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Tapa in Glasgow

5/11/2014

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We couldn’t wait to check out Tapa Organic in Dennistoun, after all the rave reviews. It’s primarily an organic bakery, but it has a little cafe section and a sideline in vegan cakes and treats. 

Dennistoun is very close to Glasgow city centre, but equally a world away. The high street is bursting with pawn shops and hairdressers, and the graceful golden tenements that dominate Glasgow are struggling to cope with years of under-investment in this eastern part of the city. It’s a characterful area that sits right on the fence between charming/bohemian and run-down.

We came for cakes and that may explain our mild disappointment at Tapa. The breads have garnered gold stars and gushing recommendations. We wanted cake and coffee.

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The vegan offering was better than most cafes though slightly smaller than expected, and our choices were ginger cake, chocolate cake and cupcakes.

Let’s wax lyrical about the ginger cake first. The lady studiously attempting to focus on her Daily Record at the table next door couldn’t help but be distracted by our oohs and aahs as we savoured the delicious, super-gingery and fluffy slice of cake. We picked it wrapped from a fridge near the counter, so don't be hunting in the display cabinet!

We have to admit, we are suckers for chocolate cake - and when Tapa went above and beyond and turned it in to a vegan chocolate Victoria sandwich cake - we couldn't say no! Although a little on the dry side, the combination of chocolate, jam and sweet icing really ticked our boxes. But be warned, the sugar crash from the overly sweet icing might have you crying on your way to the gym! We would have preferred some vegan cream in this sandwich.

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Next up was a pistachio-iced cupcake. This was a more standard offering, and we expect more from the humble cupcake. There is a tendency to over-compensate for a bland sponge centre by glooping on a layer of thick, sweet icing. You’ll be rushing and crashing after scoffing one of these cupcakes. But you may still have a cake craving.

The cafe area in Tapa is certainly small and, dare we say it, an add-on. This is a bakery, with some cafe tables, rather than a cafe bakery. Get your Tapa products at one of many stockists, but we would not make Tapa a destination in itself.

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Lunch at 78

21/10/2014

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Head out from the centre of Glasgow towards the wheeze-inducing hills of Kelvingrove Park, turn right down a nondescript street of Wimpey-style student apartments that could double as retirement flats and there you will stumble upon 78, the former home of Stereo and part of the music-themed vegan empire that is Mono, Stereo and 78.

This Scottish empire certainly has a student feel, and we wonder whether 78 will fail our pot plant test - fortunately it doesn’t, as the loos are very much 1950s public house!

78 is in fact a cross between your favourite village pub complete with fireplace, tall pine benches, and long bar, your great aunt's house pre-clearout with worn down paisley pattern velvet sofas and tapestry Queen Anne armchairs, and a student union with gig posters and sticky tables. 78 even has a corner bookshelf stacked with LPs and a wall frieze of old 78s.

Our mission was to test the claim that 78 does the best vegan lunch in town. Verdict: seriously yummy. Seriously. There was a list of tasty specials, and the bartender had such enthusiasm for the vegan quesadillas (with cheese that actually melted) that we wondered whether she would explode with glee.

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The special burger was indeed special, although we had a nagging feeling we should have gone for the quesadillas. Who cares, though. We'll certainly be back.  Our burger was  deliciously creamy and combined sweet potato and chick pea with a hint of curry powder and cinnamon. It was juicy, and a far cry from the standard dry vegan patty of chickpea and carrot. Top marks. It was excellent.

If we had a tip for improvement it would be to drop the hummus. The chef clearly had such anxiety about the burger being dry that our already juicy and flavoursome burger had a thick layer of hummus on top. Not necessary.

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After lunch, and unable to move mid-food-induced-coma, we settled in for coffee and cake. What a treat! This was just about the best vegan chocolate cake we've tasted. Fluffy and cake-like rather than the usual dense slab of carob, which tastes of self-raising flour as someone has vainly tried to conquer the laws of vegan cakery with baking soda. This proper cake was light and heavy with the taste of chocolate, laid on a bed of vegan cream.

Your teatimes and your waistlines will never be so full, and all for £4. If anything, the hot chocolate was too sweet, but we were less concerned. We were smothered in chocolate.

It was the perfect accompaniment for the curious teatime scene that followed, as a pigeon flew into bar, no doubt trying to get in on the scrumptious food action, and a curly-haired student tried to chase it out. You're slap bang in the middle of student central here, and presentation and service could certainly have been a little more tip-top. This is grunge rather than fine dining, and there was a whiff of 70s pine. However, the shabby chic won through, even with the bonus pigeon, and this can rightly claim to be modern vegan/trendy rather than outdated 70s ratatouille and watery stodge. Of all the places in this burgeoning vegan empire, this is the one to watch.

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Waiting in Deptford

22/7/2014

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Deptford High Street. 

A Poundland. 

A handful of Thai restaurants.

And The Waiting Room. 

A small, unassuming cafe the likes of which you'd find in Hoxton, is, it seems, paving the way for a 'new Deptford'...

