Tofu Vegan, Islington, Chinese restaurant review

It always amuses me when I see people ranting about vegan food as though it's a threat to their existence. Spoiler alert, eating a bit less meat, fish or dairy isn’t going to speed up human extinction…

Whilst I enjoy a steak, doner kebab or keema naan as much as the next glutton, I’m fully on board with trying to eat a bit less meat and dairy.

Which brings me to the utterly brilliant Tofu Vegan in London, which serves a menu dedicated to vegan Chinese cookery. As they explain on their menu, it all makes a lot of sense as China has a rich tradition of plant-based cooking with grains, vegetables and tofu forming the core of many people’s diets.

Regional Chinese influences, including Sichuan and Cantonese, can be found across their cooking, with compelling sounding dishes like cloud ear fungus salad with coriander and pickled chilli, Dongbei sweet potato noodle sheets in spicy sesame sauce, hot and fragrant fried cauliflower, and Peking d’ck. 

Okay, I’m not 100% sure about that last one. 

I visited the Islington branch (they also have outlets in Spitalfields and Golders Green) with my good friend Pete, who’s a regular and so could advise on some essential orders. Everything we ate was rammed with flavour and clever texture contrasts.

A bowl of delicately skinned wontons (£7.90) had a minced meat textured, mushroom funked filling. They sat in a deep flavoured and delicately fiery house special sauce.

Sprightly stir-fried water spinach (£8.80) was bathed in a light and savoury dressing with the occasional nugget of potent chilli.

In contrast, crisp battered meaty morsels of oyster mushroom (£13.80), crunchy cashews and fresh spring onions were coated in a comforting sweet and sticky gong bao sauce with a balancing delicate sourness.

Gorgeously crisp-edged and tender morsels of cumin ‘lamm’ (£13.80) were the star of the show. The uncannily meaty tofu pieces were coated in a wonderfully savoury and earthy cumin-based spice mix and flecked with crisp sweet onions and slices of chilli.

It was even better stuffed into a pair of pillowy bao (£3.80).

Finally, a plate of Sichuan stir fry noodles (£8.90) had an addictive smoky savouriness from the wok and were dotted with little pieces of tender pork-esque tofu and crisp beansprouts and onions.

I had a fabulous lunch at Tofu Vegan. If it helps me do my bit for the planet then I'd gladly eat there any day of the week. How selfless of me.

The Details:

Address - Tofu Vegan, 105 Upper St, London N1 1QN

Web - https://tofuvegan.com/

Telephone - 020 7916 3304

Gorse, Pontcanna fine dining restaurant review

Tom, Pontcanna; Thomas, Pontcanna; Tommy, Pontcanna.

It’s surely a glitch in the Matrix that three of Cardiff’s very best chefs all have a variation of the same name and own restaurants within 200m of each other.

Tom Waters and his restaurant Gorse is the newest member of this illustrious trio. Recently shortlisted as Chef to Watch at the National Restaurant Awards, Tom's impressive CV includes stints as sous chef at the now closed Michelin-starred Bonhams in Mayfair and junior sous chef at Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck. 

Tom has been operating Gorse as a pop-up for the last couple of years and our visit in November 2022 was a late contender for meal of the year.

In another coup for Pontcanna, Gorse finally opened its permanent home in May on the former site of Kemi’s. 

It’s a bright, modern and intimate space with an understated element of luxury, very much in keeping with Tom’s style of cooking.

There’s a relaxed atmosphere too, in part due to the open kitchen where the team calmly work away and in part due to the friendly front of house team.

I’m already prepared to award Gorse my Cardiff restaurant of the year based on the fact they serve The Kernel’s Table Beer (£5.50), a 3% easy drinker that has bags more flavour and body than many higher ABV beers.

There’s plenty of interest on the wine by the glass too, with highlights including a thick Rijckaert Arbois Savignan (£18) from the Jura, brioche-y Geminae Champagne (£12), and a spice-twanged Bulgarian natural Merlot (£9.50) without any barnyard funk.

