, but they had alternatives, as expected. I got more taro (2 to be exact) and veggie dumplings (1 fried and 1 steamed) and a mushroom cheung fun. The fried dim sum were very tasty – as were the steamed.

We also got a cheung fun each – soft, yielding and very delicious. At first glance, you may think this is not a lot of food, but it was just the right amount. Every dim sum was well made and flavourful, I can’t choose a favourite. Ok. I can – the orange dumpling, it’s always been you. It contains pine nuts – not an expected ingredient but what an ingenious addition! The mushroom spring roll with a hint of truffle comes a close second. My dishes on the top, L’s in the middle.

PB Eats… Grain Store

I met up with M for our annual Christmas dinner (yep, in January – thank you cold/flu virus for making me miss it in December). Ever resourceful, she suggested Grain Store – a restaurant with lots of options for the dietary fussy amongst us.

Now Grain Store is one of those painfully hip places, the staff, the menu, the cocktail list (they have savoury cocktails! Aubergine Rum! Horseradish Vodka!). Too much hard work to go through the list – so we settled for a celebratory glass of prosecco 😉 Thankfully the food men was less complex, full of yummy stuff.

We both loved the look of the desserts (parsnips in a dessert! So hip!) so we decided to forgo starters for mains and dessert. It was a toss up between the chilli con veggie or the veggie bourguignon and the lovely waitress did say the chilli was a better option – decision made for both of us. What arrived were 2 piping hot skillets – one with mixed rice (brown, white, wild) and one with the chilli (the pot of white fluff in the middle was sour cream).

Oh boy. I was impressed. The chilli was full of flavour and warming spices, all complementary and subtle. Super delicious. Moving on to desserts. I really wanted to try the “Coconut & Kaffir lime green tapioca, sweet potato, banana crisp”. I thought it was a very intriguing bunch of flavours and textures – and I also like tapioca (never been scarred via school dinners – was it really that bad??) so it was a no brainer. M went for tart of the day – apple bakewell, served with a coulis and creme fraiche, which looked LUSH.

As for my dessert, WOW. It was sensational – other than the banana crisp which I though was a bit stale so didn’t eat it. But the rest of it – wow. Umami flavour explosion. I can’t even explain how tasty this was – so different yet so comforting, it was more like a chia seed pudding than a tapioca pudding. Exceptionally delicious!

Accompanied by a cup of fresh mint tea, and I was a happy bunny. All in all, a really really good meal. I definitely want to go back to try the other stuff on the menu.

PB Eats… Borough Market

So after the sedate Christmas mood of Norway, it was good to be back in London where you can’t avoid Christmas – lights on every street, trees, decorations, lovely! I am not big into the material/spending side – I’m more about the food, so where else to stock up on a few Christmas pressies than Borough Market? It was suitably decked, as expected.

We wandered around, and yes, there were lots of people and lots of stalls. The free samples were mainly for cheese (nope), deli meats (nope), oils (yep). I can’t write too much about the stuff I bought – but it was on the lines of nuts, chutneys and oils. There is so much variety there, it is possible to buy something for everyone! So presents done, we decided to fill our bellies. Thankfully there are so many options for me, but today I was feeling like a spicy stir fry, so I made a beeline to my fav place, L’ailOlive.

There is a standard meal that I always order – vegetarian rice noodles with veggie gyoza. Served piping hot with some fried onions on top. This came to about £7.50, more expensive than Mr. A’s Ethiopian box that was jam packed with meat, veggies and rice for only £5.

I should also say that they were served by a very Christmas-y lady, decked in a jumper, tinsel, baubles – and she had even done her nails – loved it!!

Now L’ailOlive specialise in garlic and chilli products, and they always have a couple of sauces to pimp our food with. One contains dried shrimp, but the other one…ho ho ho (pun intended). The Super Hot Garlic Peperoncino is dynamite, literally as the name suggests, super hot – and that comes from someone who can handle her chillies! The kick is spectacular – and I’ve learned from experience to use this oil sparingly – amazing flavour, but definitely use with caution! The stir fry was super delicious – hitting the spot on a cold London day.

