Hi everyone, hope your having a great weekend! We’ve had a fantastic time in Brighton this week. We had been planning on coming home yesterday but we decided to stay another day as we were having so much fun! I haven’t enjoyed the weather very much though, I don’t think I’ve ever been so cold as I have this week!

The Royal Pavilion

We travelled the 330 miles down to the south coast on Monday night so woke up Tuesday morning feeling refreshed and ready for our holiday!

Tuesday

Me and Tam and tasty food from Aloka

I met up with the gorgeous Tam who very kindly took me to my first ever Bikram Yoga class. I absolutely loved it! I’m so sad that no where in the North East does Bikram Yoga, I would definitely be a regular if I had the opportunity. After the class we went for lunch at the wonderful Aloka. I had a big plate full of the delicious dishes available, the red lentil, tempeh and cashew cheese lasagne was incredible! We couldn’t resist the raw desserts either, and I had a tasty raw cherry and pistachio macaroon. After that I met up with James again and we hit the shops – I made a beeline for Infinity Foods of course!

We finished Tuesday by going back into Brighton for a few drinks with some of James twitter pals which was a lot of fun!

Wednesday

Vegan scone and strawberry jam for breakfast, tasty treats from InSpiral cafe and Wholefoods

We decided to make the trip up to London on Wednesday so we got up early and I enjoyed a delicious vegan scone I’d bought from Infinity Foods the previous day, it tasted so good! We got the train to London and headed to Camden for a look around. It was so cold we didn’t do much looking around the market but thanks to a tweet from Emma I knew that InSpiral Cafe was close by. James warmed up with a latte but I couldn’t resist the opportunity to get a Green Goddess juice and a slice of the amazing chocolate peanut butter pie! I had a look at both the Camden and Soho Wholefoods as well as some of the shops on Oxford Street before came home. I got a totally lush salad bar box from Wholefoods to eat on the train which I also enjoyed with a huge vegan and gluten free peanut butter chocolate brownie that was to die for! Once we got back to Brighton we went to Fat Leos for an Italian meal and more red wine!

Thursday

Me looking half decent for once after getting my make up one at Benefit, Vanilla spice latte, chocolate chilli sorbet and a delicious Indian meal

On Wednesday we had a walk back into Brighton and had a big shopping day! I wanted to get some make up from Benefit and the staff wanted to show me some of the new products so I basically ended up having my whole face made up! We also stopped by Starbucks for about the 8th time that week to get a Vanilla Spice Soya Latte to warm up between shops. For lunch we stopped by Aloka again so I could get a take away box for lunch, but not before heading to Boho Gelato (thanks to Christina for the tip!) for a vegan sorbet. I got the Chocolate Chilli and my god that stuff had a kick, but it was very tasty! For our evening meal we came back into town and tried an Indian buffet restaurant. I had rice, tarka dahl, saag aloo, onion bhaji and naan bread, it was yummy! We also had more red wine:

We had found a bottle that we really liked in The Mesmerist so decided to go back and enjoy!

Friday

Tasty simple breakfast, Falafel sandwich from Infinity Foods Cafe, apple and maple cake and coffee from Iydea and an early valentines day gift from James

We had a nice lie in and I had a simple breakfast of banana, apple and peanut butter before we made our last trip to town. We got some gifts to bring home as well as stopping at Iydea for the most gorgeous apple and maple cake and a almond soy latte. The icing on that cake was incredible! I’d had a huge craving for falafel so we stopped by Infinity Foods Cafe and I got the Falafel sandwich with chilli hummus, tahini and red onion with salad which was lush. While looking in Montezuma’s chocolate shop James bought me an early valentines day gift of some dark chocolate hearts with cacao nibs and dates which were so delicious! Later in the day we had a walk around Hove and got some flowers for my Auntie before getting in an early night ready for our 5am alarm this morning so we could drive back and beat the traffic!

It’s lovely to be home but I am really going to miss Brighton! I feel like all I’ve done this week is drink coffee, eat vegan cake and guzzle red wine! Apart from the Bikram class I haven’t worked out at all, although we must have walked at least 4 miles a day just back and forth between Hove and Brighton! I did bring my running gear but it has been too cold to even attempt it. Overall I’ve really indulged myself this week, I’ve eaten delicious food with abandon, haven’t worried about exercise, and apart from a bit of twitter action I’ve been pretty unplugged from the internet too. I think its been just what I needed! Of course a lot of shopping has been done too, shopping haul post coming up soon! Now I’m just happy to start getting myself back into my routine again.

Hope you’ve all had a great week and are enjoying your weekend!

Hello guys, welcome to my What I Ate Wednesday Party! I thought it would be fun to do a what I ate on holiday edition (this was from last Wednesday), especially as I enjoyed some very tasty eats!

