Yay! it’s that time of year again! VEGFEST 2018!
Just in case you’ve never heard of it before – Vegfest is a vegan event held at Olympia in London ( Also in Brighton and Bristol) to celebrate Vegan food and lifestyle- with over 260 stalls and multiple ‘zones’ like a cinema, comedy stage, cooking demo’s , bodyweight competition, yoga and fitness, environmental etc.
But lets get to the star of the show- THE FOOD!
With the growth and evolution of vegan food it’s amazing to see what new brands are available every single year. So Rhys and I spent our day eating our way through the event so we can feature some of the businesses and brands we’ve come across ( Rhys likes to pretend he hates being dragged to these events but he always has a good time. Grump!)
So when we arrive at Vegfest 2018 we decided to make a bee-line straight for the ‘Food Village’ for a morning ‘snack’ but then we came across the Vegan sweet tooth London stall and couldn’t help but to get a little more than a snack! I’ve seen these guys at every single vegan/ free from event I’ve attended in London pretty much and I’m ashamed to say that this is the first time ever trying them!
You know that feeling where something looks SO amazing that you’re almost too scared to try it in case it doesn’t live up to expectations? .. No? oh yeah, me neither….
Aaaaanyway – We picked up a slice of Eggplant parmigiano ( chunky slices of eggplant over a thin pastry crust with a ‘cheesy’ nutritional yeast topping) and mushroom pizza slice from here and washed it down with a Tutti Frutti smoothie from Damage Limitations. Verdict = Everything was delicious! Sometimes healthy smoothie vendors can make things SO healthy that the smoothies TASTE healthy, if you get what I mean. This one was deliciously sweet!
Following our ‘snack’ I dragged Rhys around the entire rest of the event – nibbling on samples from tables here there and everywhere. From vegan gourmet cheese, dairy free chocolates, fish-free salmon ( what!!), energy bars and bites and balls etc etc etc. There is just so much on offer that by the time we were done – we didn’t even think we could handle a full meal! It turns out that when you’re spending a day sampling food, it really doesn’t leave you much tummy space for anything else.
Throughout the event we’d been collecting leaflets for all the stalls we wanted to return to ( does anyone else do this?) and so then did a second sweep to buy everything we wanted, within our modest budget that is.
By the time we’d wrapped up we came across WabiSabi garden , serving vegan sushi rolls and a delicious looking HUGE bowl of vegan katsu curry. Even now I still wish I had the appetite for the curry bowl because Rhys and I are both Katsu curry obsessed! Instead we picked up a sweet potato, sweetcorn and cucumber sushi roll to take home with us.
And that’s when I started to notice people walking by with full watermelons in their hands and realised that the Juice place ‘ Juice Junkiez’ that we’d looked at when we first arrived was in fact serving entire cored fruit with juice inside so we HAD to queue up. One Pineapple juice with strawberry and Lime later and we were very happy ( and full!) bunnies!
Okay so this is the point where you’re thinking – Well how is that ‘eating your way through Vegfest when you only technically had two meals?’.
