Everything I ate at It's A Vegan Ting

How was your weekend? Mine was great. I hit a wall with the studying. After spending a morning practising venepuncture and peripheral vascular examinations, I decided to take the rest of the day off. Yep, I said goodbye to six hours of revision and took myself off for a day out.

The weather was gorgeous, and I met Mr Flicking the Vs for a drink outside the Scooter Cafe,  a dingy and lovely drinking hole just down from Waterloo. We spent an hour sunning ourselves on the back patio, listening to the jazz from the stereo, and trying to catch a glimpse of the cafe's resident cat.

We'd made our way up to SE1 for It's A Vegan Ting, a vegan market on Leake Street. Leake Street is one of those London landmarks that never feature in guidebooks, but probably should. Under the railway arches, Leake Street is a graffiti haven. The art here is always changing, so every time you come back, there's always something new to see.

It's A Vegan Ting was housed in one of the arches - a little open door with a bouncer outside. (A bouncer? Did they think the vegans were going to riot if they didn't get their scrambled tofu? I mean, I do get hangry from time to time, but I'm not sure I need to be restrained.) Apart from a chance to fill my face with all the vegan eats, It's A Vegan Ting was raising money for Friend Farmed Animal Rescue, so it's getting the thumbs up for me.

Inside, there were lots of familiar names, including Temple of Seitan, Jake's Vegan Steaks, and The Fields Beneath, as well as loads of stalls that I'd not tried before. I got ready to do some serious eating.

Mr Flicking the Vs decided to double up on his lunch: a plate of jerk from Brownin's Food, and a slab of veggie curry deliciousness Patty By Nature. We'd already had the great delight of meeting and eating Brownin's at Tooting's first vegan festival a goodly while ago. I can report with great certainty they're still as great as they were - rich jerk sauce on chewy soya nuggets, rice and peas, and a bit of salad for good measure.

I think adding a patty on top was a bit like doing a glory lap when you've already won the athletics gold medal: a bit unnecessary, but you've done so well, you might as well show off. Soft pastry, warming gentle curry - well played, Patty by Nature!

I'd been planning my lunch since I saw the line up: tofish and chips from Shakey Shakey. Shakey Shakey is basically the chippy of my dreams: tofish! Battered sausages! Wallys (that's gherkins to you non-Cockney folk)! And wooden chip forks! It's everything a chippy should be - deep fried gloriousness, and with not a single animal product in sight. Even better for anyone that's not compatible with gluten: there's none of that in sight either.

As you can tell from my liberal use of exclamations and compliments, Shakey Shakey was everything I hoped it would be: tasty, crisp, and generously proportioned. The slab of tofish was an excellent example of the form - under that crunchy batter, there was just the right hint of the sea, the nori giving the tofish the proper flavour of the seaside. Did I mention there was even tartar sauce? There was even tartar sauce. Like I said, the best chippy ever.

I thought it would be a cracking idea to carry on enjoy my seaside day out by getting involved with some ice cream. With the weather north of twenty something degrees, vegan ice cream sellers Black Mylk had a queue for most of the time I was at It's A Vegan Ting. By the time I worked myself to the head of that there queue, the black sesame ice cream I'd had my eye on had sold out. (Every time a vegan company sells out of something, I'm always delighted that business is thriving, and gutted I have to go without!)

Luckily there were three more flavours just waiting: honeycomb, dark chocolate and peanut butter, and birthday cake. I picked the latter on the basis I'd never had birthday cake flavoured anything, apart from, well, birthday cake. Turns out birthday cake flavour ice cream tastes a lot like raspberry ripple, and it's all the better for that.

Hell Yum was also selling vegan ice cream, but Mr FtVs gave them a swerve in favour of helping himself to a great big vegan cookie. It's not often I find myself in deep need of a cookie, but after Mr FtVs bought one, I found myself in deep need of a large chunk of his. (In my defence, he half-inched over half of my ice cream too, so fair's fair I reckon - su cookie es mi cookie.)

The cookie was great - which makes four for four great buys from It's A Vegan Ting. Four eats, one day, one vegan ting, two happy vegans.