The Lost Hour – a Pub and Restaurant | Review

[Ad- gifted experience] We were invited to take on the new vegan options at The Lost Hour, a casual pub that has pool tables, a SNES, loads of TVs showcasing sports, and a friendly atmosphere. Offering a bunch of beers on tap and fruity ciders I hadn’t even heard of before, as well as a generously sized menu full of food, this pub is a step above your average Wetherspoons. They’ve added a few vegan specials to their menu and are encouraging those doing Veganuary by offering double points for vegan purchases made by people who sign up for their rewards card called ‘more’. They are also doing 25% off low-alcohol or non-alcoholic drinks if you are doing dry January and have a card! These reward points can add up to free food or drinks at The Lost Hour. The bar staff themselves were also really lovely, which is worth a mention. They spent time asking tables if everything was good, cleaned fast and efficiently, and had good conversations at the bar. It was just a really friendly bunch! Let’s get down to the food;

Moving Mountains B12 Burger

The Moving Mountains B12 Burger was the first thing that caught Dann’s eye. Despite burgers being a pretty simple thing to make vegan, this one came with a bunch of interesting toppings that made it Dann’s ultimate choice. The burger was topped with red pepper hummus, a mock meat sauce, spinach, and grated vegan cheese. The hummus really took the burger to the next level, as a sauce, it was really delicious. The meat sauce seemed like their in-house sloppy joe mix – a sweet then a bit spiced sauce that adds a lot of juicy-ness to whatever it’s on top of. The addition of spinach provided a nice crunch (as well as a dose of iron, normally found in red meat) and the burger itself was good. The texture, of course, wasn’t exactly like a real burger, instead being less dense then a red meat burger, but the taste was delicious – very smoky and not at all greasy. This meat-free burger comes with a side of nachos or skinny fries, Dann chose nachos. The nachos were simple but good.

Topped Hash Brown Bars

Jupiter is someone who orders a few sides as a main meal, to have more variety. With that in mind, she went for the Topped Hash Brown Bars, which come with a choice of soya sloppy joe sauce or BBQ Jackfruit. She went for the soya sloppy joe – in America, sloppy joe burgers are a thing that her family often had for dinner and she had never seen it on a menu in the UK, so it was well worth a try. As previously mentioned, the sloppy joe mix is a sweet then spiced meat sauce (though this one was made with soya). There was a healthy amount of this sauce, some vegan cheese, red chilli and spring onions on top of the perfectly crispy hash brown bars. This, once again, did not feel greasy to eat and all worked well together. The hash brown and sloppy joe sauce were very filling – almost like a chilli jacket potato but taken up several levels until crunchy, delicious hash brown bar. The Lost Hour actually doesn’t have this item on the meat menu, meaning that your only chance to try this very delicious dish is the vegan option, which we would easily order again.

Cauliflower Wings

We both are a huge fan of chicken wings, so the cauliflower wings seemed like a no-brainer to try out. The Lost Hour has two options a version covered in sweet chilli sauce, pomegranate seeds, spring onion, sesame seeds, and vegan mayo or a plain version with just some spring onions. The first option sounds really lovely if you like sweet chilli, however, Jupiter hates sweet chilli so we went with the plain ones that we could spice up with some of the hot sauces that they had at our table, creating some buffalo wings for ourselves to enjoy. Surprisingly, the cauliflower wings came out as both cauliflower and broccoli wings – which was a pretty welcome surprise. The batter was crispy and delicious. We grabbed some of the Ghost Chilli hot sauce, checked to see that it was vegan, and had ourselves some nice, spicy wings that were very satisfying. Cauliflower wings do not feel like chicken wings, but they are really nice to eat!

Drinks

When it came to drinks, at first, Dann got a rum and tropical red bull drink and Jupiter got Sex on the Beach, both were pretty good. We then tried some of their ciders, as they seemed to have a vast collection of fruit flavoured ciders. Dann went for the mango cider, which did have some tastes of apple in it, but overall was fruity and delicious. Jupiter went for the tropical cider, which didn’t taste much like alcohol at all, and instead like a good, tropical fruity drink. The Lost Hour also has these ‘cocktails in a can’ sub menu, where they take cans of various different sodas, mix the sodas with various ingredients, then pour them back into the can. Jupiter tried a Dr. Wrap Beats and Sweets, which was rum, amaretto, and Dr. Pepper, topped with sweets. It was a bit strong for her, but overall, a clever idea and fun to see!

After the meal and drinks were done, we had a bit of an explore and played some Mario Kart on the SNES upstairs, while other people played pool behind us. The Last Hour, despite it being a Tuesday, had a few different pool games going on and several people dotted around the place eating and drinking. This was a pretty good sign that this pub is a great place to stop into, any day of the week. Veganuary or not, we’d go to The Lost Hour again!

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