Giraffe is renowned for it’s international cuisine, taking you around the world in dishes. It’s a perfect place to go with friends who all have different preferences of what to eat and is also affordable – especially for students (UNIDays discount!). It has always been one of those places that I’ve walked past, thinking it looks like a nice place to go, but then reading the menu and feeling like the meal I would be having is made up of sides. So I’ve never been before until now! As of January, Giraffe have added 4 new vegan options to their menu; Vegetable Gyozas, Up-Beet Burger, Jackfruit curry and a Chocolate and coconut torte. I’m so pleased to see these new options, and really glad there’s no salads to be seen! Burger and curry, that’s got me sorted.
To start off, we got a cocktail each from the vast drinks menu – it was hard to choose which to have! I got the Enchanted Garden which is gin, elderflower, strawberry (usually blackberry) and soda water: a refreshing light drinks. Tom got the Mango colada, a sweet, creamy coconutty cocktail – just like a pina colada which used to be my favourite cocktail.
We tried all 4 of the new vegan options. First up, the vegetable gyozas, these were perfectly crisp on the outside and were packed with veggies for the filling. They came with a orange and miso glaze, and a sweet chilli sauce. For me I only needed one of those because both sauces were quite sweet, but overall I really enjoyed these and could’ve easily eaten a couple of plates as they were very moreish!
The two main courses on offer are the Up-beet burger and Jackfruit curry. The Up-beet burger is a beetroot, soya and quinoa patty with coconut yoghurt and hummus, it was a tasty burger and it held together well! This comes with skin on fries, which was super good… I was having to eat so quickly so Tom wouldn’t steal all of the fries!
I was really surprised by the Jackfruit curry as I had just assumed it was going to be a coconutty saucey curry – but I was wrong! It wasn’t like any curry I had before, it has a subtley sweet taste, the jackfruit was delicate and moist and had taken up a lot of the flavour. There were also some edamame beans in the curry, adding a little pop and crunch with each bite, I think this is a great addition for extra texture. I was also very pleased with the rice which was fluffy and well season, it was great with a squeeze of lime juice over it.
Last up DESSERT! We opted to get one each, because it’s hard to share dessert really and I’m glad we did. The Chocolate and coconut torte is served with a vegan vanilla ice cream, perfect to balance out the richness of the torte. The base of the torte was nutty and chocolatey, sooooo delicious! This dessert was definitely the star of the show for the night – I would highly recommend trying this, even if you just go for that!
plantbasedhmj 