Friday Night Takeaway at the Alleycat

I know that if you've been around for a while (thank you if you have), you absolutely will have heard me raving about Inverness' one and only fully vegan restaurant - The Alleycat. Serving amazing food all year round, they have recently come up with a new initiative -  recreating everyone's favourite takeaways, vegan style. They recently hosted a 'fish' and chip shop night which I was gutted to miss out on so when they announced they would be recreating classic chinese takeaway dishes I grabbed my food bestie and off we went.

The absolute worst part of the entire evening was having to try to decide what to have, so we didn't and ordered just about one of everything off the menu to share between us (yes, we are VERY fond of food). The food was delivered to our table in takeaway containers and the staff even 'forgot' an item from each diners order to ensure the true takeaway experience.

We shared a portion of spring rolls which were perfectly stuffed and oh so deliciously crispy that my mouth is watering again just thinking about them. Alongside those we had a noodle, beansprout and mushroom dish which had an excellent balance between the noodles and beansprouts and somehow also had them evenly distributed which I struggle with when cooking.

I ordered the vegetables in blackbean sauce as soon as I spotted it on the menu, I LOVED the Alleycat's tempura veg with black bean dipping sauce when they were 'just' a pop-up restaurant and knew that this would be a massive hit. The dish was a mix of green and red peppers, mushrooms and baby corn in a beautifully balanced sauce. I have to admit, I normally hate green peppers and my heart sank a little when I opened the dish but I would happily eat them in this sauce every day of the week. My order came with a portion of wonderfully crispy little fries, ideal for mopping up any sauce left over.

My friend ordered the sweet and sour 'chicken' which I nabbed a few pieces of. I don't remember, having been veggie for 20 years, what chicken tasted like but I can vouch for this being delicious. My friend is an Omni and happily tucked into her portion leaving not a trace on the plate. This came with a lovely and fluffy fried rice which was the perfect accompaniment to the sauce.

The drinks menu at the Alleycat has a brilliant selection of soft drinks, most of which are now made in house. We had a smokey cherry sparkling juice as well as a mango and orange one both of which were a treat for the taste buds.

The Alleycat is a stockist of the wonderful mallownuts and teafakes from Prissy Queen of Deserts so we finished off the meal with a chocolatey treat, or two.

We did order a lot of food but it was all so delicious that our plates were scraped clean and our waistbands were fortunately elasticated!

Rumour has it that the Alleycat are planning a pizza night and I would thoroughly recommend cancelling all plans to be there. I know I will.

Apologies for the lack of photos, I was far too busy stuffing my face!

If you haven't heard of The Alleycat before check out these posts...

http://whatsaffydid.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-alleycat.html

http://whatsaffydid.blogspot.com/2019/08/sunday-market-and-afternoon-tea.html

http://whatsaffydid.blogspot.com/2018/08/jvnk-pop-up-by-friends-not-food.html