Dinner With.... 'Hello April'

'Dinner With...' is a series I've been looking forward to starting since I first shared the idea with you all a couple of weeks ago. I love going out for dinner and talking all things food, life and internet related. One of my goals for 2015, was to get out more, meet new people and have more fun. I'm hoping to post one 'Dinner With...' every month, where I'm planning on meeting up and hanging out with the writers behind the blogs I love. 

I decided to invite April to my first ever 'Dinner With...' as April was one of the first friends I made in the blogging world. We live seconds away from each other in Central London and often meet up and attend events together.  As I'm currently on a plant based diet- having swapped processed foods for fresh, organic foods. Chocolate for Cacao and caramel for Medjool dates... there was only one place I had in mind to go out to Dinner - Vantra Vitao. In case you didn't know, Vantra is a healthy plant based Vegan restaurant that caters to not only those with mainstream dietary requirements but also those lesser known allergies and intolerance's.

However, on arrival... it seemed Vantra didn't get the memo, and were sadly closed upon our arrival - without any mention of this happening on their website or social media channels. After a lot of expletives, we popped across the road to Primark to indulge in a little retail therapy. I picked up the 'Central Perk' friends Tee which you can see me wearing in my most recent video as well as a e candles from the home section. I was hoping to grab a few pairs of casual flat shoes, but wasn't feeling anything in the range available.

We decided to head to Mildreds (Vegetarian Restaurant) in Soho, and after a ten minute walk, we discovered that it was so busy - you couldn't even get through the door. Perhaps they all found out Vantra was closed too? 

At this point we were starving, so had a 'Screw it' moment and walked a few doors down to Wagamamas - where we discovered their fabulous 'catwalk' entrance walk way.

It may have taken 3 restaurants, and a lot longer than I expected to actually eat something that wasn't going to hurt me (Food Intolerance's), but I eventually settled on the (Yasai Cha Han) brown rice bowl minus a couple of foods I can't eat.

If golden beige food is what you're after... then this is the meal for you. I don't consider myself a picky eater, but I did struggle to find something on the menu that was suitable for my dietary requirements and had I read the menu before heading in there - I likely wouldn't have chosen it as a restaurant. The Edamame beans on the other hand... were amazing. 

I'll admit, at this point in the evening, and being at our third restaurant - any thought of blogging questions went out the window... Instead, we focused just on enjoying ourselves, and having fun. We had a chance to talk about thing we want to improve on our blogs, things we hope to achieve and generally finding happiness with our blogs.  For instance, April found happiness when her Chili Chicken Ramen arrived. (Don't kill me April)

Not forgetting that an evening out with another blogger isn't complete without a bathroom selfie, we made sure we headed to the mirror to grab one. Although the evening didn't quite go as planned, which means that I didn't get a chance to ask April any of the 'Dinner With...' questions, we still had a great evening. Sometimes you need to go 'off piste' every so often to remind you what it is that you want to focus on and although the evening didn't technically go as planned, I feel like we both took a lot away from it. 

Em xxx