Hebden Bridge

An international football weekend found us without matches to go to so we decided to have a weekend away. Rather than extend our carbon footprint we stayed close to home this time and went to Hebden Bridge. Neither of us had been before but we knew it was an interesting small town which was well placed for a number of restaurants we wanted to try.

We stayed at a lovely vegetarian B+B which was well located with lovely views and great breakfasts with home made bread, potato cakes, tomatoes freshly picked from the garden, mushrooms and home made jams and fruit compotes.

On the first night we hopped on the train for the short journey to Dandelion and Burdock, an all vegan restaurant in nearby Sowerby Bridge. The website has only just appeared so we had no idea what the menu would be. It changes every month and I have to say that we have seen menus that suit our own personal tastes better than the October one, but that’s the small price you pay for a rotating menu which relies on seasonal produce.

My starter was sweet potato wedges with sour cream and beetroot dressing.

Matthew had the mango slaw, which was mango, carrot, red onion, coriander, cabbage, cashews, chilli and lime.

It was fresh and zingy but had a little too much onion in for Matthew.

For mains I went for meatloaf with mushroom sauce and mashed potatoes. The photo is blurred but it was a good solid comforting plate of food.

Matthew’s leek and potato frittata with spinach sauce and butternut squash is even blurrier and needed a good dose of salt but was otherwise well done and tasty. For Matthew to eat plain squash is a high compliment – I was eying it up expecting to get it but he finished it!

For desserts I went for the apple, plum and blackberry crumble with custard which was colder than I expected but still tasty

Matthew couldn’t resist the chocolate brownie with chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream but the picture of that really is too blurry to show. It was delicious though.

The restaurant was nice and busy with a good atmosphere. I can’t possibly believe that everyone there was vegan because it’s not in what you’d think of immediately as a vegan catchment area. But it’s been there a good while now so it’s obviously doing something right.  The food wasn’t as refined as say Manna or some of the places we went to in Portland. It’s more like a high standard of good comforting home cooking – and it’s priced accordingly, compared to those other places. We will definitely return.

On our second night we’d planned to go to Relish but as you can see it’s closed for a year. We did notice that its reopening as Greens but not in time for us. We decided to head off on a 30 minute train journey to Bradford, to visit Prashad vegetarian Indian restaurant. This was recently featured on Ramsey’s Best Restaurant. He loved it, so it’s just as well we’d booked a table before the show aired because it’s very small and it was heaving.

We adore South Indian food but eat an awful lot of it so decided to try and stick with some things off the menu we didn’t know. We started by sharing a mashed potato stuffed chilli and a dhal kachori. These came with delicious chutneys and were all amazing. I could have dunked my head into a bucket of the coriander chutney and noshed away.

For mains we shared a black eyed bean dish, a bombay potato, kichdi rice (with lentils) and roti. Apart from the rice being slightly overcooked (funnily enough Gordon pointed this out too) everything was stunning. The black eyed beans were magnificent.

(this is just the first portion I helped myself to).

We have eaten an awful lot of Indian food, both in India and out of it, yet this is some the best we have eaten. I don’t think I can speak more highly of it than that.

Hebden Bridge is really a fabby place to visit for a few days. It’s got a very old fashioned slightly hippy feel to it. All the shops and cafes are individual and you won’t find any chains. I’m famed for only liking walking if it’s on a pavement, but there’s lots of good walks around the area. Most places have vegan options and there are lots of shops selling vegan clothes and toiletries, as well as a couple of really good health shops. There’s an all vegan beauticians and a practially all vegan bakery – which sells these (gasp):

Hebden Bridge is a little known vegan gem which is tucked away in an unlikely but very accessible part of the country. I highly recommend it for a short trip and I can’t wait to go back.

Coming soon:

It’s back! I’ll be trying to blog most days about a variety of things I like including recipes,  ingredients and shops.

 

 

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