The "What Can I Eat?" Game

What can you eat?  Most of these, for a start (from EAT).

The "What Can I Eat?" game is something I highly recommend for new vegans or for anyone with dietary restrictions. It consists of reading menus and looking at products when you're not hungry, so you know where they are when you need them. Seriously, if you're in a pub, take a look at the menu, even if you're only getting drinks. When shopping, pop into little cafés or takeaway places, and have a look at what they've got. Chains are particularly good for this, because you're not limited to just that one location; you know that you have that option in most places you visit.

I recommend this simply because, when I'm hungry, I do not want to look for options. I want to know what they are, and where they are, and how much they cost. Otherwise, I will be stuck with chips, or salad, or apples, or maybe I won't be as thorough in checking, and I'll accidentally eat something with a bit of dairy or egg in it, and then I'll be miserable as well as hungry. Or I'll eat an entire packet of bourbon biscuits in one go, and then I'll feel sick while I'm on a sugar rush, which is a horrible combination.

I've already mentioned things like Wetherspoons Sweet Potato and Chickpea curry, which is vegan if you get it without naan bread. Their roasted vegetable flatbread is also vegan, and so is their flatbread and dips, if you avoid the yoghurt based dip (so use this one as a shared starter, if you're out with an omni? That is what it's intended for!). Their new Superfood Salad is also vegan, and very interesting, for a salad. It's got edamame beans for a start, so I'm won.

I found a couple of vegan sandwich options, too. Pret-a-Manger does a gorgeous crunchy houmous bloomer, which is filled with houmous, carrot, roasted red peppers, and coriander leaves, on 7 grain bread. It's so light, and refreshing, and it has such a good crunch to it. It's really good. Anthony bought me one for helping him move (he's gone back to Liverpool for the summer!). He quite liked it, too.

I tried replicating it at home, and I think I did fairly well. I used store-bought houmous rather than homemade, so I didn't get the nice crunch of an occasional chickpea. I also forgot to roast the peppers; I'll have to experiment a bit more.

EAT has some vegan options too, like the ones in the image above, the wasabi peas and chilli olives and things.  They also stock vegetarian sushi, which, unfortunately, contains cheese.

EAT has a vegan sandwich, too, which I haven't tried.  Houmous, avocado, and harissa.  I freely admit that I only know what two of those things are, but a close up on the allergens shows that it is vegan, so I guess I'll give it a try one of these days.

Cafe Ritazza and Costa Coffee both sell lovely iced fruity drinks, which, as far as I can gather, consist of fruit juice blended with crushed ice.  I tried Cafe Ritazza's Virgin Mojito, and it was gorgeous.  Costa Coffee were giving out samples of their iced fruity things yesterday, so I tried both the reddish one, which I think was summer fruits, and the mango and passion fruits one.  The former was very like Ritazza's virgin mojito, and the latter was much milder.  I didn't like it as much, but it wasn't bad.  I also found that Pancakes & Ice Cream sells three kinds of sorbet, which are vegan.  I was quite surprised, since I didn't expect them to have anything.  Bennetts, a wine bar owned by Marstons also has some interesting vegetarian options, which I intend to email them about, to see if any of them are vegan.

In short; if you ask, you may be pleasantly surprised.