St John's College

 

It is no secret that I am not a fan of formal dinners at Cambridge. Until last night my only experience of them was at my own, rather poor college of Selwyn. The food is always overcooked, the vegan dishes are unimaginative and I always get fruit salad for dessert. 

Imagine my surprise then when our lab went to St John's College for formal hall last night and the food was well cooked, beautifully presented, very tasty and the wine was free! And it was cheaper than Selwyn! For shame, Selwyn, for shame.

You can only take photos in hall when the fellows are not present which restricts any photos of the food to dessert.

 

So above is the menu for anyone that's not a vegan. I received an entree of cherry tomatoes, rocket and capers drizzled in seasoned olive oil. For my main I had pasta with a red sauce with mushrooms, courgettes and aubergine with the same fondant potatoes and glazed carrots and black sesame seeds as everyone else. Then for dessert... no fruit salad! It was a very sweet berry, date, fig and raisin compote which I couldn't actually finish so Geoff ate it.

John's is my new favourite place to get a 3 course meal with wine for £9 in Cambridge.

How To Be a Cambridge Vegan II

We found Tesco yesterday which meant we stocked up big on supplies. Which meant I could eat this yummy breakfast!

And the packaging here is so helpful that finding vegan food is very easy!

 We brought our camping saucepan with us and bought a Tefal frying pan for £14 (bargain!) and found a deep, round Pyrex dish in a second hand store for £1.50. We went to this lovely kitchen shop at Market Hill but despite my drooling over some of the lovely items we could only afford a £1.49 wooden spoon (although it's a very nice wooden spoon!). But in all I have the basic items I need to cook which makes me slightly cheerier about the pending, impending, gloomy, doomy cold.

I also found the Cambridge Vegan Society and their website has a good list of vegan friendly restaurants in town which is mighty helpful. So be prepared for some reviews!

There's also something called The Cafe Project here but I'm a little uncertain of it at the moment. I will have to find out more.

How To Be a Cambridge Vegan

Selwyn College

Geoff and I are now officially residents of Cambridge (that's Selwyn College above, we live on the grounds and I'm a member of the college). It's been wonderfully sunny and warm and my bosses, supervisors and lab buddies have all been so wonderful and welcoming that I've hardly noticed we've moved. And since everyone is here at the moment we've been going out to eat a lot.

We ate at the Rainbow Cafe when we first arrived (some readers may remember my not so positive review from April) and my opinion of it remains unchanged although Geoff seemed to like his meal.The following morning we still had no food in the house so went into town (and by that I mean the 5 minute walk across the Cam to the centre of town) and discovered that nothing opens until 10am on Sundays so we walked around a bit and found a lovely little cafe called Indigo Cofee House (Facebook page here) where we had coffee and bagels and did the Times crossword (the easy one, and only once we found it which required asking 2 strangers and a lot of flipping). We have now discovered that the 2.20 pounds refers to the weight of the damn paper and not the price.

I also had lunch at Carluccio's, although could only eat the bruschetta, and we had dinner last night at Browns which was a bit underwhelming but my meal was actually quite nice (despite the lack of protein) it was a nice evening.

We are settled into our new house although are a bit surprised by the lack of a shower. So we've been taking baths, Mr Darcy style, and hopefully we'll get some sort of shower hose fitting soon. This is a photo of the outside of our house of which we only occupy a small part.

Our humble home in the Selwyn Grounds

As I mentioned above we live on the Selwyn grounds so it's very convenient to everything including the lovely gardens.

Selwyn Gardens

And although I was hoping for a gas oven the one we have is electric but it actually works splendidly (we made great pizzas when Zach came over for dinner the other night) so I'm quite happy with it. I cannot wait until my mix master is here and all of my baking tins so I can start cooking again.

This is where the Cambridge Vegan magic will happen.

So for now that's all I have to report. But I would like to give the following, very important advice to anyone ever visiting the static world that is Cambridge:

Cambridge, UK

There is only one vegetarian restaurant in Cambridge although it does sell a lot of vegan food. It's called the Rainbow Cafe and is opposite King's College. I went there twice ordering the lentil soup with sundried tomoto garlic bread and an elderflower drink on the first day and the chocolate and raspberry vegan cheesecake with pomegranate and cranberry tea the second day.

Well, the lentil soup was bland to the point where I was so bored eating it I was just going to leave. The garlic bread was a disappointment as the sundried tomatoes were just chucked on top of the bread and baked in the oven so they came out burnt and leathery. I was expecting some sort of vegan garlic and sundried tomato butter (and with a blender it would take 2 mins to make) but it was not to be.

The cheesecake had a smooth and creamy texture but barely tasted like anything. The biscuit crust was equally disappointing. The tea, however, was very pleasant but as they just added hot water I can't really give them credit for that.

The restaurant itself is in a basement and is quite cramped and can get really hot in the back room as that is where the kitchen is also. There is seating in the front room but apparently they don't use it.

The place has received really good reviews from a lot of different places but I was not impressed. Especially since the prices are around 11 pounds each dish.

I did eat somewhere that was modest and delicious, though. My friend Zach (I think he likes to be called Comrade Zach) invited me and some other friends over for dinner while I was in Cambridge. He cooked an asian stir fry which was delicious. I think this was partly credit to the fact that he accidentally put half a bottle of tamari in when adding the sauces. But it looked great (kind of like an asian risotto!) and tasted great and everyone was going back for seconds.

The good news is it looks like I may have snagged myself a spot at the Cavendish lab at Cambridge University for the next four years so this Not-So-Skinny-Vegan will be moving her blog to the UK and will have ample opportunity to try out the Rainbow Cafe a little more, eat more of Zach's cooking and will be able to cook for all her new friends.