Vegan Holidays

This blog is mostly an area where I talk about what I cook. I don’t enjoy doing restaurant reviews or writing about my holidays or short breaks and there are plenty of other people who do that much better than I ever could. However, that doesn’t mean that I spend all my time cooking and never leave the house – I think I’ve been to 37 countries and eaten at about 168 vegetarian/vegan restaurants before I even think about all the food I’ve managed to eat in non vegan places.

Over Christmas I visited Cambodia and Laos and revisited Thailand and fell in love with the area – not only for the food by any means, but it certainly played a huge part. I’ll be doing some short restaurant reviews and updates on Happy Cow but if you want to know any more details please contact me directly. Huge thanks to Jess, Janessa and especially Kip for taking time to send me recommendations and must visit places. I was on a group tour for some of the trip so sometimes I had the opportunity to wander and discover, and sometimes I was making the best of it at a group meal or included lunch – they sometimes unexpectedly ended up being some of the best food I ate.

I intend to do some recreation of meals I loved sooner rather than later, and I might give some meals or events their own blog post later on, especially the cooking classes, but for now I thought I’d just post some photos of just some the amazing food I ate while I was away. I had memory card and battery issues while away, but as usual I’m never blogging for the quality of my pictures. It’s all about the memories!

First meal of the holiday – Chiang Rai. Choose 3 dishes from a buffet for a tiny amount of money. Very spicy. The red one is some kind of mock pork and there’s bitter melon and bamboo lurking there somewhere.

Breakfast noodle soup at a vegan market stall in a Bangkok park. Pointed at what the lady in front of me had.

A very rare for me (but delicious) coffee cake at UR Station in Bangkok

Sutunthip in Bangkok – one of my favourite places of the trip. Absolutely heaving with local people all evening. The Thai sausages at the front were the highlight.

This may look like a cold takeaway masala dosa but when you’ve been up since 4am to watch the sun rise over Angkor Wat, and everyone else is eating stale hotel cake for breakfast, it’s the best meal ever.

Pomelo salad – Khun Churn Bangkok

Fried tofu stuffed with lemongrass and pumpkin, caramelised onion with green peppercorns. Chamkar, Siem Reap.

Wonderful spicy breakfast in Bangkok.

Cooked by my own fair hands at the Peace Café vegetarian cooking class in Siem Reap. The Amok at the front was the definite highlight.

Deep fried tofu with basil, chilli and lemongrass

All vegan, eat as much as you can fit on one plate for 1 dollar, Luang Prabang night market.

VERY spicy noodle soup, Makphet, Vientiane.

One of the very many versions of larb we enjoyed – this one with with minced ‘meat’

More cake at UR Station

Results of the amazing cooking class at Tamarind, Luang Prabang. The highlight was the stuffed and deep fried lemongrass, barely pictured at the back.

BBQ ‘chicken’, Reunion Café Vientiane. I would travel across the world to eat this again.

One of the meals on our 2 days boat trip along the Mekong. Yuba salad and stuffed courgettes.

More Chiang Rai absurdly cheap buffet meal.

Mushrooms stuffed in bacon, Bangkok.

Starter platter in Luang Prabang including my favourite Mekong sesame seaweed.

This is only a fraction of what we ate while we were away and I have another host of pictures of food in its raw state from shops and market stalls that I might get round to posting one day too. Keep tuned to see me try and recreate some of it at home.

Eco Vegan Shoes

The people behind Eco Vegan Shoes were looking for bloggers to review some of their shoes, so I jumped at the chance. I’ve been following this company with interest since they launched a few years ago. They started with a very small range of trainer type shoes and have slowly been adding to their collection, so that they now have a range suitable for work and for going out. Their shoes are all approved by the vegan society and are very environmentally friendly.

I chose the Green Anna for my shoes.  The picture on the website at the time showed them to be a slightly darker shade of green, so I was quite surprised when they turned up and they’re very bright indeed. First impressions were very good. As well as the shoes, in their 99% biodegradable boxes, was a nice pouch to carry or store them in, a pair of insoles and a scented cushion, presumably to store with them and ward off smelly feet. They are a perfect height for me to wear for work with a pair of trousers or skirt, and they’ve got a little gel cushion tucked under the insole so they feel really comfortable when you slip them on. They’re very high quality and feel nice and sturdy yet light.

I wore them the next day for work with chocolate brown trousers, a lime vest and a brown jacket – and got so many comments and compliments on them I couldn’t believe it. A couple of people even tried them on! I’ve worn them since with a darker green dress and that worked too.

I am usually a size 4 shoe and these size 4s pinch me a bit around the big toe, especially on my left foot. I am currently trying my Mum’s old technique of stuffing them with wet newspaper to see if that helps – although I should possibly have ordered a 4.5 (Yes, unlike many bigger shoe companies they do half sizes!). And both delivery and return is free, so if you aren’t sure about the size or the colour you can order 2 pairs and try them on in comfort and send one back.

I really love my Anna shoes and I’ll be keeping a close eye on the product range. I have never needed to wear safety shoes and I know they can be hard to find but there’s a good range available. I’d like some stylish flat work shoes next please! Eco Vegan Shoes sent me a pair to try free of charge but I was under no obligation to provide a positive review. The quality of the shoes spoke for me.