新年好! Happy Chinese New Year! This year is the year of the water tiger, and on Sunday Guildhall Square will be the focus of the city's celebrations, always a spectacular and joyous event. From Years & Years to Barrioke with Barry from Eastenders, it's another diverse and event-packed week here in Southampton. Today also sees the submission of Southampton's City of Culture 2025 bid - good luck Southampton!
Prima Queen supporting Isle of Wight rising stars Wet Leg at The Joiners last week - photo by Xandy Hand
==== THURSDAY 03 FEBRUARY ==== ---- Live Music ---- Flook (Anglo-Irish folk) at Turner Sims | University of Southampton <20:00> www.facebook.com/events/929879391078689
0800 Moshi Moshi Tour (record label) | Heartbreakers <19:30> ft. Nu Garcon, Vanity Fairy, Speedboat, All Cats are Beautiful www.facebook.com/events/313129367053102
==== SATURDAY 05 FEBRUARY ==== ---- Live Music ---- S0dds (rock, Southampton) , Mighty Magic Animal (grunge rock, Salisbury) and Zen Juddhism (rock, Southampton) | The Hobbit <20:00> www.facebook.com/events/265105902378476
Here are the last listings of January, folks. As we turn to brighter and eventually warmer days there's lots to look forward to in our city, and to make sure that there's more to come let's support our venues, businesses and artists through a traditionally challenging period. Remember - to get your event listed all you have to do is create a Facebook event for it.
Mondays night jazz session every week at The Dolphin (unlisted!)
==== THURSDAY 27 JANUARY ==== ---- Live Music ---- Blues with Jack Dale & Basttien Terraz | Belgium and Blues <20:00> www.facebook.com/events/603529084212544
==== FRIDAY 28 JANUARY ==== ---- Live Music ---- Chicago 9 (Blues, Southampton) : The Platform Tavern Southampton SO 14 2ny | The Platform Tavern <21:00> www.facebook.com/events/638527650905780
---- DJs and Club Nights ---- Low Down Deep 15 Years Tour (On A Mission, Drum and Bass) | Engine Rooms <22:00> ft. Logan D b2b Ego Trippin, Majistrate with Evil B, Pleasure, Vital b2b Infared, Ripraw, TY www.facebook.com/events/445701903569111
==== SATURDAY 29 JANUARY ==== ---- Live Music ---- Anti-nowhere League (punk rock), The Mistakes, Bite Me | The 1865 <19:30> www.facebook.com/events/169555928220892
==== SUNDAY 30 JANUARY ==== ---- Live Music ---- Tiger Moth Tales (prog rock) & The Blackheart Orchestra | The 1865 <19:00> www.facebook.com/events/2576330182686497
==== MONDAY 31 JANUARY ==== ---- Live Music ---- Who Are You? #3: Priestgate, Deep Tan, Deadletter | Heartbreakers <19:00> www.facebook.com/events/209960884512325
==== TUESDAY 18 JANUARY ==== ---- Live Music ---- Orlando Weeks (of indie rock band The Maccabees) in Store | Vinilo Record Store <18:00> www.facebook.com/events/459646349081160
---- Events ---- Transition Southampton: Sustainable Hairdressing and Is This Street Made for Me? | October Books <19:30> www.facebook.com/events/622243955666034
==== THURSDAY 20 JANUARY ==== ---- Live Music ---- Blues Rich Atkinson & The New Billionaires (Americana singer / sax player) | Belgium and Blues <20:30> www.facebook.com/events/470445414435975
==== FRIDAY 21 JANUARY ==== ---- Live Music ---- Swamp Stomp String Band (americana, London) | Belgium and Blues <21:00> www.facebook.com/events/242002408076351
==== SATURDAY 22 JANUARY ==== ---- Live Music ---- Electric Milk (rock, Hampshire) | The Loft <19:30> www.facebook.com/events/284261076879536 support: Speaking of Witches, Bloodhounds, Demure
The Sweetchunks Band, with Devil's Prefects and Jolly Roger - The Hobbit
After careful consideration we decided to bring the listings back for the New Year because our venues are open, and need our support 💖. Please do what you can to be safe - get your booster and test regularly - and go out and support our lovely venues and great bands ^_^.
==== MONDAY 17 JANUARY ==== ---- Live Music ---- <sold out> Porridge Radio (art-rock, Brighton) | Heartbreakers <19:30> www.facebook.com/events/796634837489841
Music Student Performances | Turner Sims <13:00> Free opportunity to check out performances by University of Southampton Music Students www.facebook.com/events/1402863843504172
Whether you're a long time vegan, going vegan for the month, or just wanting to try out the large range of vegan food on offer in January, Southampton has you covered. Local businesses have really pulled the stops out this year, so let's all go out and support them, they need it after the year they've had!