Next – dessert. Keeping with the Thai theme, Mr. A spotted a place selling coconut pancakes – dairy free! Made with coconut milk and rice flour, they looked like little discs of snow, dotted with black sesame seeds.

Crunchy on the bottom, soft on the top, lightly set – they were very moreish and so so yummy. 8 to a portion for about £3 I think – I could have had about 32. A must try for sure. All in all, a good day out – I always come to Borough market with a plan when I want to buy foodie pressies, however on the eating front, anything goes! I always leave full and happy 🙂

PB Travels… Tromso – Reindeer, Hummus..and The End

Today’s plan was to check out the reindeer, and spend the rest of the day basically being lazy. We had booked a tour with Tromso Arctic Reindeer for a Reindeer and Sami experience. Once again, we were picked up from the hotel (yay!), this time in a coach with about 50 other people. We drove just 25 minutes outside Tromso city centre to a custom, tourist made, Sami/Reindeer site.

We met our hosts, a lovely Sami man and his fiance in a giant lavuu that had a roaring fire. They were traditionally dressed and looked very attractive.

We were first going to feed the reindeer and then come back to a Lavuu to have some lunch and to hear about the Sami – history and current situation. So, equipped with buckets off feed, off we went to feed the greedy reindeer.

After a couple of minutes holding the bucket and being pushed around, I’d had enough of the feeding and switched to taking pics.

We then wandered back in the lavuu for a truly interesting talk on the Sami, their history, what they wear, their accessories, how they protect themselves in this harsh environment. Very informative and enjoyable. As for the food? A reindeer stew which was strongly ‘scented’ (being polite here), and a veggie, dairy filled cous cous option. So no food for me. The best part of the day was the Sami talk – and that was it really. But if you do want to get close and personal to lots of reindeer, then definitely do this if you’re out there.

We got back to the hotel for 2pm, did a bit of packing, and a bit of window shopping. So far we haven’t done any serious shopping yet, other than buying lefse and Kvikk Lunsj, Norway’s answer to Kit Kat. But first, a coffee in a deli, Mathallen. This was a beautiful space, with lots of tempting items to buy, but all we wanted was a coffee.

So after a quick espresso (not the worst, but not the best) + a couple of pieces of salted almond chocolate (from Copenhagen), and we were ready to wander for a couple of hours before dinner. We were hungry, since we hadn’t had lunch (M didn’t want to try the reindeer soup – and S wasn’t joining us, she was going for Northern Lights part deux) but we thought we could hold out.

We found a spa to book a massage for the final day of the holiday, went to the polar museum and the tourist shops to check the tourist tat – and boy, there was a lot of it out there. It was really enjoyable walking around, and we also nipped into the library and chilled and read a few comic books – brilliant. One of guides told us that you can borrow a book from any town or city in Norway and return it in another. So I could borrow a book in Tromso and return it in Oslo…how cool is that!

So after reading Nordic anime-esque comics about Thor’s daughter and Vikings, off we went to Kafe Globus (or if you’re M, it’s bobus/nobus/anythingbutglobus rofl rofl) a cafe with international cuisine that had.. wait for it.. VEGAN CUPCAKES. Whoop Whoop.

A beautiful space once again, with a very relaxed vibe. Very reasonable, cheaper than most other places we visited. See what you want, order, pay and sit back and relax.

I ordered a ginger beer..mm.. zingy..

And a middle eastern plate with extra falafels. It came loaded with a salad, tabbouleh, olives, beetroot, pickled veggies.. and houmous. YUMMY! I love that stuff and I eat it virtually every day – so not eating it for almost a week and then getting it… I was one happy bunny. As for the rest? Fresh, crunchy, spicy, juicy… most enjoyable.

M’s plate was identical – but with extra chicken and yogurt dip.

Suitably full, I made sure I left room for dessert – vegan chocolate cake accompanied by a jasmine tea. It was a big hunk of cake with icing – and yes, I ate it all.

