The Little Coffee Company

I was on my way to Boho Gelato with the boyfriend when we spotted a possibly new or previously unnoticed coffee shop, The Little Coffee Company in Brighton. It had a large sign outside saying 'Vegetarian and Vegan Sandwiches'. Who can resist that?

The server said they were closing in 10 minutes which was a surprise at 3.30ish in the afternoon but maybe it was because it is a bank holiday weekend. The opening hours on their website are much longer 10am-5pm on a Sunday, 7am-7pm Mon-Fri and 9am-7pm on Saturdays. It meant that we had to choose what we wanted quickly. Luckily they have clear signs on the food for vegetarian, gluten free and/or vegan. I was in the mood for sugar so went for the Vegan Chocolate ginger Torte and it was lovely. I'm not sure if that was the name they gave it as it was a bit of a rush. It was very gingery, chocolatey, dense and satisfying.

Bad phone photo

I'm excited to go another day to have a sandwich and a cup of coffee. I saw a white bap with peanut butter and jam being advertised but didn't have time to discover more.

We still got boho gelato sorbet. I had chocolate and banana which was yum.

Vegan Hastings!

Hastings has vegan options. My family have been on holiday in Hastings this week and I came to join them on Tuesday. They did their research and found 'Eat @ ours' who run 2 vegan friendly cafes in the area. 'Eat @ The Park' is in Alexandra Park, that my family went to before picking me up from the station, and 'Eat @ The Stade' is in Hastings Old Town. Their @ The Park menu is on the website and the food @ The Stade is very similar.

I went with them to Eat @ The Stade and enjoyed a baked potato, bean chilli, vegan cheese, salad and hummus. The hummus was to replace the coleslaw. I enjoyed the chilli and cheese but the hummus was a bit much with the cheese. It was a proper filling meal though. My mum had the same as me. My dad had the all day breakfast which I would have had if I liked mushrooms, vegan bacon and tomatoes. I did try the hash brown and sausage which were good. My sister had the burger which she did think was probably your average vegan burger from the supermarket but we do like vegan burgers from supermarkets. They had a good range of vegan drinks including Fentiman's soft drinks and Weston's cider. We love Fentiman's.

The Vegan breakfast and the baked potato with bean chilli and cheese. Washed down with Fentiman's ginger beer and Fentiman's Shandy.

Good everyday vegan food. It was nice to find vegan food when we weren't expecting it but if you visit Hastings I would suggest also visiting Brighton for something a bit more special.

Next, we wanted dessert. Vegan sorbet seems to be popping up everywhere this summer. Hastings hasn't been left out. There are a few ice cream and sorbet places as you might expect in a seaside town. We chose 'Di Pola's' and asked if the sorbets contained any animal ingredients. The server and the manager were both very helpful answering our questions "so no milk? no eggs? no gelatine?". The manager told the server to use a different serving spoon to ensure that there had been no contamination. We  each had a different flavour; strawberry, banana and kiwi. My mum sampled all of ours. They also had blueberry or lemon. They had a lovely flavour that actually tasted like the fruits and were not too sugary. The texture of the sorbet is great and we were wondering if we could recreate any ourselves with the right ice cream maker. I'm definitely thinking of getting one. We plan to go back for more sorbet on our last day too.

A google search for Di Pola's comes up with this quirky video. They also have a facebook page.
A google search for Fentiman's also comes up with some funny videos that make it look a bit dangerous to drink it!