How long have I been wanting to go to Temple of Seitan? It’s been a while I have to admit. Childhood memories of KFC and Allen’s Fried Chicken made the prospects of a vegan chicken shop sound really good. Kate, however, was not convinced. She kept asking me when Chicken shops became a thing and anyway she was more of a McNuggets girl. So it’s taken a fair bit of persuading to get her there. We went to check out the Camden location.

I went for two piece, hot, and a snack box (half popcorn, half fries) and I had mixed feeling. I didn’t enjoy the hot chicken. The hot coating wasn’t incorporated into the batter so the mouth feel was a little dusty. I also wasn’t that keen on the seitan itself. I liked it in the popcorn but I didn’t enjoy it in the larger pieces. It just wasn’t very chicken-like. It had that slight spongy bounce that seitan can have. Honestly I prefer the fried chicken I’ve had at Samphire, in Plymouth, or V-Rev, in Manchester, for texture.

That being said the popcorn chicken is amazing. And the fries are pretty good too. I loved the popcorn chicken. The coating was amazing. Really crispy. It almost… pops. Kate, who only ordered the popcorn chicken, thought the colour and texture of the seitan was off-putting but loved the coating.

Temple of Seitan hasn’t quite made it to my must-eat list but I’d still be happy to go back. The trick, I think, is to order the popcorn chicken.

Way back the week before last we went up to London for a one day trip and ended up staying three more days. It’s a long story but when we thought we were only staying one day we decided to treat ourselves to a trip to Café Forty One, a vegan pâtisserie.

After a brief debate about the merits of tarts we decided to splash out on the Valentine Afternoon Tea (available until the 28th). We were advised to start with the still warm scones. They were served with a berry compote that was wonderfully fruity and perfectly straddled the line between too tart and too sweet, a yummy clotted cream and a vegan honey substitute. As we’d just come from Devon the addition of honey was puzzling to us. Not that it was bad but… honey… on a scone?

Going down to the patisserie layer we had plenty of perfectly crafted treats. Our favourite was the Pistachio and Milk Chocolate Brioche. The pistachio creme was heavenly: light, soft and sublime. Kate also enjoyed the shortbread with chocolate cube and caramel creme pâtisserie although she was a little dubious about the gold leaf. I really liked the Black Forest entrements, griotte, dark chocolate and vanilla chantilly. The pecan and almond cookie was nice but not quite as show stopping and neither of us were keen on the redcurrant macaron. We didn’t think the redcurrants really worked.

On the bottom layer we get to the fancy sandwiches which was my personal favourite. Kate claimed the brioche roll with dill cream cheese and smoked carrot ‘salmon’. She was impressed with the realism of the carrot salmon. I enjoyed the BLT with aubergine ‘bacon’ which was also unexpectedly realistic with that wonderful hit of sweet, salty, smokey. The chipotle cheese with caramelised onion chutney and rocket on rye was amazing. The best vegan cheese sandwich I’ve ever had. And I’ve had a few. The hummus and cucumber was a little disappointing but I suppose every tea has to come with some form of cucumber sandwich and every vegan tea has to come with a hummus sandwich so you might as well combine them and get the boring stuff out of the way.

It would be wrong to finish up without mentioning the price which is a nice, steep £35 per person (not including the service charge) but there are a couple of things that mean I don’t regret paying that. First of all the food is really well done; you can see the craftsmanship. Second, you do get a a good amount of food. We left absolutely stuffed. We give this place two thumbs up. If you have a special occasion coming up Café Forty One is absolutely perfect.