Laos
After a 2 week stint as a dog volunteer at Elephant Nature Park in northern Thailand which seemed to go by extremely quickly I headed up to Pai for a few days to chill out. Although Pai was quite vegan friendly, particularly the night market, I wasn’t really into the vibe there which seemed overly egotistical and superficial as well as being incredibly westernised (even more so than Chiang Mai) like many other places throughout Thailand. It was also a bit too packed with the kind of people who’s only ambition in life appeared to be getting as wasted as possible for a little money as possible which generally aren’t exactly the kind of people I bother with. so, after 2 days I jumped on a bus back to Chiang Mai for 1 night with the intention on getting the bus to Chiang Rai the following morning.
The next morning while I was waiting for the Chiang Rai bus at the bus station I started chatting with another fellow solo traveller from Israel who also happened to be a vegan and only sought to confirm all the good things that I’d heard about Israel’s extreme vegan friendliness, making me even more eager to go there to check it out myself.
I didn’t yet have any accommodation booked for Chiang Rai but I had a list of a few potential options so just planned to find something when I arrived. It was pouring rain when I got off the bus, there was only one hostel close to the bus terminal which I discovered was already full. Not being particularly keen on wandering aimlessly around in the rain with all my stuff I decided the best thing to do would be to just get the next bus to Chiang Khong the border town and try my luck there. I had an an hour to kill before that bus departed which was just enough time to grab some stir fried tofu and veggies with rice from a nearby cafe. I spent the next few hours trying to dodge the constant drops of water falling from the ceiling of the very local bus. I finally arrived in Chiang Khong, it was still raining quite heavily and was now also rather dark and cold. Fortunately there was a 7/11 right across the street from the bus stop and the staff were able to tell me which guesthouse on my list of possible accommodation options was the closest. It was only about a 10 minute walk to one that sounded ok so I thought I’d try my luck there first. Thankfully they had space in a dorm room left which I ended up having all to myself for just 80 baht. The guesthouse was a bit weird, I actually thought I’d stumbled upon the headquarters of some strange western hippy cult due the all the weird people I found inside along with all the weird interior decorations, but given my limited options I decided to make do since it was only for 1 night. I was wearing shorts and was freezing from the walk in the rain (and the over functional air-con on the bus), my one pair of long pants was well and truly buried in the bottom of my bag somewhere but thankfully the guesthouse was teeming with friendly cats who were quite happy to oblige in warming up my lap. The owner, a very eccentric and friendly middle aged women was also quite helpful with information on the best modes of transport to get across the border. She told me she could arrange a mini van to the immigration check point the next morning as there were a few other guests also going in that direction. However, the next morning she was apparently “too drunk” to call and book the van so one of the other guests ended up organising it and also checked me out of the guesthouse.
Laos immigration isn’t exactly what you’d describe as efficient by any means but it does serve as a pretty good indication of what to expect in the rest of the country. It took about 3 hours all up to to get my visa and and get out of the Laos side of the immigration building. It was still cold and raining and I was starving as I hadn’t had breakfast yet so I made the decision to spend 1 night in Huoay Xai to give me time to research since I didn’t really have much of a plan or idea of where I was actually going to go in Laos. I had to wait in a tuk-tuk for around 50 minutes before there were enough passengers to head into town which seemed like an eternity. Finally, I was dropped off in the centre of town and after asking around at a few guesthouses I found one with space that was within my budget.
Huoay Xai isn’t exactly the most happening place in the world, especially on the weekend as about 90% of businesses including restaurants were closed which made finding something to eat somewhat of a challenge. There were pretty much only 2 viable options. There was one place on the main street that had stir fried tofu and veggies which sounded passable so I ordered that and waited for close to an hour only to be told that their stove was broken so they couldn’t make it. Since there was nothing else vaguely appealing on the menu I left in search of the next best option. Across the road from the boat wharf, about halfway up the steps that lead to the temple on the left hand side there is a restaurant/ NGO called Daauw Home with a number of clearly labelled vegan options. It is more of a dinner place (the have a small vegan buffet in the evenings) so lunch options were limited to stir fried veggies and sticky rice. Afterwards I bought my bus ticket to Luang Namtha for the next morning, bought some snacks from a small corner store including some vegan chocolate coated muesli bars that I discovered and then spent the rest of the day doing laps around town in the hope of finding something to do (I didn’t).
Vegan muesli bars
The bus ride to Luang Namtha was a pretty uneventful 5 hours journey. For some reason the bus driver decided to drive straight passed every roadside stop and instead stop at random places on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere giving those passangers busting for the toilet no other option but to pee in the bushes which proved to be quite an issue for the mostly elderly French women that I was sharing the mini van with. It was around 3pm by the time we finally rolled into town, it proved fairly easy to find somewhere to stay since it was quite early still. The town of Luang Namtha is quite small with a small but worthwhile night time food market in the town’s centre which was right across the road from my guesthouse. Upon arrival I did a lap of all the restaurants on the main street to suss out my options and was happy to discover there were quite a few. I ended up at a restaurant called Forest Retreat Bamboo Lounge which according to the sign out the front served “authentic western food” and also had quite a lot of clearly labelled vegan options including a number of pizza and pasta dishes as well as a few GF options. I ordered the tofu, hummus and mushroom sandwich and a roast vegetable salad. It was a bit on the pricey side at around 30 000 kip per dish but it was particularly nice food, especially since I hadn’t had a decent meal in a few days.
