It seems social media really is everything these days when it comes to launching small businesses. While some of the least significant manage to generate thousands of Facebook likes, others slip quietly into existence - their potential clientele completely unaware.How can it be in 2013 that a vegan restaurant open in an upmarket London hotel without anyone realising? I made the mistake of booking a table when I visited in November, which turned out to be completely unneeded as I was the only diner.
Their restaurant's a room (+outdoor seating) within La Suite West, just round the corner from Bayswater tube station. According to the website they do cooked non-vegetarian breakfasts too - I don't know whether this is in the same restaurant or elsewhere.
Arriving around 5pm I opted for their afternoon tea, which they describe as "a quintessentially contemporary vegan alternative to this Great British tradition. With a combination of designer finger sandwiches, home made scones served with coconut cream and fresh strawberries, followed by a delectable selection of home made pastries."Grilled Portobello | basil pesto | cherry tomatoes
Hummus | cucumber | rocket | red onion slices
Tofu scrambled | spicy guacamole
Roasted butternut squash | cream of artichoke and truffle
Roasted spinach | garlic | aubergine | cauliflower mousse
Warm Home Made Scones | fresh Strawberries | whipped Coconut cream
Mini Chocolate & Coconut Raw Cake | Mini Sesame Halva
Your preferred choice of Tea or Coffee
£19 per person
Like similar restaurants they do cooked food too - their afternoon tea is firmly in this category. Whereas Metrodeco's comes all at once, RAW's comes in 3 courses. I ordered a mocktail too, which turned out to be a good addition.
The sandwiches were beautifully presented and I enjoyed the majority of the flavours (I'm not and never will be a cauliflower fan!). They weren't particularly big thou, the equivalent of about 2 slices of bread between them. I commented on Metrodeco's post that you should arrive hungry and plan to eat dinner late - at RAW (depending on your appetite) you should be slightly peckish and have dinner lined up soon after...
The scones were tiny. They look reasonably big in that picture, but trust me that's my dodgy iPhone camerawork! They tasted good, but for the sake of a few pence worth of extra mixture could have been a lot more impressive. In comparison, the bowl of coconut cream that they came with was massive - enough for several people. It seemed homemade (which is nice), but the consistency wasn't quite right - more shiny and gelatinous than creamy. It tasted good though, and having spread as much as I could on the scones resorted to surreptitiously eating the rest with a spoon (it's not like there were other diners to offend!).
So far, so good. I was definitely ready for the "delectable selection of home made pastries" now.
Either that's the world's largest raspberry or the world's smallest looking plate of food. Sadly it was the latter (note the size of the fork on the left). I did wonder whether the pastries were coming in phases, but it seems that's your lot. They were ok - raw truffle on the left, chocolate coated halva in the centre, some sort of cake on the right. RAW's got a lot going for it - nice part of London, good building, decent crockery/cutlery etc. With a few refinements and less stingy portion sizes their afternoon tea could be really good.
Next time I'll try their restaurant menu - if it involves the ability to sit outside in summer then all the better. I might plan a backup option though, in case I end up leaving hungry!
I don't often review non-vegetarian places, but then the Isle of Wight's not exactly awash with vegan choice. It's worth ringing The Quay Arts Cafe if you're staying there for any length of time, their menu changes regularly and you could come up trumps.
On the day we went there was only one vegan main - salad. They seemed accommodating though and offered to veganize vegetarian things on the menu. We both went for Mushroom & Thyme Pasta:
Presentation was nice and flavours good. It lacked the creaminess of it's vegetarian counterpart however and wasn't quite balanced as a result. I can see how dishes designed to be vegan by them could be good though, which is why we'll give them another go when in the area next.
Dessert was some kind of iced tray bake. It was coffee flavoured, sweet and chewy - unlike anything I've had before.
Having been somewhat of a vegan wasteland previously, Lyme Regis has gained not only a vegetarian restaurant (more on this in another post) but coffee shop serving vegan food too. With vegan sorbet available in the seafront at Rinky Tinks (they don't label it - it's a case of requesting to see ingredients, but generally they've 3 flavours available); Lyme's actually not a bad choice to visit for the afternoon.
Pricing's sensible and service friendly. They're welcoming of kids and have menu options to suit. There wasn't any vegan cake on the day we went, but apparently there sometimes is.
The Orrery is without a doubt The Isle of Wight's finest vegetarian cafe. 
