Strictly it’s not ice cream but “non-dairy frozen dessert” (whatever). To me, ice cream isn’t worth eating unless it has lumps and chunks and caramel rivers in it so this ticks all the boxes and takes me back to my pre-vegan Haagen-Dazs days. I’m yet to try their new coconut milk-based line, but I have heard great things. Needs to get itself over to Europe soon, Swedish Glace is getting old.

. . . Evidently, they changed their name after this sign was made.

The menu: mostly Asian with many surprises like this awesome taquito platter. The taquitos were stuffed with fake chicken, and served with pico de gallo, guacamole, rice and black beans. This is the kind of meal I could eat in between meals.

One gets the impression that this is an upscale white-collar lunch place: pricey, but tasty. Luckily, our lunch came out of the “band fund”. I highly recommend starting a band – if only to pay for nice meals in foreign restaurants.

I went to L.A. to play F Yeah Fest. While I should have been hanging out with friends and seeing the other bands, I got distracted by a restaurant across the street. See, I get excited whenever I see an enormous “VEGAN” banner.

Thai food seems to be their specialty, with fake chicken and satay prominent on the appetizer list. But I was most excited by their burger list. They had a burger for everything: fish, bacon, even tofu scramble.

I ordered the pepper steak burger, with avocado and soy cheese. When it came, the “steak” looked and felt like two hunks of pencil eraser. And upon eating, the entire thing annihilated itself within my grasp. While both appearance and performance get low marks, the taste was incredibly good! It’s hard to dislike a burger when it’s got avocado, cheese and ketchup on it – even after the thing decided to turn itself into a pile of savory gloop.

Another volunteer-run cafe, Pogo is also the only all-vegan cafe in London. It’s a little off the beaten track, on Clarence Road in Hackney, but it’s a favourite of ours and a must-visit if you’re in the city for a few days. There’s also a good independent secondhand bookstore a few doors down if you need another reason to drop by. Pogo is a no-frills kind of place, but the (mostly organic) food is homely and the staff are always friendly.

During the week there’s a menu of burgers, drinks, cakes, and an ever-changing specials board… But if you only have time to visit once, you should go on a weekend and try the brunch. It costs around £5, varies slightly according to availability/time, but is always unbeatable.

This photo demonstrates the ‘Angel’ breakfast vs the ‘Devil’ breakfast. Get the former and feel virtuous, get the latter and take a food nap afterwards. We must also recommend the milkshakes, the mango cake, the nachos, and the overwhelming Knickerbocker Glory. They also have a book exchange, free internets, show movies for free on Monday evenings, have their own cookbook zine, and host various classes/meets.

Ché Café is a volunteer-run venue and community space. I played an all-ages show here with my band. After kids started showing up we heard that there were people in the back making vegan nachos! We offered to pay for some but they gave us them for free!

Forgive my sloppy photo – anyway, nachos aren’t glamorous food. These had black beans, tofu and soy chorizo. The cheese was really-really good and nachoey. More vegan nacho venues please!

Last week we went to Norway for Øya Festival. Not the best destination for vegans, but after a long walk through unknown streets, we managed to find and eat at Kafe Blitz.

In a country where even a sandwich and a drink are £10, we were surprised that 10 kroner will buy anything on the menu. We asked which sandwiches were vegan (everyone in Norway speaks excellent English) and picked two with apple juices. The total was just over $5.

As you can see… It’s very simple. A single piece of bread, mayo, lettuce, tofu, tomato and wimpy little pieces of red onion. But after grumbling past the hotel’s meat-and-cheese-laden buffet every morning, we were thrilled to find cheap and dependable food.

I was surprised to hear how long that Blitz has been open, providing incomparably cheap food and serving as a radical meeting place for over 25 years. An incredible feat for any community space (Happy 6th, 1919 Hemphill!) this is a HUGE achievement in the fifth most expensive country in the world.