Tofu, mushroom and hummus sandwich
Warm roast vegetable salad
Bamboo Lounge restaurant in run by an NGO that helps to train women from minority ethnic groups in hospitality and western food hygiene practices so that they can become more self sufficient. They also organise trekking and kayaking trips and after looking around town at the other trekking agents I opted to book a 2 day trek with them as they seemed to be the most ethical and environmentally responsible of them all. There were already a quite a few other people booked for the trek which brought the price down to a very reasonable $45 which included all meals, water and a sleeping bag.
I wasn’t very hungry at dinner time so I just bought some snacks at the night market which was very vegan friendly despite its small size. I found a stall tucked away in the far back corner that was selling bowls of taro, sweet potato and tapioca worms in coconut milk so I had one of those for dinner as well as some grilled bananas stuffed with shredded fresh coconut flesh.
Early the next morning I lugged my bag down the road to the meeting point for the trek which was a vegan friendly restaurant called Minority restaurant that served traditional Laos hill tribe food. I met the rest of the group that I would be trekking with who were all mostly around my age and were a mix of French, German, Swiss, French- Canadian and another token Australian. It was about a 1 hour drive in the back of a tuk-tuk to the beginning of the trail.
I have done a fair amount of trekking in various countries so though I had a pretty good idea of what to expect in Laos, however, it gradually unfolded into a lot more of an adventure than I’d bargained for as a result of the prior 3 days of heavy rain that caused the river that ran through the national park to rise about 1m and the track to turn into nothing more than a slippery slide covered in inches of mud.
The first day wasn’t too bad, the trail took us up countless very steep mountains, weaving our way down the immensely slippery and steep mud paths that made it virtually impossible for anyone in the group to stay on their feet. We stopped for lunch in a small clearing and ate our lunch jungle style, meaning we sat on logs and ate our food off of a banana leaf with our fingers. The vegan option was stir fried green beans with spicy bamboo shoots and sticky rice.
Jungle lunch
I didn’t take many photos during the trek as I was far too busy trying to avoid severely injuring myself or losing my footing on all the terrifyingly steep and treacherous descents, there wasn’t much scenery either since we were in deep, thick forest.
Our accommodation for the evening was a small wooden hut next to the river.
The “beds” in the hut were essentially just 2 parallel bamboo poles with a hessian sack tied over the top of them with string, much like a make shift stretcher. I’m not a particularly large person by any means but the beds were so narrow and short that I knew just from looking at them that I was not going to get a minute of sleep despite being completely exhausted from the 6 hours of hill climbing. The bed turned out to be even more uncomfortable than I anticipated because as I was attempting to climb into bed which was quite a task since it was pitch dark and the stretchers were all crammed right up against each other so as to fit them all into the hut, there was also the issue of the mosquito net that I had to fight my way through in the dark. This meant that the only way to get into bed was to crawl in from the foot end of the stretcher, as I was doing just that I heard a rather loud tearing sound (apparently hessian sacks aren’t actually strong enough to take the weight of a person). I spent the night with my feet and butt falling through the holes in the hessian and at the mercy of the beyond freezing cold draught that was blowing up through the large gaps in the floor boards. Due to my lack of a pillow, and since there was also a large hole in the hessian where my head was supposed to go I tried to use the rock hard bamboo pole on the side as a pillow, but since the stretcher was too narrow and weak for me to turn onto my side without causing it to break further it proved to be completely impossible to get even the slightest bit comfy.
Day 2 of the trek started out much the same as the first, after spending a number of hours yet again sliding down steep mountain trails on our behinds trying desperately to grab onto the branches of trees or other nearby plants in desperate attempts to stay on our feet which resulted in several minor injuries including cuts and twisted ankles. After lunch however, things took quite an unexpected turn. We had 2 possible options for which route to take, there was the “easier and shorter” river trail or the climb up another mountain. Since I was the only one who wanted to go up the mountain I went with the majority rule. The river path turned out not to even vaguely resemble a path at all, it was so overgrown and all the rain of the previous few days had washed away almost all of the remaining trail which made it quite an ordeal to walk along. To make things even more interesting our guide had never been on this route so had no idea that it would also require wading across the rapidly flowing and extremely freezing, waist deep river with horrifyingly slippery and sharp rocks on the bottom of it no less than 10 times.
I was down to one pair of comfortable shoes as my other had broken in Thailand, I wasn’t too keen on having to wear wet shoes for the next few days so I had to cross the river in just my socks. Since we were having to cross the river so frequently to keep on the “path” there wasn’t much point in taking my shoes on and off every 5 minutes so I had to walk in my socks for a good few hours which wasn’t terribly fun.
Miraculously we all managed to survive and finally made our way out of the jungle and onto the road to wait for the tuk-tuk to take us back to town. I didn’t have any other long pants with me, other the the wet ones that I was wearing so I just about froze to death on the ride back and was very happy to have a warm shower and a fresh change of clothes when I got back to the guesthouse. Most of the people in the trekking group then met up to have dinner together and to say our farewells before we all headed off in different directions. We to Bamboo Lounge for dinner as most people were craving fatty western food after the exertion on the trek. I just ordered the same 2 dishes again. The restaurant was very busy and the staff seemed a little overwhelmed making the service really slow. It was over 1 hour before my roast vegetable salad arrived but they had forgotten about my tomato free request so I had to wait longer still for them to make another one. Then after reminding the wait staff twice about my sandwich it finally arrived at my table at 10pm, just over 2 hours after I had first ordered it, by which time I was far too tired to enjoy really it.