We waddled back to the hotel – not because we were stuffed. Well, okay, that was partially the reason, but also because the roads were so icy and we were being careful 🙂

On our last day in Tromso, after a late start and a leisurely breakfast, we did some shopping and took a final walk around the city centre.. so pretty!

Time for our final meal in Tromso – lunch at what is supposed to be one of the best restaurants in Tromso, Emma’s Drommekjokken, or Emma’s Dream Kitchen. Another small restaurant, no more than 15 tables, but beautifully done up.

The menu here was also short and sweet, and they had a vegan option (with houmous!!) with me even asking for one 🙂 The owner mentioned that the Head Chef has worked with Jamie Oliver and it was Jamie’s influence. Go Jamie..

We started off with a glass (or two) of sparkling wine..

My meal with essentially a salad with hummus and roasted root veggies – ginormous and oh so tasty. Every mouthful was full of texture and brimming with flavour.

The girls went for the baked clip fish, sitting on a mound of creamy mash.

No room – or time for dessert, we paid about £48 each and legged it to Essens Spa for a massage. My masseuse was also a physiotherapist, so my massage turned into a proper deep tissue, painful at the time but so relaxing afterwards massage. It cost £80 for 45 minutes, but it was exactly what my muscles needed!

So leaving the spa completely relaxed, after 2 days of chasing, Wandering Owl said they couldn’t leave my scarf anywhere convenient (for them!!) so M and I spend 40 minutes power walking up and down a very steep hill to a residential part of Tromso to retrieve it. Letter to self – don’t forget anything when you go on an activity with them!

We rushed back to the hotel, rushed to the airport, rushed to the gate… and relaxed.

All in all, Tromso was seriously enjoyable, there is so much to do and it is a beautiful city. It isn’t a place for a budget holiday, nor is it a place where you’ll be rushed. So after Day 1, we settled into the flow of Tromso, relaxed and went with the flow – and we were all better for it 🙂

PB Travels… Tromso – Snowshoeing in a Storm

Today we met a real life superwoman. So post breakfast (avo on toast, how can you go wrong), yogurt and a hot cup of tea, we wandered outside the hotel to wait for our pick up.

Activity of the day: Snowshoe hill walking. Weather: heavy overnight snowfall, and it was still falling. Magda from Tromso Outdoor showed up on time, all smiles and positivity. We drove out to Kvaloya again, seems like this is the activity island. The weather was very cold, thankfully it had stopped (for the moment), long enough for her to give us a mini tutorial on show shoes wearing, walking – and the fact that you should definitely not walk backward in them. We were 5 females excluding Magda – my gang of three and 2 other ladies.

The snow was up to a foot deep in places, so we definitely used our snowshoes to make our way through the snow. It was a very enjoyable, calm walk, with enough stops and regular check-ups from Magda to ensure we were all OK.

Two thirds the way up was when everything changed. We were basically attacked by the snow – there was a total whiteout, we couldn’t see more than five feet ahead of us, snow hitting us from all directions, the wind pushing us over. We had to stop. That is when Magda the superwoman kicked in. She made sure we were all OK, fed us (yes, more lefse, but this time she had jammie dodgers for me – whoo!) and that hot, sweet Ribena.

We basically had to stay put while the snow and wind settled down a bit – in the meantime Magda showed us all these exercises to keep warm – which was handy since one of the girls was complaining about ‘her fingers feeling funny’ arrrggghh! We couldn’t make it up to the top of our mini mountain so Magda decided to take us back down. But with those blizzardy conditions and it starting to get dark (it was 1pm), we took the scenic route through this mini wood to shield us from the wind and snow.

And we all made it in one piece down to the van – got in, got warm, only to discover that it was stuck in the snow! The adventure was not over yet! So once again, super Magda got out of the car, completely calm and collected, and tried to shovel our way out. Unfortunately there had been so much snow – which meant we all had to get out and use our feet and hands and whatever else to make a path through the snow to the main road – in pitch darkness. Fun and games – it took an hour – but we did it. Go girl power! and go Magda – one of the best guides I’ve seen!

