VEGAN LONDON: Saf Restaurant, Whole Foods Market Kensington

Even though we'd been out until 3:00am hanging out with our new Italian friends and checking out a fancy casino, we still managed to wake up at our regular time of 8:00am and see the sights!  I admit this was the day my feet hurt the most; we packed in Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey (St. Paul's Cathedral had been the day before), The London Eye, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, and Harrod's before settling down to dinner at Saf Restaurant: a vegan establishment located in Whole Foods Kensington.

 

Yep, it's a regular Whole Foods with a full, vegan restaurant upstairs.  Did I mention it's vegan?

Indeed.

We were ridiculously excited, and then we stumbled upon this sign in the stairwell.  WTF, WF; seriously?  This "animal welfare rating" system that's been instituted is just another layer of the humane myth that allows them to keep profiting off making people feel better about using animals for food- totally incongruent to the vegan restaurant to which we were headed.  Major buzzkill. 

You don't get credit for wanting to improve someone's quality of life when you still intend to kill them.

So, the second floor of the Whole Foods is the "food court" area and Saf takes up about half of that space. 

While the layout is open, it's still defined as a wholly separate space from the communal seating.

It wasn't terribly busy later in the evening when we were there, so I'm not sure if it would be unpleasantly noisy from the people dining outside the restaurant confines at a more usual dining time.

My friend ordered this healthy juice concoction: beetroot carotene: beetroot, carrot, and orange juice.

I, on the other hand, ordered the vanilla and grape raspberry mojito: a refreshing mix of vanilla-infused, organic papagayo rum mixed with muddled grapes raspberries, fresh mint, agave syrup, and fresh lime juice.  I'm not entirely sure how a restaurant located in a supermarket "runs out" of grapes, but the raspberry substitution was fine; I was just happy to be sitting.

For an appetizer I ordered the raw cauliflower wings: cauliflower "wings" marinated with Spanish sweet paprika and chipotle chili, served with celery sticks and aioli dipping sauce.  Let me put it in simpler terms: they took some raw cauliflower, dusted it with paprika and chili powder, and called them wings.  They weren't even trying!  I admit raw food isn't my favorite, but I have been known to enjoy it.  However, the term "wings" in this instance was more than a bit of a stretch and we weren't exactly competing for the last one.  The aioli was delish, though: filled with fresh dill.

My friend ordered the red lentil soup: served with organic, gluten-free bread.

I have to be honest, there weren't a ton of entree options that were floating my boat.  If you can believe it, we both wound up ordering the same dinner of massaman curry: a Southern Thai coconut curry with baby potatoes, mange tout [snow peas!], pumpkin, bamboo shoots, baby corn, and cherry tomatoes served with mixed wild rice.  Yep; more curry/more cilantro.  He kept his cilantro:

I gracelessly picked mine off.

I've pretty much never met a curry I didn't like, but- for the record, I could determine nothing wild about the rice.

Did I mention I was happy to be sitting?  Our view.

I have no complaints about the dinner (the appetizer was another story), but- overall, I wasn't overly  impressed by the experience; it was definitely missing a wow factor.  The menu at Saf seems to change regularly, so perhaps on a different day there would have been more appealing options.  In the end, it's wonderful that this Whole Foods chooses to have a vegan restaurant on premise- regardless of the fact that it doesn't necessarily mesh well with the extraordinary nonsense of their "animal welfare rating system."

For those interested, know that Saf also carries take-out items on the main level of the store: Saf Express.

London tip: They really seem to love cilantro in London; it's used as a generous garnish a lot and is never mentioned on the menu.  If you're a hater like me, remember to ask them to leave it off!

VEGAN LONDON: Mildred's Vegetarian Restaurant

At 10:00pm on our second evening in London- after the unexpectedly unfortunate experience earlier in the evening, we found ourselves hungry and with no plan of where to go and what to eat.  I'd like to say that I consulted my trusty mental dictionary of London eats, but the truth is I just scoured the old-school spreadsheet and corresponding map I'd created prior to the trip and had been carrying around for just such an occasion.  When we figured in travel time & logistics, as well as a small margin for error, the choice was clear: Mildred's Vegetarian Restaurant.

For some reason that I've yet to pinpoint the origination of, I'd been operating under the assumption that Mildred's was going to be a crunchy, granola, old-school tofu & sprouts vegetarian joint.  I'm happy to report that I couldn't have been more wrong.  In fact, it was exactly the dining experience we needed- in every respect, given the disappointing one we'd just had prior.

To start, even though it is a vegetarian restaurant, the vegan selections are the majority.  They are clearly marked, and most of the non-vegan choices have a vegan option.

The dining room was bright and clean, the customers comfortable, and the staff bustling.

I had the distinct sense that this is where locals come for consistently good comfort food served in a pleasant atmosphere.

So hungry!  We started by sharing gyoza dumplings: with mirin and soy dipping sauce.  My travelling companion isn't generally one to order fried dumplings, but we were both in a weakened state by this point; they were delish.

He chose the burger special, noted on the menu for having a vegan option: burger of the day (rosemary and thyme risotto) with relish, red onion, rocket and tomato, with fries and basil mayo.

Believe it or not, I skipped the chips (ok; I did taste one- mostly so I could try the basil mayo!) and went instead for this hardy curry: Sri Lankan sweet potato and cashew nut curry served with yellow basmati rice with peas and coconut tomato sambal.

Ah; better.  Once the pesky cilantro was removed, it was exactly what my water-logged, empty-stomached body needed.

It was so nice to choose from a wealth of vegan options in such a pretty, down-to-earth (but not earthy!) restaurant, chock-full of like-minded folks doing the same.  We had a nice conversation with the couple next to us, from the English countryside, who had recently visited NY and we schooled them in NY life outside of Times Square.  In the end, we were extremely satiated by our meal and, ultimately, so happy with how the evening turned out...despite the conversation with the waiter wherein I embarrassingly referred to a pound coin as a dollar and was jokingly corrected, "$1.65!"- much to the amusement of the dining room.  Always a riot to poke fun at the foreigners!  A great place; do give it a try.


note the water line on my pants from the morning's soaking


London Tip: If you don't wear proper shoes, it will probably rain.  Changing into dry socks will help immeasurably (at least until they absorb the moisture still contained within your sneakers).  Keep a spare pair in your pocket or risk having to buy a pair in a souvenir shop for 4.99 pounds because you just.can't.stand.it.anymore. 

Gives new meaning to the term "tube socks".