The next morning it was another early start for what I had been told would be a 7-8 hour long bus ride to Luang Prabang. Another girl from the trek was going in the same direction so we both booked tickets on the same bus. It was a very winding and bumpy dirt road for the majority of the journey, there were countless delays including getting stuck behind a broken- down bus for almost 1 hour on a particularly narrow strip of road making it impossible for us to pass. 12 hours later we finally reached Luang Prabang at 8pm with no accommodation booked. Almost everywhere was full up already so we ended up having to go 1/2’s on a twin room in a moderately expensive hotel for the night, then moved to a more affordable backpacker hostel the following morning.
I was very happy to be in a larger town after close to a week in more or less the middle of nowhere, especially since Luang Prabang had quite a number of good vegan options. My first day I didn’t do very much since I was still exhausted from the bus ride and from trekking so I just wandered around the town and caught up on some internet research on what to do in the area. I wasn’t sure how many days I was going to stay or where I was going afterwards but I ended up staying in Luang Prabang for 4 days since it was such a pleasant place.
On the main street just at the beginning of the night market there is a little white cafe called Indigo, they have a vegan menu available, although it’s a bit on the expensive side. They also apparently do a vegan brunch on Sundays but unfortunately it wasn’t on while I was there. Indigo cafe was a little out of my budget so unfortunately didn’t eat there, I got a tofu and avocado baguette from a street stall across the road instead.
The night market as I discovered was particularly vegan friendly , as was the morning market (aside from the repulsive and utterly vomit- inducing sight of rat and squirrel kebabs down one of the small laneways). In the small alleyway next to Indigo cafe there were about 3-4 different stalls from around 5pm onwards that had quite sizeable vegan buffets for just 15 000kip (less than $2).
Vegan buffet in Luang Prabang
FYI there was also grilled fish and chicken etc on the side of the buffet that could be bought separately but all the dishes in the bowls were vegan except for one that had egg in it.
All of the 3-4 veg buffet stall had quite similar dishes but the one furthest down on the left hand side looked the freshest. I got my dinner from these stalls on 3 of the nights that I was in town and really enjoyed the food on each occasion.
Another great discovery that I made in the night markets were the coconut puddings, they were made from just coconut milk and tapioca which were then grilled. They were so delicious and addictive, with a crunchy outer skin and a mushy, gooey, pudding like consistency in the centre.
Delicious grilled mini coconut puddings
There were also a few other stalls selling vegan friendly desserts including sweets made from sticky rice flour, fruit and tapioca jellies in coconut milk.
After my first buffet dinner I was craving something sweet (this was before I discovered all the other sweets down the alleyway). To satisfy my sweet craving I was about to get a bit creative and DIY and buy a pack of Oreos to crush up and add to a fruit shake when I looked up and saw pretty much that exact thing on a market stall menu.I got a banana and oreo shake which was very addictive. By the time I had finished it off I was already down the other end of the market, I saw another stall with them on the menu there too so I ended up pigging out on a banana, oreo and mint shake as well.
Oreo shake
During my internet research I had found out that Free the Bears had a bear sanctuary about 30kms outside of town right next to a waterfall that was a very popular tourist attraction in Luang Prabang, so I was planning to go and visit it the next day. There were a few other people in my hostel who were also going then so I just went with them plus a few other randoms that they had met at a bowling alley the previous night (apparently it’s the only place in town that sells alcohol after 11.30pm). Although I mainly wanted to see the bears when we got to the waterfall I was quite blown away by its beauty. There were countless cascading pools of crystal clear blue water that gently flowed down a hill.
It was a steep 10 minute climb to the top of the waterfall which I and 3 others from my hostel did together. When we reached the top, after a bit of wandering around ,we heard music coming from somewhere down the trail in the forest and decided to follow it. Envisioning scenes of Buddhist monks chanting and praying in some kind of ceremony, we were taken by complete surprise when we reached the top of the hill to find a large clearing full of extremely intoxicated people wearing military uniforms and singing very out of tune karaoke. Despite it only being 2pm the ground was already completely covered with empty beer cans. We all hesitated for a few minutes trying to make sense of the spectacle we were witnessing, we were just about to make a retreat back down the hill when one of the more senior officers announced our arrival over the PA system and invited us to join in their new year celebrations. Not wanting to seem rude we hesitantly walked over and sat down at one of the tables to have cups of beer thrust into our hands as they crowded around urging us to scull. Quickly realising that we had become their entertainment for the afternoon as more and more of them crowded around us to stare at the 4 foreign girls. They were also quite keen for us to join in the karaoke (only one of us obliged). After posing for a few obligatory photos we made our excuses and swiftly headed back down the hill to the car park to find the others for the tuk-tuk ride back to town.