Back at the hotel, we didn’t have much time to relax as we had an escape room to look forward to. There are a few of these in London, I’ve been to one near Bank station and it was brilliant.

This one was just as good – Arctic Escape (the northern most escape room, we were told). We spent an hour solving the puzzle in John Winter’s room – and thanks to S, escaped with 6 minutes to spare. Strongly recommend this if you’re in Tromso!

Suitably charged and ready for some food, we looked at our list of recommendations from the lovely Norwegian girls we met on the Vulkana, and down the road from Arctic Escape was Bardus Bistro. A beautiful, cosy space and a short menu.

Mains were approximately £30 each. Not cheap for me, but as I’ve mentioned before, we quickly realised Tromso isn’t cheap, and decent restaurants meant shelling out a bit more. Once again, there was nothing on the menu for me, but I was told there is a vegan risotto – so yes please! What arrived was this beautiful plate of pearl barley, butternut squash, celery, mushrooms, lingonberries and dill. What a stunning combination – I enjoyed every mouthful, from beginning to end.

The girls ordered fish-y dishes, they enjoyed them too:

It was so filling, there was no room for dessert – but I did order an espresso – that came with a square of dark chocolate. Sorted. Seriously good coffee after the crappy coffee I’d been drinking.

A wonderful meal, couldn’t ask for a better way to end the day – the most adventurous so far!

PB Eats… in Soho

Sabbatical time is approaching! I’m taking some time off work to rest, relax and of course, eat and travel 🙂 I’m not going to begin my travels properly until January next year, and I will be blogging all about it. So for now, I’m focusing on catching up on all the stuff I say I can’t do because I don’t have time – paperwork, de-cluttering, organising.. and did I mention resting and relaxing?

I was in Soho for a whole day last week – appointments, shopping, meeting friends for coffee. I walked around, taking in the Christmas decorations (a bit too early? Definitely!).

My favourite ones were down Carnaby Street – one word affirmations scattered everywhere – brilliant!

Before I knew it – it was lunch time. Spoilt for choice I decided to try a place that I had walked past on previous occasions, but never been. Keu! on Poland Street, basically a fast food Vietnamese restaurant. I toured Vietnam for 2 weeks with my brothers and I loved loved loved the food. All the curries, the rice bowls, the spring rolls, oh the spring rolls. I think I had them with every meal (erm, bar breakfast!). I obviously wasn’t walking into this place expecting a taste of Vietnam, but what I liked is they tried to make it look like a restaurant in Vietnam.

I ordered my meal and drink, paid at the counter – very quickly with no issues – and went to perch on a bar stool facing the world go by. My drink came in a couple of minutes – I went for a lemonade, just what I needed after walking around for a couple of hours.

I waited about five minutes until my mains arrived, entertained myself by watching Asian Provocateur in the meantime. Romesh Ranganathan is so so funny – both in these series and live. Back to the meal – I went for the only veggie/vegan rice bowl I could see on the menu – Com Chay. This was described as a smokey aubergine stew with tofu, mushrooms and tofu broth. What arrived was a massive bowl filled to the brim with rice and veggies and tofu.

Close up? OK – here it is:

The first few mouthfuls (bar the gigantic pieces of garlic) were delicious. Luscious pieces of tofu, firm yet delicate aubergine – no trace of the smokiness though – mushrooms, herbs, spring onions all added to the initial yumminess. But it did become a bit one dimensional after a while – there was A LOT of rice and I did have to pimp it up with a bit of soy sauce and some chillies pickled in vinegar. I ended up eating only 1/2 of it – it was waaay too much food – and I wanted to be in a position to look forward to dinner. So will I come back? Nope, not really.

After a bit more (essential) shopping, off I went to dinner to meet my friends who I will be going to Tromso with. We’re off in just over a week – and that was what the essential shopping was for – making sure I have enough long johns to keep me warm :). We met at Aqua Kyoto, just behind Oxford Circus station. I love the decor of this place – all dark wood and beautiful crockery.

