Vegan eating out in Sheffield

We tried out a couple of new restaurants in Sheff recently and found some decent vegan food, at Las Iguanas (West One) and Wagamama (Leopold Square).

At Las Iguanas we had olives and bread for starter and Moqueca with sweet potato, palm hearts and sugar snap peas and Butternut, asparagus and mushroom paella for main dishes. They were both tasty but the moqueca was the more interesting of the two, it was a kind of stew/curry in a tomato and coconut sauce which came with rice and little pots of toasted coconut and salsa. There was sorbet on the dessert menu but we never got as far as dessert (too full of food by then!) so didn't ask if it was vegan. Nice atmosphere, and we went fairly early so it wasn't too busy.

Wagamama opened in Sheffield in April this year so we went along to check it out. We were lucky enough to get a vegetarian waitress, she brought us their standard vegan list to look at and also gave us her own recommendations (and didn't look at me weird for asking about vegan dishes, which is always nice). We had yasai yaki soba (noodle and vegetable dish) on rice noodles instead of egg noodles and without the added bits of egg, and yasai itame (coconut-based noodle soup with tofu, mushrooms and mixed vegetables) with a marinated asparagus side dish. All tasty and quite artistically presented, the portion sizes were adequate but not enough to be overly filling (or maybe that's just because we're used to East One portions!). The result of which being that we did get onto dessert, they had a mango and lychee sorbet and fruit ice lollies which were vegan, so we had one of each. A minor point, but I did think they could make a bit more effort with the decor, the inside was just brick walls painted white, which did give the impression of eating in someone's garage, although we were sitting next to a window with a vase of flowers on the window sill. Not that I tend to look around much anyway when I'm eating out, but a picture or two on the walls might be nice. The poshness of the new Leopold Square on the way in and out does kind of make up for it though. Feels almost European in there!