For my fourth and final day in Luang Prabang I rented a bike and spent the day cycling around town with one of the other girls from my hostel which was very enjoyable. For lunch we stopped at an Indian restaurant called Nisha which was delicious and had a very vegan friendly menu as everything was cooked with oil and all the dishes that are traditionally made with paneer were instead made with tofu. We ordered the palak paneer (cheese(tofu) and spinach curry), dahl makhani and a mushroom curry as well as bread and rice.
Vegan Indian lunch at Nisha restaurant
Cycling around Luang Prabang
On my final morning before my bus to Vang Vieng I went to the morning market to pick up a few snacks and a tofu and avocado baguette for lunch on the road which surpassed the one I had gotten a few days before.
The bus ride, which I had been dreading after the 12 hour ordeal to Luang Prabang, actually went by fairly quickly. At one of the rest stops I spotted a girl wearing a “proud to be vegan” t shirt so I went over to chat to her, she was from Israel (of course). Although I really wasn’t keen on going to Vang Vieng since I’d heard so many negative things about it being a well worn stop on the bogan pisshead backpacker trail around Asia. However, as it was the most convenient place to stop to break up the journey on the way to Vientiane it seemed like the only logical option since I didn’t have enough time to go anywhere else.
While Vang Vieng wasn’t quite as bad as I been expecting, it was still definitely not my kind of place, but at least it had a decent amount of vegan options. For dinner I was craving falafel and hummus so I had dinner at an Israeli/middle eastern restaurant called Sababa.
That night at around 3am some extremely drunk guy at my hostel decided to jump/ was pushed off the 2nd storey balcony and broke his hip and wrist and had to be rushed to hospital 6 hours away in Vientianne. I was chatting to a staff member the next day who told me that this was an almost weekly event which probably gives you a fairly good idea of what kind of place Vang Vieng is, much to the disgust and shame of the locals.
There isn’t much to do in Vang Vieng, especially during the day when it’s almost a ghost town, besides getting extremely wasted and tubing. There are however, a few nice caves and waterfalls that are worth exploring which is what I did to fill in my 1 full day that I had in the town.
I had an early lunch at Nazim Indian restaurant, the menu was identical to Nisha restaurant in Luang Prabang, however, the food quality and the customer service were both of of a much lower standard. I ordered a mango and banana shake, mulai kofta that was made with tofu instead of paneer and palak gobi (spinach and cauliflower curry).
L: mulai kofta, R: palak gobi at Nazim Indian restaurant
The mulai kofta was really tasty but the palak gobi was a bit weird and oily and a very unnatural shade of bright green.
For dinner I went to the only 100% vegetarian restaurant in town, a place called Veggie Tables. I wasn’t that hungry so I just ordered some fresh rice paper rolls which were really delicious and came with a very tasty sweet sesame dipping sauce.
I was still feeling a little hungry afterwards so I also got a veggie noodle soup which turned out to be rather bland and uninspiring and tasted like 2 minute noodles.
FYI The staff at this restaurant seemed to be a little confused about what is/is not vegan. Despite the word “vegan” being painted in very large writing on the sign outside, the waiter told me that the mango lassi was vegan despite also telling me that it was made with dairy yoghurt so order with caution.
After dinner I was a bit stuck as to how to kill the remainder of the evening so after a bit of walking up and down the main street I found a cafe that was showing back to back episodes of Friends so I parked myself there for a few hours and was also joined by 3 of the girls that I’d been hanging out with in Luang Prabang.
The bus ride to Vientiane was thankfully fairly smooth and uneventful, although there was considerably less legroom than all of the other buses I’d been on which meant my legs were completely numb by the time we arrived in the capital city.
I didn’t have any accommodation booked but there were quite a few budget guesthouses and hostels in the centre of town which was just a couple of blocks away from where the bus dropped us off and it was easy to find a place to stay.
My first stop after setting my bags down was to Reunion cafe for a late lunch of braised sesame tofu and veggie stir fried noodles.
I then spent a few hours exploring the city, which was really more of a big town, and briefly visited a few of the more touristy attractions including the non vegan friendly night market before getting some dinner at an Indian/ Bangladeshi restaurant called Dhaka which was just around the corner from my hostel. I had some samosas which were particularly tasty and very filling, as well as a masala dosa.
Since I only had 1 full day in Vientiane I was keen to make the most of the large number of all you can eat vegan lunch buffet restaurants in town. They all sounded pretty good but the (nameless) one near the Khou Din market seemed to stand out against the rest. On the way there for lunch I grabbed some very delicious grilled bananas stuffed with coconut for a quick snack and then found a watch repair stall on the street and dediced to get my watch fixed that had broken a few weeks prior.
The buffet did not disappoint, everything was very fresh and tasty and 100% vegan. There was quite a large selection of dishes including a make your own laksa thing and also a dessert station with coconut milk and tapioca jellies.
Laksa station
My 2 favourite dishes were a warm minced tofu and herb salad and the pumpkin curry. I was feeling pretty stuffed afterwards so I ambled around the nearby market for a while then explored around the outskirts of the city. After a few hours I had more or less run out of things to do so I started walking back to my hostel to pack my bag. Along the way I heard someone yelling out my name and when I turned around it was the 3 ladies from the hostel in Luang Prabang so I ended up spending the rest of the evening hanging out with them.
My flight to Bangkok was only t 2pm so I had just enough time on my last morning to hit up another of the vegan buffet restaurants. This time I went to a place called Vegetarian in the Golden Age, I wasn’t too sure about the name but the food was pretty good, although not as good or as big as the Khou Din market one.