Now this isn’t a cheap restaurant – but who said I was going a la carte? My friend saw an offer – £29 for 3 courses and a cocktail, and it being Japanese cuisine, although full of raw fish, I knew I would be OK with options. The last time I was here we had a terrific meal off the same set menu – and the service was excellent. Repeat performance this time? Yes, on the food for me, bit of a hit and miss with the meaty main (hair in a dish, argh!)

I didn’t take a picture of the set menu (and I can’t find it anywhere online) but there were three options for starters – sushi, sashimi or veggie tempura. Mains were a mushroom rice, and two other meaty options (obviously didn’t look). There was only one option for dessert – a pumpkin chawanmushi with a pear sorbet. I chose my veggie options, and asked for just sorbet for dessert.

My tempura starter arrived and was thoughtfully served with a bonito free dipping sauce (arigato!) even without me asking. Well, they did ask when they were taking orders if anyone had any allergies…

Benefits of your friends not drinking Christmas cocktails? More for me! Saying that, there was so much ice in the glass, any effects of the alcohol were virtually non-existent! My tempura was excellent – and a reminder why I love this restaurant. It wasn’t the usual tempura of button mushroom and baby corn. Oh no sireee! Here we had pumpkin, seaweed and shiso leaf – all hot and crispy. Yum!

My main of Mushroom rice was just as beautifully presented. Didn’t look like there was much in there, but I was wrong – it was more than enough.

So many different textures and flavours – and multi-dimensional from start to finish! It was essentially a mushroom risotto with more mushrooms, butternut squash puree, more shiso leaves, cubes of silken tofu (not sure what the sprinkles were, but I know they weren’t cheesy or fishy). What a beautiful dish – and it left me in a happy place – full, but enough room for dessert.

For dessert I was expecting a couple of scoops of pear sorbet, but instead I got passion fruit sorbet and sour cherry sorbet on a chilled plate – pretty! Perfect refreshing end to a lovely meal.

I do love this place, but to be honest the set menu changes often enough for me to stick to it instead of a la carte-ing it, and I will definitely be back.

PB Eats… Shoryu

One of my most favourite cuisines is Japanese. I used to think it is limited to sushi and sashimi, and I thought after stopping seafood I might as well have struck Japanese food off my list. But two trips to Japan later, on a vegetarian diet – wow! The variety! The flavours! Back on my list 🙂 Ramen took off in London a good few years ago, but it was always off limits as they were – and still are – pork based soups on the menu. Until Shoryu came along – and introduced a soy milk ramen, the ‘White Natural’.

Not meat or fish based, but a stock made with soy milk, miso, konbu and shitake. Whooo! This ramen bowl was full of tofu, mushrooms, bamboo shoots and seaweed. We also got to choose the firmness of the noodles – from standard (my choice) to extra firm (no thank you).

Stunningly good, full of flavour and texture. The noodles had the perfect bite and this bowl was the perfect dish – I loved it. I also ordered a side to share – mainly because it sounded very intriguing on the menu – “Black sesame tofu with sweet miso sauce and tenderstem broccoli”. I love black sesame – both in sweet and savoury dishes and definitely wanted to give this a try.

What arrived was a jet black block of tofu with a single, sorry excuse of broccoli – would make sense to leave it out! This was so utterly delicious – the texture was more of a set pudding than tofu, with a hint of tofu, a hint of black sesame and that thick, rich miso sauce.

Since we had room for dessert (isn’t there always room for dessert) we decided to browse the dessert menu. There was only one dairy free dessert – sorbet, but this time I was excited. The flavours – umeshu (plum wine), yuzu (my favourite flavour in the world) and chocolate and wasabi. I went for the first two, accompanied with a cup of oolong tea.

This was turning to be the perfect meal. I got a cup with two giant balls of sorbet – both white.

Both flavours – the umeshu and yuzu were utterly delicious, but I did hit my limit once I finished. My friend enjoyed her dessert as much as I enjoyed mine – she ordered the yuzu cheesecake and a matcha tea.

I absolutely loved Shoryu – I have never had a bad experience here – neither with the food or with the service. And even though my options here are limited – well, there is only 1 main – it is consistently good, and I will keep going back!