On the food front, Gorse offers a set lunch (£35) as well as seven course (£75) and ten course tasting menus (£100). We went big, and then went home.

The meal kicked off with a deeply savoury Pembrokeshire seaweed broth. A light yet mammoth flavoured showcase of Welsh ingredients, it was most certainly a statement of intent.

A slice of sweet bara brith was fried to give it golden crispy edges before being topped with salty and creamy Dolwerdd sheep’s brie. It was a corker of a combination. I’d love to say that shavings of summer truffle brought something extra to the party, but they were rather recessive in their fragrance and flavour.

The final snack was a crisp tart filled with a layer of rich smoked cod’s roe and pearls of cleansing salty trout roe. It pushed its seasoning to the limit but stayed just on the right side of saltiness.

Our first dish proper saw slices of clean-flavoured raw gurnard that were balanced by a creamy horseradish sauce that delivered a good nose-tingling hit of warmth. It was an excellent plate. 

A hearty bowl of silky smooth and rich bone marrow set custard was topped with a roasted kelp sauce, and earthy morel mushrooms. It was all seriously meaty and addictive, with the occasional preserved wild garlic seed providing little pops of top note fragrance and acidity.

Beautifully sweet white spider crab meat was topped with a judicious quantity of decadent caviar. It was joined by a compellingly complex smoked butter and vermouth sauce topped with the savoury hit of kelp oil.

Apparently, most of Pembrokshire’s spider crab heads to France and Tom has used his powers of persuasion to get a fisherman to regularly send him a few. It means we can have some of the good stuff too.

Hear me out, but the next dish reminded me of a McDonald’s hamburger, in a very very good way. A creamy, rich and deeply savoury barley risotto (there was roasted yeast in there somewhere too) with a lovely bite was topped with the crunch of hazelnut and pickled spruce, which had a dill pickle kind of vibe going on. The dish’s deep savouriness and contrasting pickle fragrance transported me straight to the Golden Arches at 1am on a Saturday night.

Gorse’s bread course needs no introduction by now – fresh out the oven, a beautifully light, soft, and delicately sweet bum cheek-esque loaf was mesmerising on its own. But the addition of whipped sea-twanged laver butter took it up another gear.

A wedge of tender charred pointed cabbage was accompanied by a kick ass light-bodied yet luxurious onion bearnaise, the tarragon replaced by a clever allium hit. Mrs G had saved a bit of her bread from the previous course for mopping up some of the sauce. Fortunately, she let me have a bit too.

A flaky fillet of delicately cooked hake sat on top of a mound of sweet leeks in a pool of vivid green little gem lettuce sauce. It was a clean yet also decadent dish.

A big-flavoured piece of Huntsham beef rib had a good bit of texture yet remained tender. On the side, a glossy sauce was spiked with pickled mustard seeds, silky smooth carrot puree and roasted carrot provided sweetness, and a little pile of crispy cabbage was pleasingly reminiscent of Chinese takeaway crispy seaweed.

Onto the sweet courses, and a couple of florally fragrant apple marigold syrup steeped strawberries were hollowed out and filled with cream. We were provided with spoons, but there was only one way to eat these, with our hands.

A sweet and malty crunchy golden crumb and a scoop of silky-smooth brown butter ice cream had the uncanny likeness of eating a lux bowl of cereal. Even more so because it appeared to have been served in a retro glass cereal bowl.

Finally, a trio of treats were all corkers: a gorgeously toasty, warming spice infused, custardy canelé; a soft crumbed lemon thyme cake spiced with coriander seed; and a fragrant slice of apple and chamomile jelly.

We had a cracking meal at Gorse. With its generous, big-flavoured modern Welsh cooking, it’s a brilliant addition to the swankier end of Cardiff’s restaurant scene and I’m sure there will be plenty of accolades coming its way soon. I'd expect nothing less from a restaurant owned by someone called Tom in Pontcanna. 

The Details:

Address - Gorse, 186-188 Kings Rd, Cardiff, CF11 9DF

Web - https://www.gorserestaurant.co.uk/

Telephone - 02920 372055