At the back is what can best be described as being a smutty postcard museum. The only 
Talking of visitors, despite being the only people dining the guy behind the counter was turning other customers away. I've never seen anything like it - everyone who came through the door was talked into leaving, with excuses including a lack of strawberries available to use for cream teas. Behind the counter is also the kitchen, and whilst the word vegan appeared on the specials board against three curries, it was absent from the (sticky) printed menu. Ordering falafel pittas involved reading ingredient labels ourselves, followed by an extortionately long wait. 
What finally came was alright. The falafels had been mushed up inside which was a little odd, and no overly useful as we'd planned on giving some of them to our toddler. Taste was good though and the sweet chilli sauce worked well. 
Unfortunately none of the cakes / biscuits seemed to be vegan so we didn't stay for coffee. 
You know you suck at blogging when places close before you post about them. At least I can cast some light on why it might have closed.....
The skewers looked good, but were cold inside and almost certainly the frozen ready to cook type available in Chinese supermarkets (similar to those we sometimes buy from Wing Yip in Birmingham). The sauce wasn't peanutty enough and had a texture as if it'd been made up from powder.
The 'Steak' in black bean sauce looked alright but tasted like a medium priced stirfry from Tesco. Tasty, but more student food than eating out food.
I like cakes & I like treats. London's lacked a good vegan coffee shop for years now, so what's not to like? 
Cake shouldn't look like that! It's not unreasonable to expect a vegan cake shop to be able to cook vegan cake properly, surely? The flavours were OK, but either the mixture was wrong or it was undercooked - if I'd make cake looking like that I'd have been too embarrassed to serve it. The person who owns the shop seems to make good looking cakes to order (if Facebook photos are anything to go by) - I hope they don't look like mine did when cut into!
At £3.90 their "Hazelnut Crunch Macchiato" is more expensive than the largest equivalent at airport/motorway service branches of Costa/Starbucks/Nero, independents (which tend to be cheaper) or any restaurant I remember visiting. It was terrible.
Tall Poppy Foods produce something the Midlands has previously lacked - decent cake. At the West Midlands Vegan Fair (where naturally we conducted a survey of cake on offer), their cupcakes was both cheaper and in a different taste league to the main competition (which I don't know about you, but I find horrifically sweet).
Some of the ones that made it home:
We also got a jack fruit burger, which I thought was revolting but @cherrivalentine enjoyed. Blurgh!
I really hope to see Tall Poppy Foods set up business again, someplace with more passing trade. 
We've walked past & peered through Metrodeco's windows several times before - admiring it's charm, decor and comfy looking furniture; quietly jealous of contented omni customers sipping drinks and enjoying cake inside.
4pm on a Saturday in November and the place was almost full, so we were pleased to see that they'd reserved some of the comfiest looking armchairs for us. Tea selection's impressively large and those that we tried were good (high praise for a tea hater like me) - @cherrivalentine regrets not buying some for home.
I'm never quite sure how much food to expect for afternoon tea, but advice for Metrodeco is to go hungry! Portion size is generous and more than just a snack - have a light lunch and book dinner for later in the evening, or else you may be forced into the same travesty / crime against veganism by not being able to eat all the cake! 
How cool is that? Far from being the weirdos in the corner with our weirdo food, our's looked as good or better than anything other people were eating.
The scones looked the part and cut easily. They could have done with being over so slightly moister, but it was a good effort all the same.
We were pleased to see that they've vegan spread - if in the future they had rice whip too it'd be scone perfection.
Supposedly our vegan version was smaller than their standard afternoon tea, so they dropped the standard price of £18 a head to £15 for the vegan version, which we think's very reasonable indeed! 
To say we've been apathetic about trying VBites is somewhat of an understatement. Whilst outside Brighton (Hove) there was simply no chance - now opposite Terre a Terre in Aloka's old building it was getting warmer. When they announced they had a Sunday roast with vegan yorkshire puds, finally we were sold.
So, I'll start this post with the good (it gets progressively worse) - their yorkshires are stunning. 
Decor is a cheaper version of Aloka (they did cease trading though I guess). Gone are the Verner Panton chairs but the building itself retains its character and it's good to see details such as some of the lighting intact. 
The deep fried potatoes is as good a place as any. Hard (not crispy) on the outside and barely cooked on the inside. I Love 
I used to pity people who visit the same resort each year - stay at the same place, eat the same food - visit the same shops, do the same things. There's got to be more to life than that, surely?
That view was too expense to only show once:
Breakfast was alright but fairly uninspiring (Paskins' is better). The first "vegan breakfast" came with fried eggs - the 2nd attempt looked a lot like this:
Would we stay there again? Maybe. I'm not sure it's worth the extra over Paskins - however comfortable the bed. Next time we may branch out further and go somewhere without vegan food - there's always cake to be eaten in town.