Bali- Ubud
Ubud is the centre of many things, not only is it just about smack bang in the middle of the island of Bali, it’s also the heart of Balinese art and culture, and if that’s not enough it’s also a major centre for yoga and all things health related which of course means it is a total vegan heaven, especially for raw foodies.
Here’s a run down of a few of my favourite places in Ubud.
Alchemy
100% vegan and raw, this restaurant’s strength is definitely its raw salad bar in which you get a mixed lettuce leaf base, your choice of 5 toppings from their vast and seriously tasty selection and a dressing. They also do some very impressive and delicious smoothies and juices, my favourites were definitely the carob caramel and the peppermint kiss, the raw dessert bar is worth a visit too.
Yoga Barn Garden Kafe
Yoga Barn is one of the largest yoga places in Ubud offering almost 100 classes each week in a diverse range of styles with teachers from seemingly every corner of the globe. The vegetarian kafe here is set in a peaceful garden making it a pleasant place to chill out after a yoga class, service can sometimes leave a lot to be desired though, especially when it’s busy. On Sundays there is an all vegan buffet for 65 000.
Juice Ja Kafe
Serves meat but has quite a few veg/vegan options that are clearly labelled. The scrambled tofu is nice although definitely needs a side of hummus etc as it’s a little dry. The sesame tofu salad is also very tasty.
Sari Organic
Set in a very picturesque terrace overlooking rice paddies, there is also a small organic shop downstairs. I got one of their specialities which is the tofulafel platter (falafel balls made from tofu) which was great, the raw Thai coconut soup was also a stand out.
Kafe Soma
All vegetarian and organic, serves the fairly standard menu for Ubud with a mixture of Balinese/Indonesian and western dishes. There is also a large raw dessert case at the front of the cafe, however almost all of the desserts are sweetened with honey which is rather annoying for vegans.
Kafe Sopa
Just down the road from one of my favourite warungs (Dayu’s warung), this cafe has a much more laid back, local vibe than many of the other places often frequented by westerners. The speciality here is nasi campus (mixed rice), which is rice with your choice of 4 or so options from the display cabinet. The tofu balls were my top pick, they were huge and quite filling with quite a bite to them.
Chocolate mango and coconut cake
Dayu’s Warung
Although this place isn’t even 100% vegetarian it’s one of my favourites in Ubud for a number of reasons, firstly Dayu’s offers one of the most creative and unique menus in town with a huge range of delicious vegan, vegetarian and GF options, and a few token meat dishes. Their breadless burgers are beautifully presented and very substantial and are brilliant value. Dayu’s also have a range of exceptionally good desserts (raw, GF and baked options) that are definitely the best value in Ubud, my favourite is probably the GF pumpkin and chocolate cake that is made with sticky rice flour giving it a dense and moist texture. I have eaten at Dayu’s quite a number of times and haven’t had a bad meal yet. They also have a huge range of drinks including chai teas and smoothies. Recommended
Raw chocolate, beet and avocado cake
Fresh rice paper rolls with tamarind sauce
Mango tempeh curry
Mung dahl burger
Sweet potato and tempeh burger
Purple yam and chocolate cake GF
Mango chai
Bali Buda
I mainly like this cafe as a breakfast place. I had a delicious bagel with salad and hummus, on another occasion I got the gourmet burger which unfortunately didn’t quite hit the spot for me nor did the raw tropical fruit pie.
Seeds of Life
Another raw vegan cafe, my pick here is definitely the raw pancakes, although they are are little on the sweet side they are pretty impressive none the less. Like just about every other restaurant in Ubud they also have a sizeable range of raw vegan desserts.
Nine Heaven
Despite this warung being all vegan I found it to be very disappointing on my visit there. Inside has a dusty, run down and unloved atmosphere and unfortunately the food didn’t fare much better. I ordered the bipimbap and a fresh coconut juice. The bipimbap was horribly bland and tasteless and came served with tomato sauce which seemed completely out of place in a Korean dish. My coconut juice, which was served still in the coconut had obviously been sitting in the hot sun all day and was barely drinkable despite my being rather thirsty. Many other people rave about this place so perhaps it depends upon when you go there.
Veggie Table
Located in the middle of the main street Veggie Table serves some tasty and authentic Indonesian dishes. I got a yellow tempeh curry which was very nice.
Living Food Lab
A short walk away from the monkey forest this restaurant is tucked away behind another building in a very pretty garden over looking rice paddies. It’s 100% raw and mostly vegan except for almost all of the desserts which contained honey. I got the custom salad which was a very poor imitation of Alchemy’s, the raw fajita had an unpleasantly burny after taste and was definitely over priced.
Kafe Atman
Another good place for breakfast, serves meat but veg/vegan options are all clearly labelled. The grain free porridge which is made out of nut and seeds is very tasty and filling. I also really like the tropical fruit and quinoa salad.
Warung Kopi
I discovered this place by chance on my way to a class at the Yoga Barn. It’s your run of the mill little local Balinese warung. Serves meat but has several clearly labelled vegan options, I tried the tempeh burger which was surprisingly tasty. I did get a little freaked out as it came served with mayo and cheese but it turned out to just be home made soy mayo and a slice of Tofutti mozzarella making it one of the few places in Ubud where vegan can actually find something relatively unhealthy to eat.
