Brussel sprouts for breakfast, and a taste of Wagamama's vegan katsu

I go to one of the most exam-heavy universities for medicine in the country, apparently. I'm so used to sitting exams, the terror that they used to inspire is on the wane. Now, when I put exam day in my diary, all I'm thinking about is the day after, when I can start trying to get myself back to normal and remember what I was doing before I spent every waking hour trying to revise.

In this case, after Exam Thursday, the first thing on my mind was making myself an extremely over-the-top breakfast. I'd already set my heart on making this recipe for polenta with sausage and brussels sprouts. It's not the typical breakfast I make, but it sounded so tasty, and fairly minimal effort, I couldn't resist.

And it was absolutely as good as it looked. Nothing on this plate resembled breakfast to me, but I ate every last little bit. 

I've made no secret of my deep and abiding love of brussels sprouts, but it took Cadry's Kitchen to convince me that they're just as good at breakfast as at any other time of day. It also reminded me how rarely I cook polenta, and what a Grade A mistake that is. I reckon polenta can be a bit bland at the best of times, but when you use Linda McCartney's red pepper and chorizo sausages, that's no biggie. Have you tried them yet? If you haven't, I heartily recommend getting your hands on some next time you see them - they're absolutely gorgeous.

Post-exam, we decided to head down to Brighton to celebrate being free from study horror. Mr Flicking the Vs had already called Purezza for lunch, and I was powerless to refuse - particularly as they have a 10 percent discount for students. The way I see it, that's an invite to eat 10 percent more food, right?

I've had a long and happy relationship with Purezza's lasagne for a while, so I saw no reason to change my ordering strategy. If you're thinking 'how boring is that? Any idiot can make a decent lasagne', I wouldn't disagree. I would point out though that any idiot can make a decent lasagne, but it takes a genius to make a really good one. Purezza's lasagne-maker is that genius.

Much as Purezza's dessert list appealed, I'd already spent too much money on cocktails (note: the Purezza student discount only applies to food, not booze!) and was highly full, I had to take a pass, and we went for a long walk along the seafront instead. 

But I'd be quite, quite wrong to let you think I went home without any sweet treats. Our long walk around Brighton happened to stop by Hisbe, a little coop that sells all sorts of interesting things. It has its own little cake counter, and that's where I felt compelled to get my wallet out.  I came home with a raspberry donut and a tiffin.

I wasn't wild about the donut (it was a bit underdone in the middle), but the tiffin was pretty much the best version I've had in a while. Yeah, you might be thinking, any idiot can make a tiffin... well, you get where I'm going with that. Happily, there were ginger nuts in there, rather than your standard issue digestives. That made the whole thing a cut above the usual one-note chocolate overdose that tiffin can be, and into a more Christmas-spiced warming delight.

Post-exam celebrations weren't complete once we got back to London though. We decided to haul ourselves out to Wagamama's noodle lab,  the Soho branch of the noodle chain where they test out new dishes before releasing them nationwide.

Rumour had it that the noodle lab has quite a few vegan options you can't find elsewhere, and we were pretty sure we needed to go check them out.

Pumpkin onigiri were one of the vegan starters that are only found in the noodle lab (so far!) - three little balls of pumpkin and rice, breadcrumbed and deep fried, and served with a sharp dipping sauce. The sauce didn't seem like a natural partner for the onigiri, but they were still nice enough. I mean, most things deep fried are pretty tasty, right?

Then... there was the vegatsu. You've probably seen it on Twitter, Instagram, or somewhere else over the intertubez. Much to the excitement of vegans everywhere, Wagamama is trialling a vegan katsu, made with seitan. Like the meat and veggie versions, it's slabs of breadcrumbed stuff (wheat meat here) with curry sauce, rice, and side salad.

So how was it? I wanted to love it. I really wanted it. Vegan katsu, how could I not? Sadly, it didn't rock my world - it was the proverbial curate's egg (what's the vegan equivalent of a curate's egg?!)

The chewy seitan, which got chewier as it cooled - as seitan so often does - together with the rice was a really heavy meal. The side salad was too small to make a dent in the feeling of wading through stodge. I loved the curry sauce though - I'd drink that in pints. I can't help feeling that if you swapped out the seitan for breadcrumbed veggies or tofu (or anything else of your choosing that's a bit lighter), the vegatsu would be transformed, and vegans would happily queue around the block for a piece of that.