After our previous altercation with Laura’s Idea, we decided to give her a second chance and picked up a tofu and spinach pancake (sorry, no photo) at Spitalfields Organics (a very good independent grocery store) in London. We are pleased to report that it was Very Delicious. It’s just salty spinach and plain tofu in a wholewheat pancake, but tasty enough to build bridges. Their website is still rubbish, though.

Texas is so spread out that vegan cowpokes like me keep track of every veggie restaurant within 100 miles. Suma – which everybody calls Suma’s, for no reason – is about as far from home as I’d be willing to go, but yee-haw it’s worth it. Incidentally, Veggie Garden – the only other veggie buffet in the DFW area – is only a few blocks down the street.

My friend Rick and I arrived only minutes before their lunch buffet ended. The staff insisted we could stay but let us know that they wouldn’t be making any more food. So we nodded and thankyoued and decided to get our buffet to-go.

Even though we were getting scraps, I found myself in warm, slimy heaven. In addition to barbecue chicken which tests the limit to “all-you-can-eat”, they have pork, kung pao beef, orange chicken, hot and sour soup with tofu strips, and more, and more, and more… (drool). EDIT: They used to have a curry with milk in, but now they have a sign proudly proclaiming that all their food is vegan.

The buffet is $6.80, from 11am-2pm, and then they close until 5pm when they reopen for dinner. I generally prefer Veggie Garden over Suma. The food is usually the same (tasty and plentiful) but Suma has doughtnuts, and the other has sushi and fresh fruit. Decide accordingly.

Making vegan cheesecake isn’t very hard at all. In fact, the availability of soy-based cream cheese (courtesy of Tofutti) coupled with not having to like, beat eggs or anything, makes it one of the easiest and tastiest naughty desserts you can make. Still, we were excited to see a little (quite expensive) vegan cheesecake at Fresh & Wild…

This is as far as I got before realising that I was eating wallpaper paste. And this is a flattering photo. Tofu and gruel does not a cheesecake make, Laura! It’s a good thing the rest of our picnic was so good, because this mutinous pot of goop threatened to put us off dessert for the rest of our lives (okay, not really)… But comically bland, overpriced bilge like this gives vegan food a bad name.

We went to Berlin for the weekend after managing (thanks to Craigslist) to procure an apartment at the last minute. Our first lunch spot was Hans Wurst, a “bio” organic vegan cafe we read about here. The menu is small (curry, soup, sandwiches and burgers) but apparently changes regularly. We ordered a veggie burger and a tofu-sauerkraut sandwich. While we waited, we enjoyed a raspberry milkshake.

This being Germany, we should have known the sauerkraut sandwich was going to be more sauer than we’re used to. The first bite made Anthony cry! The burger was more of a sandwich but we’ll forgive its ambiguity as it was so delicious. A cheesy veggie patty with mustard, pickles, and salad, sandwiched between two slices of toast. The potato wedges it came with tasted disconcertingly like fried chicken… but in kind of a good way.

We should have been satisfied with our lot, but we decided for the sake of culinary exploration to order dessert instead – one chocolate chip cookie cake thing and one very sweet banana peanut butter cookie cake thing. Bleurgh. They would have been nice if our bellies actually wanted them.

This could have been the end of our sweet friendship with Hans Wurst, but on day 2 we were brunch-hungry and didn’t like the look of the food at our planned vegetarian brunch-spot, Cafe Morgenrot on Kastanienallee. Maybe we got there too late for the good stuff, but it seemed a bit sweaty and cheese-heavy, so we went back to what we knew, the all-vegan Hans Wurst. Their all-you-can-eat brunch buffet is a sight to behold. We ordered milkshakes again and got a good table out on the street and loaded our plates with all manner of things – smoked tofu, houmous and dips, bread, salad, vegetables – and, um, puddings, crumbles, and cereal.

Nom nom nom. We ate so much that, coupled with German hangovers, the heat became unbearable. So we left after paying between €7-10 each, according to what we could afford. We couldn’t recommend this place more. Eat at Hans Wurst! Give them your weird-looking €s!