VVOC.org

It was truly magnificent to be a part of the London Vegan festival this past summer. So much inspiration. So many great people from all over the world. Workshops, tasty food, talks and great company – what can be better? It becomes better when it’s all vegan! And in that place, in that time, it was definitely so. Discussions were challenging. Recepies affordable. Cruelty free alternatives soothing to the soul. All in all a wonderful day in a life of an Orthodox Christian Vegan person.

P.S. Yeah, I know… One of the Christian groups’ talks was awfully boring and a huge disappointment for the people who attended. Let’s hope, that it works out better for them next year as I don’t think that a 45 minute monologue of Bible quotations will be welcomed again. I’d also like to hope that VVOC.org’s voice will one day be present at the London Vegan Festival – the voice of vegan and vegetarian Orthodox Christians needs to be heard much more.

As you know, VVOC.org is a resource for vegan and vegetarian Orthodox Christians. The site’s contributors form a loose network of vegan and vegetarian Orthodox Christians who also try to get together (in their localities) for a meal as often as they can.

Up until recently, the network was primarily made up of the founding members who were based in Brisbane – Australia. Thanks to other vegetarian and vegan websites, VVOC.org has been widely promoted and its existence has been brought to the attention of a much larger number of vegan and vegetarian Orthodox Christians – both within Australia and overseas.

To broaden the scope of the site’s material, VVOC.org is happy to announce that Anastasija Lewis is joining the contributor’s team as a content provider. She is a vegan Orthodox Christian based in London – U.K. and will be focusing on animal rights issues. Anastasija is also hoping to give a talk on Orthodox Christianity and Veganism at the annual Oriental Churches meet up in London as well as bring together vegan and vegetarian Orthodox Christians in her locality for regular meals. All VVOC.org’s original contributors welcome Anastasija and look forward to her postings from the U.K.

Anastasija is a psychologist by profession. She describes her journey to veganism on our updated testimonials page – please check it out.

8-10 Neal’s Yard, London WC2

Funky is the style at this smart place that opened in 1982 and may have seemed a little retro in its ambience even then; now it almost suggests self-parody. But it’s a great  place to sit in the open air and admire the local scenery. For starters we enjoyed a vegan soup (pumpkin with coriander) and bruschetta on a kind of crisp bread made of rice flour. My companion ordered a quiche of spinach and ricotta that she pronounced ‘perfectly pleasant’, while I went for a large salad of tomato, celery, leek, beetroot, grated carrot and cucumber, its beautiful colours  echoing the psychedelic get-up of the neighbourhood.  For drinks you can’t go past the ABC (apple, beetroot and carrot)…so many vitamins in the heart of London! The food here is seriously good for you, and for some people this Salad Bar offers a trip down memory lane, although not necessarily the kind of trip people often took in those groovy days.

Kattens vern (cat conservation)

When in Norway recently, I visited a store that sold all things cat.  It was really lovely and had everything from clothing, jewelry, handbags and clothing, to items to make your cat’s life as happy as it could be.  I discovered it was actually an organisation raising money to look after the homeless cats of Norway!  Check out their website www.kattensvern.no (Google translate comes in very handy…)

As a cat lover, it’s so great to see that there are people in other countries just as concerned for their welfare.  If you read the story on the website about a Norwegian woman trying to help the cats in Libyan markets, you will be very sad, but it’s encouraging that she is making such an effort.

I like that they have used Ghandi’s quote on their website:

“A nation’s greatness and its ethical progress can be judged by how it treats animals …
I believe that the more helpless an animal is, the more it is eligible for human protection from human cruelty.”

44 Cloth Fair, London EC1

Located, as the name of the street suggests, in a most interesting area of old London, and a stone’s throw from the Romanesque church of St Bartholomew the Great where we had been to a wonderful performance of medieval music, this vegetarian organic Italian restaurant was just the place for an apres concert. We feasted on bruschetta al pomodoro, more dainty in its presentation than this dish sometimes is, tagliere con foccacia (bread, cheese, olives and oil for dipping), crocchetta (luscious aubergines with spelt cake),  cous-cous and a dish of polenta with chick peas, tomato and shavings of carrot. For desert we were offered four different sorbets, among them an especially memorable peach. There is an interesting list of Italian wines, all of them organic and each labelled vegan or vegetarian; I’ll take a dry white with food of this kind. Stylish in ambience and innovative in its cuisine, Amico Bio can mix it with the best of them. I hope to be able to repay the generosity of the kind friends who took me there very soon!