It’s named “The Waiting Room”, with perhaps unintended irony, as that's exactly what you'll find yourself doing - waiting. Service is measured and slow. But that's the point. It's as though time stands still in this cute cafe.

And as time slows, you can take in the quirky decor of distressed wood, sarcastic scribbles on the wall and a menu written in fridge magnets. Sarcasm is, so we were told by the wonderful staff, a speciality, to be served daily with your decaf.

Substantial lunch choices of Brick Lane beigels, sandwiches and burgers. And milkshakes to die for. We indulged in the V.L.T. Which is not for the faint-hearted, as our friends at the Waiting Room are not afraid of dishing out generous dollops of their dairy free mayo...

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Anywhere that gives us this many options (vegan, vegetarian, soya, decaf, cupcakes, flapjacks, brownies) can't be bad. And it's almost just as much fun watching the array of customers who congregate here.

Spotted: a chatty man waiting for his double shot espresso who systematically asked everyone in the queue how their day was (maybe the extra caffeine is a bad idea?) and a glamorous goth with her vegan lap dog (yes, really!)

Go, sit, wait, eat, enjoy.

PS While you're there, get yourself snapped with the Chippendale look-alikes!


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A date with Ms Cupcake

15/7/2014

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There are not many things that will get us up before 11am on a Sunday morning, when we should be having a well-earned lie-in, catching up on repeats of Come Dine With Me or putting on Netflix for a Suits-athon. But this Sunday morning was special. So special in fact that, in another part of the country, Mike had earlier pulled himself off Canal Street at 4am, showered, slept briefly, and jumped on the 7am train from Manchester. It made our 30-minute trundle on a worse-for-wear Northern Line train pale into insignificance.
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What could have us disrupting our weekend routines? Simple. A date with Melissa. She rocked up (literally rocking, in her 1950s attire) in her bunch skirt, polka dot headscarf and bright red lipstick, flanked by her tattooed and blacknailed sidekick Phoebe. Who were these mysterious women?

We were of course in the presence of the fabulous Ms Cupcake, and her general manager, and, while we could be forgiven for thinking we were to be extras on the remake of Grease III The Old Street Years, were in fact in the hallowed halls of the Central London Cookery School, about to start Ms Cupcake’s day-long vegan baking class.

Of course, you exclaim. That’s why we left the house so early. Very few things get between a sweet-toothed vegan and her treats.

Let’s face it: it is not beyond the realms of possibility for  6 chocolate and vanilla-iced cupcakes, 4 giant caramel sugar biscuits and an entire 9" double layer Victoria sponge cake to be devoured in under 24 hours by a cake-starved vegan.

As beginners to the vegan baking scene, we were slightly nervous about attending Ms Cupcake's full-day vegan baking class. Followers of our twitter feed (@ukextraveganza) may recall the coconut scone disaster, and previous attempts at vegan baking have often involved recipes that required a minimum of 25 exotic ingredients, half of which we could not pronounce and half of which were not available in Waitrose or Planet Organic!

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However, after our day with Ms Cupcake, we were changed beings. Our experience showed us that vegan baking can be simple, fast, extremely delicious and even more fun than 'normal' baking (probably due to the fact that Melissa and Phoebe are amazing and there was so much edible glitter everywhere we felt that a unicorn might appear at any moment). If we had a criticism, it was that even we, lovers of indulgence, were surprised at quite how much sugar and fat went into a cupcake. However, so long as you don’t live on cake alone, you’re allowed the occasional blow-out.

We kicked off our day meeting the other vegan baking enthusiasts. A full array including a Slovenian vegan (a Slovegan!?), a vegetarian from Manchester (a Manchetarian?!), an owner of a London vegan restaurant, and a bakery-owning mother with a son with an egg allergy!  

Melissa and Phoebe demonstrated, step-by-step, each of three recipes (cupcakes, sponge and cookies) that we were to learn on the day, and also threw in some top tips on perfecting vegan baking, and some product substitutes that we could use to adapt the recipes to fit our free-from diet.

Our favourites tips of the day: (a) when you need tea and biscuits, go for Jammie Dodgers and Bourbon Creams (both APF)! (b) as an egg substitute, you can use apple cider vinegar to curdle soy milk (eww!) as well as mashed banana and fruit juice (c) when you’ve messed up on your icing creation (pretty likely, we think), take a handful of chopped nuts and roll your creation in those: voila, a nutty surprise that looks like you planned it that way!

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Oh, and next time you pass Carluccio’s and automatically start salivating at their meringues as big as your head, buy some Orgran’s No Egg (http://www.orgran.com/products/174/) and get whipping and folding. It works just as well and makes gluten-free vegan meringues to rival old Antonio’s! These girls really know it all when it comes to free-from!

What really surprised our cold London hearts was how willing Melissa was, and is, to offer business advice and support to blossoming bakers and entrepreneurs. Ms Cupcake's mission is to spread veganism, and so for her, the more the merrier.

And being schooled by such cool-looking chicks who looked more like they belonged to a rock or punk band than arguably the most successful vegan bakery in London confirmed what we knew: sexy, cool veganism is on the rise. And it’s much easier than it looks. Like we say: free from, it’s simple!"

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