V REV Manchester Vegan Diner
In January I set myself the challenge of not eating meat for the whole month and that month has kind of turned into 9. I won’t lie, every now and then I do eat meat but one thing I haven’t had for those 9 months is chicken. I think it’s because we used to have pet chickens and when I really thought about it I didn’t want to eat something I’d had as a pet. We were out in Manchester a few weeks ago to go to Jump Nation which is one of those trampoline parks that are popping up at the moment. It was really fun but I saw at least three people hurt their ankles in the 45 minutes I was there, one of them being Billy who ended up in casualty later on that night (after much persuasion). After we’d done all that exercise we went to V REV Manchester which is a totally vegan diner.
All credit for finding this place goes to Billy (and even more credit for him actually eating there because he’s a pretty picky eater). I was so excited to actually have a proper choice of meals! It seems a bit small inside but I’ve read somewhere on the internet that there’s another room that I didn’t see. We had booked anyway because I get hangry when I have to wait too long for food. We sat down and ordered an apple juice and a ‘lemony lemon’ and had a good look at the menu. They do a good range of ‘beefy’ and ‘chkn’ burgers, ‘sammiches’ and even loaded fries.
In the end I went for the ‘Jerry Zinger’ chkn burger because I haven’t had chicken for so long. Along with the spicy fried chkn it had ‘cheez’, house salsa, lettuce, lemon and herb mayo and a hash brown all in a bun with fries. They make their ‘meat’ out of seitan which I’ve never had before. I don’t usually like the taste of meat substitutes (i.e. Quorn or Soya) but after months without chicken I could hardly tell the difference. It had the texture of a chicken burger and tasted great too. It did feel a bit weird eating it because it was JUST like I was eating chicken but I soon got over it. The lemon and herb mayo gave it it’s zing but I wasn’t a big fan of it. I loved everything else about the burger though, especially the hash brown!
Billy had the ‘Top of the Pops’ popcorn chkn wrap with lettuce and cheez (without mayo and salsa) and fries and he liked it! I was so happy because he’s a picky eater and I thought he was just grinning and bearing it for me. The only thing he didn’t like was the cheez. It was more of a sauce than melted cheese which is a big no no for him hence no mayo and salsa.
They have a dessert cabinet which I didn’t let myself look in because I was too full for dessert. They do milkshakes and also have lots of milk options for tea and coffee. On the way home I was regretting not getting a milkshake as I really fancied one half way down the M56. I’ll definitely be back because I really enjoyed myself and I wouldn’t hesitate to bring my meat eating friends either.