Pasta is a truly marvellous food, it fills you up and can be paired with basically anything. But for me with my egg allergy it can be a minefield as whilst some pasta is our friendly Durum wheat variety, increasingly fresh egg pasta is being used. Now, I'm not hating on this type of pasta by the way, but it's not always labelled as such which means until today I haven't eaten pasta in a restaurant in years.
Today however, I finally was able to order a bowl of pasta in a restaurant, safe in the knowledge that it was egg-free. Why? Because I'd wandered into Vapiano near Oxford Circus, an Italian restaurant where all their pasta is egg-free!
Upon arrival, the staff were brilliant at sorting out my allergy requirements and I was quickly told (to my surprise) that the only dishes I couldn't have were where the egg was in the sauce itself but the pasta was fine. The ordering system is great as well, you get a little card and scan whenever you order food, then hand it back to the servers to pay at the end.
Now there were a couple of issues with the ordering of the food which did annoy me. Firstly despite it being advertised, they didn't have my first choice of pasta sauce. Then they got my order mixed up with someone else's and so I didn't get the parpadelle pasta I'd been looking forward to (because I can't normally eat it).
However, the chef was very apologetic and courteous about the whole thing which I appreciated. I opted for the Estiva pasta sauce with chicken and penne. My sauce contained ginger, chilli, mint, rocket, and sun-dried & cherry tomatoes. It was a truly magnificent sauce, so flavoursome and the chicken was really tasty too. The pasta was lovely and filling with a good flavour and texture. Annoyingly the huge portion size meant I couldn't quite finish it all, but for £10.29 it was very good value.
Now, whilst I was there, I looked for how accommodating they were to other allergies and dietary requirements and was pleased to find not only was the regular pasta vegan, but they also offered vegetable noodles and vegan cheese on a very tasty-sounding and varied menu.
So to summarise, in the middle of one of the most famous parts of London I found an unexpected allergy haven. Admittedly it wasn't totally perfect, but the food quality and value for money is unbeatable for a location just a stone's throw away from London's priciest haunts. Would I go back? Absolutely. Is it good value for money? Definitely. Is it allergy friendly? Yes!
Comments