Restaurants and takeaways up and down the country are upping their vegan game this month, as annual challenge Veganuary is in full swing.
My boyfriend and I have been vegetarians for years but were keen to give Veganuary a go.
Veganuary takes place every January and encourages people, no matter what their dietary choices or preferences are, to forgo animal products for an entire month.
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There’s a number of restaurants adding more delicious vegan options to their menus, while supermarkets and shops are packed with vegan kitchen cupboard essentials and tasty alternatives to help those taking part in the challenge, or those making a full time switch to veganism.
As pizza fanatics, we were eager to try some big name pizzas and see if the vegan versions measured up.
We settled on Dominos for a Saturday night takeaway because we love the rich tomato sauce and decadent bases commonly associated with the brand’s pizzas and figured this would translate well to a vegan offering.
But we got off to a shaky start.
On its website, Dominos seemed to limit the choices of its vegan pizzas. For example, when trying to order a vegan pepperoni pizza, it was only available on thin crust. Trying to cheat the system by instead ordering a vegan margherita, which had more flexibility on its crust, and adding vegan pepperoni as an extra topping didn’t work as the pepperoni wasn’t an available add on.
Any other toppings were also £1.40 each, which is pretty steep.
We still thought it was worth continuing with our order, especially as Dominos had 40% off when you spend £50 - which isn’t too hard to do.
We placed our order and waited for the knock of joy on the door signalling the food had arrived.
No knock of joy came.
Instead, after an hour, we got a phone call from the manager at Dominos who said unfortunately, they’d sold out of all vegan pizzas so they had cancelled and refunded our order. The refund would take a few days to land in our account, with the manager apologising for the mishap.
These things happen, we’ve both worked in customer service jobs in the past so didn’t want to vent our frustrations on someone just doing their very busy job. I never want to be a “Karen” so even though I wish it hadn’t taken an hour to let us know the order wasn’t going to happen, we moved on quickly and began the hunt for another vegan pizza outlet.
We then turned to Papa John’s - we had a craving for pizza and nothing was going to get in our way.
We ordered a medium vegan cheese and tomato pizza with added chestnut mushrooms (£14.39) and a Create Your Own large vegan sausage and pepperoni pizza with added jalapenos (£20.49).
For sides, we opted for vegan cheese potato tots (£5.99), vegan regular potato tots (£4.49), vegan cheese and Marmite scrolls (£4.99) and vegan cauliflower wings (£4.99).
Papa John’s were offering 50% off vegan food so our total bill came to £29.91, which was brilliant for such a large amount of food.
I won’t lie, when almost an hour passed before hearing the knock of joy on our door, I did panic we were going to have another cancellation.
Thankfully, Papa John’s came through with the goods.
I really enjoyed my vegan pizza but the cheese was a little bit irritating to eat. Despite it tasting decent, it was impossibly sticky and stuck to my teeth too much which made the experience significantly less enjoyable. The tomato sauce was rich and packed with flavour and there was a perfect sauce to vegan cheese ratio, though.
I saved half for the next day and had it cold, which (controversial opinion alert) is often far more delicious than when it arrives hot. The vegan cheese wasn’t half as sticky when the pizza was cold so I could enjoy the flavour more.
It’s not as tasty as a non-vegan pizza but it’s definitely not worth turning your nose up at. It’s still delicious, satisfying and flavoursome.
The potato tots were amazing, I didn’t want them to end. They’re soft and fluffy and are like little bites of hash browns - what’s not to love?
The vegan cauliflower wings were also incredibly delicious. I’ve not eaten meat for 12 years so I didn’t expect them to mimic animal wings in any way, shape or form and really, they don’t even attempt to mimic them, bar the zingy batter coating, and the rich herbs and spices. If you eat these, don’t expect them to taste like meat because they’re a vegetable alternative as opposed to a faux meat substitute and you’ll be able to enjoy them for what they are.
The Marmite and vegan cheese scrolls were also enjoyable, but I couldn’t eat more than one or two. The helping of Marmite is just too generous and, contrary to what the popular advert series would have you believe, I don’t love or hate Marmite. I merely find it okay but as it’s such a tangy, powerful flavour, it overwhelmed the scrolls a little bit.
All in all, after a slightly frustrating start to our takeaway feast, the vegan offerings from Papa John’s more than made up for it.
We will definitely be ordering again - even after Veganuary ends.
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