Café Thrive should be the first call for anyone interested in vegan cooking, cakes and hot drinks in Southampton, and the offering is so strong that it should be on everyone's radar. A 2-storey café overlooking the Central Parks, their Veganuary offerings include cronuts, an Italian tofu and roasted vegetable salad, a cherry bakewell hot chocolate, and this gorgeous 'chicken' burger. Their entire menu is always vegan, and their pumpkin spice latte is one of my favourite drinks in the city.
The Black Phoenix(Bedford Place) have a new and returning vegan special for every single week of January. The stars of the first week are the brand new Elvis (pictured) with peanut butter, caramelised bananas and bourbon infused cherry jam. This is paired with the returning 'Monster' burger with black garlic 'mayo', mushrooms and pickled onion crisps (yep). On Mondays you can also get 20% off all the new vegan dishes of the week. To top it off, their excellent vegan mozzarella sticks (rated by Chris as actually better than real mozzarella sticks) have returned for January.
For even more burger goodness, head to Lakaz Maman, home of Masterchef winner Shelina Permalloo's Mauritian restaurant. They've just announced their latest burger for Veganuary - the Meaty Jack - a mountain of spicy battered jackfruit in a brioche bun.
Just a couple of doors down you'll find Piecaramba, home to 4 vegan pies on their standard menu, vegan mash and mushy peas, additional vegetarian pies, and a Veganuary special 'Spudnik' featuring leek, mushroom and potato in a white sauce. This is truly pie heaven, and possibly the best pie shop in the country. Jay Rayner (Masterchef, The Guardian) reckons so.
Stakks is a pancake house on the upper level of Marlands shopping centre. A pancake house might not be the most obvious choice for vegan food, but Stakks have your Veganuary covered with a separate fully vegan menu featuring 9 delicious savoury and sweet vegan pancake stakks. All can be made gluten free on request.
Popsi's, a gorgeous Bedford Place pizza restaurant (currently takeaway / delivery only) have gone the extra mile for Veganuary, creating 3 new vegan "meats" - bacon (pictured on the pizza below), chicken and peperoni. They've also created vegan garlic butter bites.
The Nest Coffee House on London Road has an almost unbelievable range of vegan pastries and doughnuts, and indeed I had no idea they were vegan until I saw the '#vegan' hashtag with one of their posts. Even once I knew, I was still blown away with how delicious and creamy the doughnuts were. January's doughnut lineup includes raspberry & white chocolate, boujee biscoff, brownie, and their gorgeous cinnamon rolls. Some of their doughnuts are pictured below. See you there?
Rice Up Wholefoodsis Southampton's vegan supermarket on Hanover buildings, with a great deli of pastries etc to take away (I believe they can warm them for you on request). Sadly, Rice Up has been hit hard by recent events and they need our support - visiting and buying things is definitely one way, they're also running a Crowdfunder if you'd like to support but can't get down there.
Even traditional restaurants such as Ennioshave gotten in on the Veganuary action, how nice does their vegan take on Crespelle (stuffed pancakes) look?
Baboo Ji in Portswood is offering 15% off all vegan dishes on collection. And yep, everything in the image below - from the masala dosa to the Bombay potatoes, is vegan.
The fully vegan Art House are following the Covid situation closely and hoping to reopen for community café events next week, but for now they open for takeaway coffee, soup, drinks, snacks, and their community pantry, 1100 - 1500 every Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
A post about Veganuary wouldn't be complete without mentioning the Veg Out Community Vegan Café, which runs in the community space at the back of October Books (Portswood) every Monday with lunch served from 1215 and features live acoustic music. The café is run entirely by volunteers (indeed, they're urgently looking for more to be able to continue opening!) and creates dishes from food donated by local businesses to avoid wastage. October Books are notable on their own merit for being a great independent book store and also stockists of a large range of vegan food products (many from Infinity Foods in Brighton), as well as cleaning products and cooking books.
Crossing over the river, Bitterne Park Stores re-opens on Tuesday 11th January and hosts a huge range of vegan alternative meats, cheeses, chocolates, beers and much more. You'll also find that a surprising number of the pastries at Cottons Bakery next door are vegan.
For Sunday roasts there are always plenty of options - including Black Phoenix and The Alexandra. The photo below is of Belgium and Blues' offering, which does look mighty tasty (and I do like beer)...
Overdraft in Shirley have always got a tasty range of vegan options, tacos and nachos. They have announced a Veganuary special, tostadas filled with local purple sweet potatoes, homemade queso, chilli and avocado - sounds delicious.
The final shout out (at the moment, if I can't resist adding others!) goes to Board in the City. Not a vegan eatery, but they have plenty of options for you to much on whilst playing board games, from a burger to pizza, pie, soya mince nachos, and truly fantastic chips.
Hope you have fun trying out the excellent culinary options Southampton has to offer, whether vegan or not. This isn't a complete list of course, I'd love to hear your favourite local businesses and what they're doing for Veganuary on our Facebook post.
