A review of Leicester’s second vegan market

This Sunday Leicester welcomed its second vegan market. Building on the success of the first event back in June, the event was again designed to offer support to businesses, traders, artists, makers, charities, projects and community groups who have a strong vegan ethos. And the good news is I remembered to charge my camera this time!

Because quite a few vendors sold out early last time, we made sure to arrive right around 11am when the event started. I was pleased to see that the market was already buzzing (I guess others had the same idea!).

My first goal was to get some snacks before the lunchtime rush. First up was a visit to Mex It Up – the vegan Mexican street food guys from Shropshire. This day they were serving up quesadillas, corn dogs and two types of chimichangas. We went for the BBQ jackfruit chimichanga, which was served with tortilla chips and a little side salad in a homemade caesar dressing. The chimichanga was great – the filling was bursting with flavor and the lightly fried tortilla was flaky and crispy.

Next up was the local Leicester vegan Caribbean catering company, Trini Foods. I am ashamed to say I’ve never tried these guys, even though they’ve been around for a while. They were doing two different wraps – one with tofu, veg and plantains, and another with a chickpea, spinach, potato curry. The samples for both were so so good, but I chose the curry in the end and was not disappointed. Loved every bite, and the wrap it came in was so doughy, flaky and flavorsome.

Our third snack choice of the day was No Baloney, who was serving up these little hot dog bread wrap type thingies that smelled phenomenal. They were marinated in a tomato sauce, wrapped in thin bread, brushed with garlic oil and fried. They were then served with a really yummy, homemade tomato salsa dip.

We didn’t get pizza this time (no room left in our bellies), but we can say from our experience last time that the guys at the Vegan Pizza Co seriously know what they’re doing and serve up some awesome pizza. Their stand was incredibly popular as expected.

We also stocked up on lots of stuff to go, including a seriously luxurious chocolate brownie from Minkiemoo Bakery, delicious and moorish cheese from Lettices, freshly baked snacks from Vork Pies, dangerously good cupcakes from LuVegan and loads of snacks from Lakeside Ethical treats. I also picked up some black salt which tastes exactly like eggs!

I didn’t get to try even half of the stalls I wanted to – unfortunately that would bankrupt me (we spent a small fortune as is). If you’d like to see a full list of the vendors – head over to my preview post which lists everyone who participated.

I can’t wait until the next one – hopefully they will now be a regular occurrence!