Last weekend at the Vegan Summer Fest Brighton we managed to pick up a couple of delectable vegan burgers from Cafe SoVegan. Out of all of the burger stalls on offer they looked the most appealing, so we dove right in!
I couldn’t choose between the Mac Daddy and the Fully Loaded Herby, but helpfully they had a few samples on hand for us to try. Unhelpfully, they were both absolutely delicious, which did not help my dilemma. In the end, J went for the Mac Daddy and I had the Fully Loaded Herby, with a side of Mac No Cheese to make up for it. Here’s a few descriptions from the stand:
Mac Daddy: Southern style chick’n burger, topped with salad, mac no cheese + crispy onions. £7
Fully Loaded Herby: Basil, oregano + thyme patty with cheese, bacon, salad and SoVegan sauce. £6
Mac No Cheese: Jumbo macaroni in creamy ‘cheese’ sauce topped w/ crispy onions. £4
The Mac Daddy is an amazing construction. It starts with a southern-fried chicken style burger and goes on to the mac no cheese, which I’ll describe in more detail below. The faux chicken is succulent and has a nice crispy outer layer of batter. It has a good realistic chicken flavour, which is great for those who are missing the taste. The fresh salad inside the bun compliments the rest of the burger. The addition of the bacon was done at no extra cost and was a very good choice – J gave it his thumbs up.
Now, onto the Mac no Cheese. This was the same both served in a pot and in the burger, taken from the same source. Cafe SoVegan actually sell the cheese sauce, which I was very interested in – if we see them again we will be picking some up. It was totally cheesy and creamy and very moreish. It was a perfect companion to the pasta (which wasn’t macaroni, but we won’t be petty about it). It was very filling too – halfway down the pot I started to regret getting both the Mac and the burger (though not for long – the taste was worth it). It was topped with some great crispy onion pieces that were just the ticket to create that breadcrumb/bacon topping impression.
Onto my burger: the Fully Loaded Herby. The burger was very chewy and bouncy with a smoky taste under the herb flavours. The bacon was just incredible – it was also very smoky and I could quite happily have eaten it on its own. It had lots of lovely fresh salad in the bun, and was nice and cheesy on top. The seeded bun was exactly perfect for eating with a burger, and there was a great burger sauce included (it reminded me of thousand island dressing with the flavours). I opted to get BBQ sauce inside the bun and this also went very well with the flavours. The burger was also very filling and probably would have sufficed on its own too.
Cafe SoVegan also have a permanent residence in London, which we’ll be thinking about visiting soon. In the meantime, we absolutely loved these burgers, both of which are rated together below.
These burgers look incredible, I would be really interested in trying out cheese sauce with no cheese as I’m always a bit dubious of things like that. But it sounds as if it tasted amazing!
We just love the craziness of it – it tastes like cheese and there’s no cheese!!
That looks so delicious! I have a vegan friend and we’re always on the hunt for new places to try where she can actually get quality vegan food!
This is definitely worth checking out if you’re in London!