Restaurant review - Mildred's Vegetarian Restaurant in Soho

I am ILL. AGAIN. This is an outrage! And I had a potentially great dinner-based experiment planned for yesterday evening…. that will now have to wait. Oh well. In the meantime, I have decided to write my first restaurant review! Here goes...

I don't really eat out in restaurants all that much. This is a sad thing, because I LOVE it. Sometimes it's nice to not have to wash dishes, or get up mid-chew and go to the kitchen for a glass of water. Last year, finding anything that I could eat outside of my own home became a bit of a chore, so I pretty much gave up any restaurant outings, save a handful of visits to vegan/veggie places such as Terre a Terre in Brighton (highly recommended), and Cookies Cream in Berlin (don't do it to yourself). Most eateries have veggie options now, but vegans still have a mighty tough time out there! So as a vegan, it's an amazing feeling looking at a menu and thinking: "I can order ANY of this? Whatever I want? …If I really wanted to, I could order ALL of it!" Oh the euphoria, words cannot describe it.

Despite having gone back to the cheese and the eggs, vegan food still intrigues me. Especially restaurant-standard vegan food. Because, well, it's restaurant-standard, and I love the realisation that, actually, there are people out there who are so devoted to showing the world that vegan food isn't just rice, tofu and sprouts that they have gone and set up a restaurant. Setting up any restaurant takes balls, but setting up a veggie/vegan restaurant in the hope that vegans, veggies and omnis will love it, I think that takes huge dinosaur balls. Because, let's face it, the majority of humans out there love their meat, fish, eggs, and cheese. The majority of humans out there are gonna take a lot of convincing. 

So, Mildred's. It wasn't actually my idea. My mate Michael suggested we try it out… hell yeah. 

Mildred's is pretty easy to find if you live in London. It's on Poland Street. Everyone knows Poland Street. Everyone has probably walked past Mildred's at some point. It's very small and unassuming, there's nothing gimmicky about it. We got there at around 8, and it was busy. A good sign! We found ourselves standing by the bar, with a mere 5-minute wait ahead of us. We got lucky. Mildred's doesn't take bookings, so it might be wise to turn up a little earlier than we did. We ordered Bloody Marys, which I can only describe as being "perfectly adequate", and sipped until we were seated. The drinks menu also includes a bunch of fresh fruit concoctions that sounded right up my alley because I'm a freak (any combo of apple, beetroot, carrot, celery, ginger or orange juices?? Yes! I shall have all of those!), but they also have your standard soft drinks and a small list of organic lager and cider.

Now onto the food! This is where it got painful. Decision-making in general is hard for me, and when faced with a menu of food where everything sounds good…. Let's just say there were almost tears. The menu caters to most tastes- it features a fair few Asian and Middle Eastern-inspired dishes, which is unsurprising for a veggie establishment. But there's also heartier fare available, such as a pie, a pumpkin and goat's cheese ravioli, and a burger of the day. I reckon some might find it a bit odd that the pub grub and Asian dishes (as well as the dreaded superfood salad, listed here as the "organic energising detox salad"… there's always one...) are listed side-by-side, but I didn't mind in the slightest. 

I struggled to make a decision between the burger of the day (an apple, celery and beetroot mix), and the bean, tarragon and sun dried tomato sausages and mash. I had narrowed it down to those because, let's face it, my staple diet already relies heavily on couscous and veggie curries. Also, I'm a huge fan of veggie alternatives to meat (i.e. replacing a traditionally meaty item, such as a burger or sausages, with a vegan/veggie option) and it's always interesting to see what route they've gone down- either getting the texture and taste as close as possible to meat, or embracing the veggie-ness. It certainly looked like the latter was being done here. Michael went with the Sri Lankan sweet potato and cashew nut curry, sat back and laughed at me while I flailed around trying to be decisive. I ended up ordering the sausages and mash. We also ordered fried gyoza as a starter, which is always a gamble- I have eaten too many bland cabbage-stuffed veggie gyoza, where no attempt had been made to substitute the pork. Yawn.

Here they are! Excuse the really shitty camera photos. I thought there was no way I was gonna bust out a massive camera in such a tiny restaurant. In hindsight this was a mistake.

These were amazing! It was the perfect appetiser portion. I wanted more. There's a surprise. Michael took one bite and remarked: "I can't believe that's not meat." Yep, they were pretty spot on in terms of flavour and texture of a traditional gyoza filling… I was trying to guess what they had used, might have been firm tofu, but it's hard to think when you're busy stuffing your face. They came with your standard gyoza dipping sauce.

Onto the sausages! And Michael's curry.

Sorry Mike, the kiwi shirt didn't make it. Stupid camera phone.

The sausages looked amazingly meaty, almost a bit too meaty. When I took my first bite I found that they were made of kidney beans! I was not expecting that. Kidney beans are a thing for salad bars and Mexican food. But guys, it definitely worked! I actually would have liked them to have been a bit more… savoury. I think I was expecting more bursts of sundried tomato. Nonetheless, they were tasty, the mash underneath was as creamy and mustardy as the menu had promised. The amount of sauce, a pear cider jus, scared me a bit at first, but it was spot-on. Veggie sausages always need a bit of extra sauce. Michael let me have a taste of his curry, which was also good, no complaints there. The rice was lovely and saffron-y, the curry itself was coconutty and creamy. The chunks of sweet potato were as big as my head, but let's not nitpick too much. There was a yummy spicy tomato sambal (that's condiment sauce to you and me) to go with it. Pretty straightforward. I would have been shocked if they'd stuffed this up.

Of course we had dessert. We decided to go for a non-vegan one (oh the shame)… a white chocolate and pistachio cheesecake. 

As far as cheesecakes go, it was nice. I was a bit sad that the pistachio crumbs were not crunchy enough, but it's cheesecake, so I got over myself pretty quickly. Next time I'm definitely getting a vegan dessert though (banana and coconut tofu cheesecake anyone?)- there's a lot of skill to be showcased there and I felt somewhat guilty for not showing my appreciation by ordering it.

All in all, it was a good dining experience. This is definitely one you can take a group of friends with varying food preferences and dietary requirements to, and where everyone will come out happy (vegan, vegetarian and gluten free options are marked on the menu). Just don't bring too big a group. I don't think they could cope. 

I shall definitely be going back there. I'm totally having a freaky juice and a burger next time.