Yellow Flower Cafe
Yellow Flower cafe is about a 15 minute walk from from the centre of town down a series of winding pathways that take you along a very pretty little stream and across some fields. I ordered the betulflower curry and the rainbow salad which were both nice choices.
Wulan Warung
I was very happy to discover this tiny local little vegetarian warung run by a lovely family. The menu consists of about 3-4 different dishes written on a chalk board. I opted for the spinach curry which was delicious and super cheap at less than 30 000.
Kafe
This is definitely one of the most popular cafes in Ubud, whenever I have walked passed it has always been packed and its not surprising given at the overwhelmingly huge menu on offer. I really enjoyed the kitcheri and the macro bowl was also delicious.The tofu scramble was ok but probably not the best in town.
Kokolato Ice Cream
Vegan ice cream and if that’s not enough to convince you to go there it’s also healthy sugar free ice cream with no additives, the cones are also GF as they are made from coconut. The black sticky rice flavour had a mild chocolate flavour and a very creamy sweet texture, I can’t remember what the other flavour was that I got but it was a winner too.
Myanmar
Day 1: 6am starts are never much fun, especially when you only get home at 1am the night before, but that’s what I found myself doing as I heaved my backpack on for the first time of my 2 month adventure around SE Asia starting with an 11 day visit to Myanmar. I’d been hearing many good things about this country for quite sometime so was really looking forward to seeing it for myself.
A few hours later I stepped out of Yangon International airport and was greeted by what seemed more like a music festival mosh pit than the entrance to an airport. With a heaving mass of people almost clambering over each other as they eagerly searched for the friends and family that were coming off flights. I had planned on getting the shuttle bus into the city centre as this was by far the cheapest option but after discovering that the bus stop was a 20 minute walk away so given that it was 34 degrees outside I went with the next best option, a shared taxi. I ended up sharing the taxi ride with a very nice Burmese dentist who spent much of the year at conferences in Europe and thus spoke excellent English, so the 1 our trip into the city (it was 10km away) went quite quickly.
I had originally hoped to do some couchsurfing but with so few hosts in Myanmar, most of whom could only host on weekends. The only actual backpacker hostel in town was already fully booked (backpacking/ tourism is still quite a new thing in Myanmar and thus infrastructure catering to budget foreign travellers is very limited) so I ended up booking in a small guesthouse in a quite street in the Chinatown district.
After a bit of running around trying to find a money changer for the taxi driver which involved a 10 minute walk to find a money changer, I was finally able to check in. After a brief rest I decided to venture out and check out my surrounding before it got dark and I was also getting a bit hungry. I headed for the Chinatown street market which began right around the corner from my guesthouse and stretched along the street for at least 20 blocks. I hadn’t yet had time to perfect my Burmese pronounciation of “thathaloo” (literally translates to lifeless). so I wasn’t too sure how easy it would be to find food, but it turned out to be pretty easy. There were a vast array of fruit and veggie stalls lining both sides of the street so after walking the entire length of the market I did a U-turn and picked up 1/4 of a watermelon and some sticky rice sprinkled with fresh shredded coconut for the grand total of 70 cents.
Sticky rice from street markets
There weren’t many places to sit downtown to eat without ordering from one of the many street side restaurant stalls so I just found the cleanest patch of gutter I could find and tucked into my dinner much to the amusement of many of the local passersby and stall holders.
On the way back, just 100m or so from my guesthouse I spotted a glitzy sign golden sign with the words “vegetarian centre”. I had no idea how I had managed to walk past it twice already without even noticing it, but at least that was lunch sorted for the next day.
DAY 2: I started out my day with a banana breakfast. I bought half a bunch from a street stall for 300 kyat (30 cents), which I ate whilst wandering around the back streets of the Chinatown district towards Sule pagoda where was the former colonial administration district that still contains many now crumbling and dilapidated but still beautiful colonial buildings.After coming to the realisation that I really needed to put some sunscreen on as the day rapidly began to heat up I headed back before deciding that it was also time for lunch.
SO PYI SWAR VEGETARIAN CENTRE
The 1st thing you see when you step inside is a large photo display of the menu with a sign that reads “be kind to animals by not eating them”. They had an English menu available and the staff also spoke some English. The menu consisted mainly of Chinese style dishes with a big emphasis on mock meats. I wasn’t particularly in the mood to sample any crispy deep fried pigs bladder even if it was vegan so just kept things simple and ordered the sitr-fried mixed vegetables and the Japanese beancurd with rice. There were no prices listed, at least not in English but I assumed it was fairly reasonably priced.
Some of the menu at So Pyi Swar
While the food wasn’t exactly exciting by any means, but there was a hell of a lot of it. FYI dishes here are supposed to be shared so serving sizes are quite large. For some reason I also got a bowl of soup as a “present” as well. After my meal they also gave me a huge plate of watermelon for dessert. Felling rather full I continued on with the walk that I had started earlier in the day. I made my way up to People’s park, past quite a few completely out of place looking glitzy shopping malls, a sign of the increasing westernisation that is unfortunately sweeping across the country.