That’s where our ‘take-home’ purchases come in
Karma Bites – I’m going to take a page from their own marketing here and just say that these are ‘crispy spheres of wholesome goodness!’- A Gluten-free, low fat/calorie, high protein, vegan snack . The spheres are popped lotus seeds which make this amazing popcorn-come-cheesepuff style texture with a subtle almost smoky taste that works really well with the various flavours they have available. We picked up a pack of three of their Vegan flavours- Himalayan Pink salt, Caramel and Peri Peri ( coconut, cinnamon & vanilla available as vegetarian) and so far have gobbled up all apart from the Peri Peri one. https://www.karmabites.co.uk/ 
I am Nut Okay – ‘Smokeydokey smoky & piquant cashew nut spread’ – Okay so I REALLY have a weakness for vegan cream cheeses! I don’t think I’ve gone to a single vegan event ever and not come home with some form of cheese spread. Vegan cheese is a bit of a tricky one because it’s just NOT the same as dairy cheese but that doesn’t mean that it cant be really really good. And the spreads definitely do a better job at imitating their dairy counter-part. Smokeydokey however just impressed me as a spread in its own merit. Last night I started feeling peckish and Rhys and I sat and had corn thins with the smokeydokey spread, cucumber and tomato slices and boy did it hit the spot. Thye have a few different spreads and gourmet cheeses available and I can definitely imagine using this in pasta sauces, with vegetables and friend rice dishes, on crackers/corn thins etc etc. I’ve not actually noticed these guys at events before but I do know that they have a stall at Victoria Park Market every sunday. https://www.iamnutok.com/
Vegusto melty cheese – I’m going to be honest here. What I really wanted from the Vegusto stand was the ‘aromatic’ blend cheese because it was absolutely delicious and had a harder ‘bite’ than lots of vegan cheeses, which was super pleasant! Unfortunately though it’s one that doesn’t melt so I bought their sister ‘melty’ cheese. Not quite as flavourful but I’m looking forward to trying it out in upcoming recipes I have. I’m always a fan of a melty vegan cheese! https://vegusto.co.uk/collections/vegan-cheese
CauliRice– Okay so I know these guys are available at most supermarkets but they usually retail at £1.99 so we couldn’t resist going for the show deal of six bags for £4 ( plus one extra for liking them on Instagram!). I make a lot of meals with rice but I have to admit I am a really lazy rice maker so lots of the time its straight to our favourite microwave rices. These packets of microwaveable cauliflower and sweet potato rices though are 100% vegetable and are a low calorie, carb alternative. We’ve already tried the ‘original’ pure cauliflower flavour with a thai curry I made the other night ( added a little bit of seasoning and a dob of vegan butter in with it like I do with my rice ususally) and neither Rhys nor I missed the rice. Having put cauliflower in the actual curry – the cauli rice blended in but in a really nice way – just adding a different texture element. We’re looking forward to trying the other flavours.
Quinola – Pulses & Quinoa Cakes. Okay I know this one doesn’t sound very exciting right off the bat but you don’t understand how much I like rice cakes, crackerbread, corn thin etc etc type things. Perfect for a healthy bit of cream cheese and veggies, cream cheese with sweet chilli, hummus etc etc. I’ve yet to crack these open yet because I have some ‘soon to be past their best’ corn thins that I’ve been working my way through but having tried them at the event. Delicious! And , unlike with rice cakes – these are a source of protein and fibre and have a low glycemic index to keep hunger pangs at bay. So perfect for a healthy snack. Quinola also sell packs of quinoa as well as ‘express bags’ of microwaveable quinoa in various flavours. http://quinola.com/
Dark Matters brownies – Okay so I think it’s pretty important to mention that I have a love hate relationship with vegan brownies. The tastes and textures can vary SO much that I never actually know if I’m going to like them. We bought four brownies to take home with us : choc orange, mink choc chip, pumpkin spice and salted caramel and as you can see they look AMAZING! And I really liked the dense texture BUT – for my personal taste they just weren’t quite chocolatey enough for me. When I see brownies looking this rich, I really want them to taste just as rich as I imagine. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy these guys though! The chocolate orange one was definitely one of my favourites, with yummy big chunks of orange in and the mint one had the mint essence running throughout. And many people might find these the perfect level of chocolatey-ness but for me I just want that slight extra cocoa kick! http://www.eatdarkmatters.com/
Norah’s Brownies – Bronut ( brownie/doughnut) . Is it really bad of me that I can’t remember the flavour of the Bronut we bought? In my head its blackberry and something but the actual name escapes me. On the plus side – it was delicious! The icing on top was really lemon-y and delicious and both Rhys and I wished we’d nabbed more of them because sharing the bronut between us was sad! Once again I haven’t actually noticed these guys before at any vegan events but I know a stop i’ll be making next time they’re on an event’s stall list ;P https://www.norahsbrownies.com/
And that pretty much wraps up our Vegfest 2018 Foodie experience!
Before heading out to the event Rhys actually asked me ‘Why do you go to this event every year?! Isn’t it exactly the same things every time?’. My answer ‘ No! and even if it was – Until I’ve tried every single vendor there then it’s not been fully ‘visited’ has it …
So here’s to lots more years of Vegfest in our future!
Was anyone else at Vegfest this year? What were your favourite finds/ new purchases?
Till next time,