I started my last day in Brighton with a run through Hove and then along the beautiful Brighton seafront:

As my legs were pretty tired I just did a relaxed 10k in 57 minutes followed by some abs and core exercises in my room. To refuel I drank a yummy carton of vanilla soy milk:

After getting washed and dressed I snacked on an apple and a handful of raisins to keep me going:

Then I headed into Brighton to enjoy a tasty brunch at Iydea:

This was a chai soy latte with the granola bowl – the granola was very tasty accompanied by the fresh fruit and soy milk but it was a little on the small side for me! After some shopping I made a beeline for Starbucks to indulge in my favourite Soy Mocha Frappe:

So so good! For lunch I decided to make a return visit to the utterly wonderful Aloka. During the day their cafe serves a hot and cold salad bar which really reminded me of the Whole Foods salad bars!

I filled my plate with so many delicious dishes! This included a base of leafy greens, quinoa and roasted pepper salad, potato and cauliflower curry, Moroccan chickpea salad, potato skins stuffed with millet and toffutti cream cheese, sweet potato and millet mini burgers, beetroot salad and sweet potato and millet chard wraps (which I will be recreating!) For a little dessert I decided to treat myself to a scoop of the raw vanilla and maca ice cream:

This was insanely good! The cashew base made this amazingly creamy :-)

After a little more shopping I made my way back to my Aunts house, picking up a bag of fresh fruit from her local whole food store (so jealous that she literally has one 5 minutes from her house!) I made myself a giant fruit plate containing watermelon, cherries, an apple and a nectarine:

My appetite was ravenous that day! Dinner was a slice of vegan gluten free pizza from Infinity Foods with lots of leafy greens and hummus:

Followed by more fruit, watermelon and strawberries!

Such a day of tasty eats, I wish I could enjoy meals out like that everyday :-)

How often do you treat yourself to eating out? Being mostly vegan its usually more of a hassle than anything else to be able to eat out, at least where I live. Brighton, with its many veggie and vegan options was so refreshing!

Does your town or city have many options for healthy eating out?

Have a great Wednesday!

Last week, during my stay in Brighton I visited the Aloka Quality of Life Centre’s Restaurant. I had walked past it earlier in the week and suggested to the lovely Cat that we have our blogger meet up there.

The Aloka Centre includes an evening restaurant, day time cafe, treatment rooms, a yoga studio and a crystal and cosmetics shop.

The restaurant serves exclusively seasonal vegan food with options for many raw dishes. On first impressions we were very impressed with the interior which was clean and chic:

After ordering our meals we were presented with a raw amuse bouche of seaweed topped with grated apple, diakon and gooseberry:

As you can see the presentation was beautiful! This was delicious, I’d never tried that kind of seaweed before it was lovely with a mild ‘sea’ flavour. Next up was our starter (we both ordered the same dish) of raw spicy carrot dip with raw crackers for dipping:

Again, this was absolutely wonderful, a good size portion too! I loved the raw crackers, as if I needed more convincing to purchase a dehydrator ;-)

For my main course I ordered the Zen Buddha Bowl which consisted of sticky brown rice topped with roast hokkadio squash, steamed nettle, marinaded seaweed, tender stem broccoli, diakon and beetroot pickle and roasted lotus root chips. It also came with a bowl of barley miso broth with ginger, spinach, black sesame seeds and silken tofu:

This was just out of this world delicious, the mix of unusual and exotic flavours was so good! Cat ordered the completely raw Botanical Living Special:

Just look at the beautiful presentation! Cat said she loved this dish too :-)

However nothing could have prepared us for the deliciousness that was dessert:

Raw vegan chocolate mint cheesecake! Oh my god there are simply no words good enough to describe this. It was simply sensational and may just be the most delicious thing I have ever eaten. It was perfect, from the balance of chocolate and mint flavours to its creaminess and texture and delicate crunch from the base, just heavenly. 

Me and the wonderful Cat getting ready to dig in!

The entire meal plus drinks and a tip came to just £30 each which considering the decent portion sizes, quality and presentation of the food is outstanding value in my opinion.

Both myself and Cat agreed that this was probably one of the best meals we had ever enjoyed. I think the fact that we had no idea what to expect and were so pleasantly surprised at what we got made it all the better.

The service we received was also outstanding, the waitress had a great knowledge of all the dishes and ingredients.

I loved the place so much I decided to return to the Cafe for lunch the next day and again, it didn’t disappoint!

I would whole heartedly recommend this restaurant to any lover of exotic or veggie and vegan food.

When was your last most memorable meal and why? The meal we enjoyed after our wedding in Italy was pretty outstanding but this was just amazing! 

Do you have a favourite restaurant? What makes it so special?