Oriental Choice, Inverness

Oriental Choice on Union Street shares its staircase with a less than salubrious B&B, but DON'T be put off by the threadbare carpet or possible drunken person sat on the steps leading up to the restaurant!

We had a beautiful meal at Oriental Choice tonight - lots of different tofu dishes and vegetables. A lot of dishes had a szechuan or northern chinese influence, which makes a change from the meat fest of cantonese restaurants! The staff were really accommodating and friendly.

Food Porn: Our table had the vegetarian spring rolls, crispy seaweed for starters. For mains we had "home-style" tofu, which was silken tofu in a chilli-soy sauce, red braised "hong shao" aubergine, tofu in a chilli sauce, Kung Pao tofu with cashew nuts, tofu in a black bean sauce, stir fried aubergines, and stir fried red braised "hong shao" potatoes, in a soya sauce. These were served with boiled rice or fried rice vermicelli.

There were lots more dishes that were veggie that will have to be tried in the future.

Definite venue for the future!

http://www.oriental-choice.co.uk/   01463 712 715

A long overdue review of the Corner Grill

The Corner Grill photo © Copyright Kenneth Allen and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

The Corner Grill, 50 Union Street, Inverness, Highland IV11PX
01463 226 767

This is the usual haunt of Vegan Inverness. Having eaten at several venues since the birth of Vegan Inverness in January 2010, we breathed a huge sigh of relief (and loosened our belts) when we found this place. The front of house staff and chef are brilliant, always friendly and accommodating, put up our guestimate reservations and most importantly make delicious grub.

Since the beginning they've created inventive menus, giving us vegans a choice of 3 starters, mains and 2 puddings. After a chat with the friendly chef at the first meeting we threw down the gauntlet of making us a chocolate vegan cheesecake and incredibly, it has become a regular fixture on our vegan dessert menu.

The food seems to get more interesting and inventive, e.g. roasted vegetable sushi, courgette and puy lentil soup, sweet potato stew, chimichurri tofu... it is really refreshing to know that a chef sees vegan food as an interesting challenge and not a task that is to be dreaded.

sidenote - Surely vegetarians must be sick of the ubiquitous goats cheese and rocket salad you get on every menu?? Restaurants need to have the confidence to stand behind their vegan dishes and put them out there for everyone to try. I think that having at least one vegan main on a menu is not a big ask. I'm certain that many vegetarians and meat eaters alike will eat a vegan meal every now and then but just not realize it. It would be a refreshing change for everyone - it's just a tasty meal that just happens not to have meat, eggs or milk in it.

I've been vegan since 2001 and like many vegans I've had some shocking food in some apparently acclaimed restaurants despite calling well in advance(e.g. in Contrast, Inverness - still trying to forget that meal, filthy).

The food at the CG is as good as any veggie food i've had in London - really! and the atmosphere and service is much friendlier.

Anyway, enough gushing. I just wanted to write a little blurb to say thanks to the folks at The Corner Grill, we really, really appreciate your efforts, don't go changing (except perhaps putting a vegan main on the menu)!

~Karen for Vegan Inverness

Vegetarian Store in Nairn!

Sky Delights, 9 Leopold Street, Nairn, IV12 4BE. Tel: 01667 452874 

Went for a drive yesterday and decided to stop off in Nairn having heard of some vegan cheese paninis at a shop there. 

The owner Sam is a vegan and had originally intended to have a vegan cake making business but the lease on this shop came up, and the rest is history.

Lovely shop, bright and cheerful with some window seating. It did indeed have vegan cheese paninis amongst others, vegan carrot cake (yum), vegan marbled chocolate cookies, vegan tofu loaf and other yum things. It has a really impressive selection of organic products, including tofu from The Engine Shed.
We bought lots.

Highly recommended!!