Little Green Social

Food ✪✪✪
Ambience ✪✪✪✪
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

83-89 Goldspink Lane
Sandyford
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE2 1NQ

0191 230 5167

littlegreensocial.co.uk

Accessibility? Yes
Gluten free options? Yes 

I’ve started viewing vegan meals as a sort of mental preparation for the time when we all are forced, by choice or peer pressure to eat this way. That time is probably here already really, it’s just that the majority of us who are still partly subsisting on things that once mooed, clucked or bleated are doing our best to delude ourselves. I know I am. On the one hand, I do bloody love steak. On the other, I saw a map recently which made it quite clear that should global temperatures rise 4 degrees above pre-industrial levels, my house will be underwater. Maybe by then Elon Musk or one of those other tech guys or girls will have invented wearable gills? Here’s hoping.

Karma Kitchen

Food ✪✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

6 Bigg Markett 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 1UW 

07473 908 309 

Accessibility? No 
Gluten free? Yes
www.karma-kitchen.co.uk (for delivery)  

Can there be anything more stereotypically and pejoratively “Geordie” than the sight of two boozed up lads heading to the Bigg Market for a curry? Until someone figures out how to joyride a Greggs Sausage Roll, probably not. 

You might think that this wouldn’t be my kind of thing. Surely my gentle and genteel disposition would prevent such larks from floating my boat? Well, think again. Granted, this wasn’t a conventional Bigg Market curry story. My friend and I, finding ourselves with a rare free afternoon, didn’t stagger to the curry house filled with pissy “Australian” “lager”, in search of the world’s spiciest hell-broth - I like to think we are at least a little better than that. For our destination, Karma Kitchen, purveyor of home-style vegan cooking, is a great deal better than your average Bigg Market curry house.

The Ship Inn, Ouseburn

Food ✪✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

Stepney Bank 
Ouseburn Valley 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 2PW 

0191 222 0878 
www.facebook.com/shipouseburn/ 

Accessibility? No
Gluten free? Yes 

Alright, vegans: this one is for you. Except that, actually, it’s for everyone. Let me explain. 

It has not been easy to find somewhere in the North East to heartily recommend to those following a strictly plant-based diet. There was the Painted Elephant, but it closed a while back. In spite of their apparent popularity, The Bohemian and Grumpy Panda both wound up with 1-star reviews, thanks to their over-reliance on pretendy meat products which tasted bad and had weirdly grim textures. Surely someone could put a menu together using actual vegetables, beans, legumes, seeds and all the rest of it, and still make it taste nice? Well, they have now. 

Make no mistake: The Ship Inn isn’t just for the flesh-shy. Mrs Diner and I, committed carnivores both, enjoyed a recent lunch there as much as we have any meal for quite some time. There was talent, invention, colour and variety on display in every dish we tried. The meal was a pleasure.

Grumpy Panda

Food ✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

14 Regent Terrace 
Gateshead 
NE8 1LU 

0191 511 1567 
www.grumpypandafood.com 

Accessibility? No 
Gluten free? Yes 

Let me tell you about how I hoped this review would go. I really wanted to write about how the "American-style vegan diner" food at Grumpy Panda had really turned my head; how it had blown my previously held prejudices about things pretending to be meat right out the water. 

I’d have liked to tell you how the texture and the taste of their “chikin”, “baecon” and “cheez” were, as Larry David would say, pretty, pretty, pretty good; how much we’d enjoyed lunch and would definitely be going back. 

I wanted to say all these things because, for all manner of ethical, ecological and practical reasons, a diet based on the consumption of industrial grade meat and meat products doesn’t seem sustainable or desirable for this world in the long run. I don’t have anything like the word count here to get into this whole complex area, but suffice to say I’ve given it some thought. 

That's why anywhere serving delicious food for people who want to follow a vegan diet - some of whom are actually friends of mine! - is absolutely fine by me. Especially in Gateshead, which could do with a few more interesting restaurants.  The only problem is, Grumpy Panda isn’t - or certainly wasn’t when we ate there - that thing.

Newcastle Quayside Sunday Market

Food: at least ✪✪✪ 
Ambience: ✪✪✪✪✪ 
Service: N/A 

Every Sunday

Quayside 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 3DE 

0191 211 5533 

If you are one of the 57,000 brave souls who will be running, jogging or perhaps just staggering from Newcastle to South Shields on the Great North Run tomorrow, then I salute you. I’d love to be there with you, bounding across the Tyne Bridge dressed as a hot dog, revelling in all that sweat and Lycra, but I’ve promised to take Mrs Diner back to Greece. 

Well, not Greece itself, but a little van that sells Greek gyros. It’s just below the bridge, in Newcastle’s Quayside market that appears every Sunday morning. This row of stalls and vehicles is one of the culinary delights of the City, turning a simple stroll beside the river into a brunch of champions. 

Great North Runners: I promise we’ll be thinking of you as we munch away below your jogging feet. We might even manage a wave or two. But don’t look down or you might just smell the food, give up running and come and join us.

The Bohemian

Food ✪ 
Service ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 

37 Pink Lane 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 5DW 

www.iloveboho.co.uk 

07908 694814

I’ve always thought it ironic that my flesh-avoiding vegetarian friends choose to eat products that recall the most dubious items from a carnivore’s menu, yet which possess none of their attractions. 

Consider, if you will, the basic sausage. It is already one step removed from the thing it once was: meat yes, but in a form so debased from the original that it can, whether in the name of cheapness or deceit, be filled with the least salubrious bits of the beast, so that it ends up scarcely meat at all. 

What then to make of the vegetarian - or vegan - “sausage”? It is a fake upon a fake, a lie squared, a copy of something that was already an adulteration. This was my train of thought as I took my first bite of the “Epic Chili Dog” served to us in this newish veggie/vegan restaurant on Pink Lane. 

Painted Elephant [CLOSED]

Food ✪✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪✪ 

6 Upper Princess Square 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 8ER 

07497 003 253 
www.painted-elephant.com 

Dinner: Tues-Sat until 8.30pm 
Lunch: Saturdays only 12-3pm 
No credit cards 

It’s nice to be proved wrong every now and then, especially when the humble pie you eat turns out to be rather agreeable. 

It has always struck me as a gastronomic irony that exclusively vegetarian or vegan restaurants are frequently the least likely places to find proficient cooking of vegetables. Over the years I’ve endured so many unimaginative stews, overcooked “lasagnas”, and underseasoned lentil-fests that I now tend to be wary of establishments that don’t press the flesh. And don’t get me started on the wretched culinary horrors that are thrown into the vegetarian aisles of supermarkets.