Sodo Pizza Cafe, Clapton

Maybe I'm just a bit too accustomed to the downers that hit after every Domino's, but Sodo Pizza Cafe on Upper Clapton Road ticks all the boxes, along with boxes I didn't even know needed ticking. Delicious crispy-based pizza, attentive, straight-forward staff, no weird table booking codewords and the ability to get your cheese replaced with something else if you're ordering vegan.

On top of this there's gorgeous homemade ginger beer, table water ALL the time, some of the best beers London has anywhere (Kernal, London Fields Brewery) and salad leaves and vegetables supplied by Hackney-based Growing Communities (who you can read more about here). A glass of homemade tiramisu went down pretty fast with my parents too, just saying.

The Clapton Hart does a mean bean vegan burger

I try not to start too many sentences with the words "As a vegan...", however I'm willing to use up my monthly quota for this one: as a vegan it's sooooooo great when you discover a great pub also does great vegan food. The Clapton Hart is this pub. They do vegan roasts now and then on a Sunday (call ahead to check) and this week added a new 3-Bean Vegan burger to their menu. So obviously there was only one place I was headed when the snow settled on Saturday.

Aside from the burger, which was great, it was the tobacco onions which stole the show for me- I had no clue what these were before this weekend but I've decided pretty much any meal could be improved with these blighters, so called because after they are cooked they look like shredded tobacco. All I'm saying is no packet of Amber Leaf ever tasted this good.

Bye-bye trying to construct chip buttys at Wetherspoons Steak Club every Tuesday. If you need me, follow the tobacco onion trail to the Lea Bridge Roundabout.