Cambridge, UK

A few weeks back we visited Cambridge just for the day, as neither of us has ever been and we had a free Sunday to do as we pleased.

From Leicester, it’s surprisingly easy to get to Cambridge so it’s definitely doable in a day. We went down in the morning and had coffee at a friend’s house before walking along the very pretty canal into the city.

Once in the center, we visited two beautiful colleges – King’s College and St John’s. The grounds are truly spectacular, and walking around you really felt in awe of where you were. I especially enjoyed seeing the punters gliding beneath the Bridge of Sighs.

For lunch I was really excited to try the only vegan restaurant in Cambridge, Rainbow Cafe. Unfortunately for us it was closed the day we visited, so plan b was simply to walk around until we found someplace that looked interesting. We came across two places that appeared to be vegan friendly – a pho restaurant and a sushi place. We decided on sushi in the end and boy am I glad we did.

Sticks n Sushi is a beautiful, open restaurant that lets a lot of natural light in during the day. We sat at the bar and ordered a couple drinks while looking through the very colorful picture menu. I was delighted to see that they were vegan friendly – even putting it directly on the menu under some of the dishes.

We decided to order a bunch of little dishes to share. First up we had spicy edamame that was freshly cooked – a nice appetizer to accompany our cold drinks.

Up next we had a sushi platter to share, which included avocado sushi, vegetable sushi, inari and king oyster nigiri which was incredible. Each bite of sushi was better than the next. We also had a seaweed salad which was filled with several different types of seaweed and was bursting with flavor (the dressing we found out is not vegan – so eat it plain if you get it).

Everything was so good, that it made Yo Sushi look so pale in comparison. Just make sure to check what is vegan with your server – some of the veggie dishes have egg and fish sauce in them (for example the miso soup and grilled avocado). Some things can be made vegan as well if you ask.

After lunch we strolled around the city some more, including a quick look around the market. I was pleased to see plenty of vegan options available in the market, including various wraps and savory snacks.

In all I was a little surprised there weren’t more vegetarian/vegan restaurants, but it’s not hard at all to eat out as a vegan in Cambridge. If you’re not feeling adventurous, there are plenty of vegan friendly chains including Las Iguanas and Zizzi.