40-42 Caledonian Rd, London W1, UK

The walls of this attractive restaurant display various Ethiopian artefacts, and it’s obviously popular with members of that community. Among the wide range of vegetarian options, one of the salads is a winner: tomatoes, shredded lettuce and slices of green chilli are drenched in plenty of lemon juice and olive oil, giving it a very fresh and clean taste. For a main meal, the Yetesom Beyaynetu provides injera, the sourdough soft bread, with serves of legumes, such as lentils, and vegetables, among them a very satisfying cabbage and potato. It’s a tasty and filling meal, but be warned that the proportion of bread is high. There’s also an amazing side dish of long green chillis stuffed with finely chopped onion. Needless to say this has a strong taste, one that lingers in your mouth when you have stopped eating, but if you have some injera at hand there’s no reason to be daunted. This cuisine could never be described as subtle, but its tastes are appealing, it is extremely wholesome, and to judge by the folk at the Addis, those who eat it are lovely.

50 Queensway, London W2

Indian food is now so well established in Britain that it becomes an interesting experience to sample the food in a restaurant that, to judge from the variety of languages and range of accents of English spoken by the diners, mainly caters for visitors to the country. You can begin with vegetable samosas, of the small variety with flaky pastry, or a bowl of dahl in which the legumes have dissolved, topped with flecks of parsley and a slice of lemon you can squeeze with your spoon to release the juice. The main dishes include an aloo gobi which, despite being enlivened by pieces of tomato, I found a little bland and, most unusually when eating Indian food, wanted to add pepper to, and sag chana, a dish made more interesting by the stronger flavour of the spinach. Perhaps the food here is less spicy than usual in Britain…could this be because the British have become accustomed to the strong tastes of Indian food, so that a restaurant aiming at visitors will tone down the intensity? A meal here is a reminder of the infinite possibilities of Indian food!

100 Eu Tong St (#03/16 Pearl’s Centre) Singapore

Ignoring the opinion of the Greek philosopher who believed that you cannot step into the same river twice I decided to return to a restaurant where I had eaten very well in the past (posting of 5 Dec 2010). A dish of sweetened green chillies having been brought as an appetiser it seemed a good idea to order a meal based as much as possible on green foods. The first dish to arrive was spinach and mushrooms, the latter white and thinly sliced with a hint of ginger in the background. Next to come was bean curd with green chillies in a black bean sauce that gave it just the right amount of saltiness. In typical Chinese fashion the soup brought up the rear. It was based on green vegetables with a few additions, among them chunks of tomato (red, not green!) that complimented and washed down the other dishes perfectly. On this follow up visit I was impressed not only with the immense depth of the menu but also the way in which each dish has been thought out and prepared in a way to bring out the best in the ingredients. Perhaps this slightly different perspective supports the opinion of Heraklitos: the river may stay the same, but the person stepping into it may have changed. Be this as it may, I left the Happy Realm in a state of great contentment, not even being tempted by the whiff of durian from the stalls in Eu Tong Street. May this unusually long review encourage others to sample its wares.

The nearest SMRT station is Outram Park.

140 Serangoon Rd, Singapore

Among the various possibilities at this busy restaurant I recommend the set lunch. On a tray come rice and a small papadum, three serves of dry food (spinach with mung beans, potato and cauliflower curry, and a cold dish of greens and carrot accompanied by a dollop of chilli), three bowls of runny brown food (including a wonderful sambal, really no more than spicy water but very refreshing, and dahl) and two bowls of dairy based dishes, including a sago pudding. On the table are jugs of water and forks and spoons for those who need them; those who eat without such tools will need to wash their hands in the basins at the back of the restaurant. There’s quite a crowd here, which is not surprising given that lunch will set you back a mere $4.50, but they always seem able to fit more people in. Why not go with the flow?

The nearest SMRT station is Little India.