13th st (middle)
People’s park was quite a pleasant place to wander around with its somewhat tired and dusty art deco landscaping and gardens. In the middle of the park there are 3 large trees with corrugated iron towers built around them with a spiral staircase leading up to a very rusty suspension bridge linking to the other trees.
People’s park
The park was quite a relaxing escape from the constant symphony of cars horns and traffic pollution so I ended up staying there for almost 2 hours, having settled down under a tree for an afternoon siesta. I then continued on the Shredagon pagoda intending on catching the sunset, however along the way I decided that I was hungry again and craving a bit of air-con so instead left the pagoda to the following evening in favour of food from near my to guesthouse again.
I knew there was a vegetarian Nepalese restaurant in the area somewhere but the address given on happycow was completely out of date so after briefly trying to find it I settled for some Indonesian sweets, fruit and some sticky rice cakes from the night market.
DAY 3: I started the day quite late so decided to skip breakfast in favour of an early lunch since I wanted to go on the 3 hour long circle line train and get back in time for the sunset at Shredagon pagoda. After a fair amount of internet research I finally managed to get an up to date address for the only other 100% vegetarian restaurant in town, Nepali Food House (or so I thought). So after a quick stroll around the old colonial district I headed over to 29th st. There was absolutely no sign of a Nepalese restaurant at the address I had but after asking around a few of the local business owners, one of them was able to give me the new address which was just a few streets over.
NEPALI FOOD HOUSE
This incredibly unremarkable hole in the wall restaurant serves a mixture of basic Nepalese and Indian cuisine (mostly Indian despite the name). I would advise not looking too closely towards the kitchen area as it would most likely send the majority of foreigners running straight for the vomit bucket, but in Myanmar food hygiene standards do have to be lowered somewhat if you don’t want to starve.
Nepali food house menu
I was a little disappointed to to discover that they didn’t have any of the Nepali dishes staples of dahl baht or momos that I was familiar with from my time in Nepal so I opted for the dahl puri and the unusual sounding carrot paratha. I really wasn’t expecting much from the food at this place except for it to fill me up for a few hours and not give me food poisoning which I became considerably less optimistic about as I watched an extremely large cockroach scurry across the floor towards the kitchen straight after someone had taken my order.
Thankfully though the food didn’t make me sick and also filled me up (or should I say clogged me up) for the majority of the rest of the day which was actually quite convenient because the circle line train didn’t have toilets, at least not usable ones.
The dahl puri was was fried bread stuffed with a surprisingly tasty potato and lentil curry and was served with a small bowl of lentil soup. The carrot paratha had grated carrot and raisin filling which was also fairly good. The whole meal cost 4000 kyat
63 Bo Sun Pet st (lower block)
After lunch I walked sluggishly over to the train station for a ride on the circle line train. Unfortunately I just missed one so had an hour long wait till the next one. I killed the time buy wandering aimlessly around a nearby supermarket which had an amazing clean toilet that even had such luxeries as 2 whole squares of toilet paper in it, which in Myanmar is almost unheard of except for the most touristy areas. (FYI a good supply of tissues and hand sanitiser are essentials, don’t go anywhere without them unless you don’t mind using a hose).
The circle line train is an ancient rail network that (very) slowly loops around the rural outer edges of Yangon and is a fascinating immersion into local culture and everyday life. The 45km journey takes 3 hours, with hard wooden seats on a train that would most likely be in a museum 9or scrap yard) in most other countries, in Myanmar however, these historical relics are still in faithful service. I would advise sitting as far away from the doors as possible for maximun comfort as at each of the 2 dozen stops a huge mass of people as well as their vast array of fresh produce including everything from cauliflower to cotton, will be hauled onto the train all scrambling to get aboard before the train shunts off again which will likely result in you being buried alive in a coffin of fruit and vegetable baskets, probably with a few people ending up in your lap too from being thrown over as the train rocks violently back and forth in a manner which wouldpossibly induce bouts of sea sickness in those people with weaker stomachs.
The circle line train
One of the many stops
Don’t expect any leg room
The 3 hours went by surprisingly quickly as I was mostly engrossed in trying to avoid being turned into the base of a vegetable stack and taking in the scenes, as numerous characters jumped on and off the train at every station. The train didn’t actually stop at any of the stations except Yangon central, but rather slowed down a bit which not only caused it to away viciously from side to side, it also caused quite a few dramas as people attempted to get themselves and all of the produce on or off and through the train carriages to the door before the train sped up again to the full speed of 15km an hour.
NB The circle line train cost 1000 kyat and was well worth it, there is also the option of an “air-con” train for 2000 kyat but please note that just because it has the theoretical capability of air-con it does not mean that it is actually functional.
I finally arrived back in Yangon central feeling rather jelly legged and dizzy. The walk to the pagoda took 30-40 minutes as I walked quite slowly. I climbed to the top of the pagoda stairs and paid the rather exorbitant (for Myanmar) entry fee of 8000 kyat. While the pagoda was nice I wasn’t overly blown away by the mind boggling display of gold materialism, especially once the lights came on and lit the pagoda up to resemble a Las Vegas Christmas tree.
The pagoda did have pretty good free wifi though which is still quite a rare thing in Myanmar.
