Divine Dines - The Vegan Vulture, Sheepy

Think about the last great meal you experienced. Conjure up the sensations, the smells, the sounds, the secretions. Got them nice and tight? Good. You're going to need them. Our restaurant review column continues apace in the never-culpable hands of girthy Gordonstoun old boy, Barclay Minster.

The little woman and I found ourselves in the sleepy surrounds of Sheepy last Tuesday eve, quite famished after a bracing constitutional through the grounds of the estate. (Didn't manage to shake her off...) As the sun set over the prole salon, our thoughts turned naturally to supper. Consulting the local gazetteer, we espied an establishment named "The Vegan Vulture," which both aroused and repelled. The vulture is a noble creature, with its manly grunts; it makes efficient use of the carrion it finds; its defence mechanisms include projectile vomit. In many ways the vulture is the ideal predator. Britain has a lot to learn from the vulture. 

Barclay Minster.
You know what he's thinking.

As for the vegans... Upon entering the dreary premises, we were met with a vision surely crafted in Hades itself. Gone were any trappings of civilization, replaced with rough-hewn benches, a floor strewn with hay, and tree stumps for tables. The patrons were a motley assortment of unwashed extremists and dreadlocked wastrels, predictably attired in hemp tunics and woven sandals. Sunday best, I presume! A confused squirt in a tunic offered us a handwritten menu scrawled on scrap paper. I should be glad they'd used standard ink... Perusing the limited options, I was aghast to find naught but plants and fungi on offer. Not even that dire slop favoured by Hoxton's hipster sect, the smashed-up avocado. Apparently it's cruel to the bees. Cruelty to customers, though, that's permitted.

We began with a starter described only as "foraged salad" - this proving to be an unholy melange of twigs, clover, dandelions, and other weeds haphazardly tossed together and lightly drizzled in pond water. For the main course, I chose the wild mushroom ragout which arrived as an unpalatable medley of fungi seemingly seasoned with mud and garnished with moss. The little woman opted for the nettle and seaweed pie, the contents of which were unidentifiable sludge enclosed in a crust redolent of compost heap.  

To wash down this culinary insult, came the inevitable injury: we were offered no Krug, no Shiraz, no Chateau Margeaux - too inflaming, I suppose - instead a choice of either dandelion coffee (the Lord's saints preserve us), an infusion of some unnamed herbs, or plain creek water. The squirt admitted the dandelion coffee was indeed from a dreaded "woke" firm with its priorities arse-about-face - funding fairer do's for farmworkers or some such drivel. When will they learn, charity is never the answer? I opted for the herbal drink which had a brackish taste not unlike ditchwater. I daresay it will make me regular, though not a regular.

Desperate to cleanse my palate after this parade of nature's leavings parading as cuisine, I enquired after pudding. Our host proudly presented us with bowls of foraged acai berries drizzled in maple syrup "tapped from a sustainable tree." Having no wish to sample this sweetened soil, we took our leave. 

I have eaten in shepherds' huts, army barracks, even - once - a bus shelter. But never have I endured a dining experience as purgatorial as The Vegan Vulture. No meat, no game, no proper drink - just weeds and twigs from the hedgerow. I shall stick to the fare prepared by Mrs. Chatterley in our well-appointed dining room, and leave this pastoral pretence to the addled hippies. The countryside is for looking at, tramping down, and shooting grouse over. Not for rummaging through like a scruffy badger.