The random dentist n\man that I had shared a taxi with from the airport had invited me out to dinner as he was interested in learning more about Australia. We went to a very strange restaurant that was part late 1970’s Asian karaoke bar, part Chinese restaurant called Oriental House that was located quite near to Shredagon pagoda. (sorry no pics). I ordered stir-fried mix vegetable with cashew nuts and some rice. It was fairly tasty but but like all of my meals in Yangon it was far closer to survival food then enjoyable.
DAY 4: With a 3.30pm flight to Mandalay which meant that I need to leave at around 12.30pm to get to the airport on time, thus I didn’t have much time to do anything. So after my bags were packed I ducked out in search of some food. I was getting a little bored forking out 1000’s pf kyat for mediocre meals in restaurants so decided to take a more DIY approach for my breakfast/brunch. The previous day I had come across a tiny little Hari Krishna sweet/snack shop on lower 29th st while I was looking for the Nepali restaurant so I grabbed a couple of samosas and some poppadoms from there and a roast sweet potato and an avocado from a street stall. I had to bypass a few sweet potato vendors before I found a more sanitary one since someone picking their nose (and other body parts) and then using that same hand (unwashed and ungloved) to man handle and prepare my food didn’t do a whole lot for my appetite.
I then found a nice bit of gutter to sit in whilst enjoying my delicious meal which caused quite a stir among all the locals , who despite also sitting in the gutter eating obviously weren’t accustomed to seeing a foreigner doing the same. They were very nice though, someone gave me a mat to sit on, the guy from the avocado stall kindly offered to cut open my avocado since my attempts at doing so with the tooth pick I had acquired from the roast sweet potato proved to be rather unsuccessful and a nearby policeman even gave me his spoon to borrow.
I’d originally planned to visit only Yangon, Mandalay and Bagan since I had such little time in Myanmar, it was only after I’d already booked my flight to Mandalay that I decided to also include a trip to Inle lake in my itinerary which meant quite a few very long bus rides to squeeze everything in.
My flight from Yangon to Mandalay was delayed by an hour so by the time I finally arrived at my guesthouse in Mandalay it was about 6pm and I was starving. At the advise of the guesthouse staff I walked a few minutes up the road to a traditional Burmese salad bar for dinner.
DAUNG LANN GYI TRADITIONAL SALAD
Obviously being a salad bar there were tonnes of vegan options (NB make sure to check about fish sauce as many vegan sounding salads had it). I had no idea what to order since I had never heard of the majority of things on the menu so I took the advise of the waitstaff who were only too eager to help and ordered the Indian trumpet blossom salad and the tofu salad along with a young coconut juice with pulp. My meal also came with not 1 but 2 bowls of vegetable soup as a “present”. I couldn’t help but notice that none of the other diners were getting their soup present but I got the impression the teenage male waitstaff weren’t very used to seeing blonde girls in their restaurant.
Both of my salads were delicious and packed full of different flavours and textures. The tofu salad was mildly spicy and the Indian trumpet flower had a very strong, slightly bitter taste. I was totally stuffed by the time I slurped up the last of my coconut juice.
Traditional Burmese salads
68th st (corner of 33rd)
As tourism is quite a new thing in Myanmar much of the infrastructure is still in the early stages of development. A such backpacker hostels (and CS) are almost non existent. It took me many hours of internet research before setting out on my travels to find budget friendly places to stay as Myanmar is generally much more expensive that other destinations in SE Asia. During my research I came across a newly opened guesthouse in Mandalay called Dreamland that was actually a non profit community based art and music centre which offered subsidized or free music tuition and art lessons to local children and young people. All proceeds of the guesthouse go towards the running costs of these programs which sounded like a great cause and a far more interesting place to stay than your average guesthouse, so I booked to stay there. It turned out to be an excellent choice and was easily the nicest place I stayed at in Myanmar. The place had a great vibe, was super clean and was filled with the sounds of kids honing their violin and, guitar and piano skills. The staff were also super helpful and friendly. I had only booked one night there as I was still undecided on my next move but Sophia one of the lovely daughters of the family who run the place was really helpful with ideas of where to go next and I ended up booking a bus to Bagan for the following morning.
DAY 5: The next morning just 10 minutes after leaving Dreamland I realised that I was missing something fairly important, my phone. I quickly went to tell the bus driver who promptly pulled over on the side of the road and called the guesthouse who confirmed that my phone was indeed still sitting on a chair in the reception area. The bus was already running late so they didn’t want to wait for someone from the guesthouse to bring it to me, so they organised for my phone to be picked up from Dreamland and brought on the next bus and dropped off to the place I was staying at in Bagan. I wasn’t too worried as I was fairly confident that I would be reunited with my phone again as promised by the end of the day which was indeed the case. I just had to pay 2000 kyat to the courier driver who brought it from the bus station 6kms away to my guesthouse which was very reasonable.
The bus ride from Mandalay to Bagan took just under 5 hours. The roads in Myanmar leave a lot to be desired, the majority of the trip felt more like I was going through the spin cycle of a washing machine than sitting on a bus. Despite the road being mostly unsealed and full of potholes, this did not seem to deter the bus driver from having a lead foot and then slamming the breaks on whenever a motorbike or cow suddenly appeared in the bus’s path. While this is great fun for adrenaline junkies and thrill seekers my internal organs really did not appreciate being thrown around for such a long period and my arm also kept going numb from the intense vibration of the arm rest. The trip was quite interesting however, as it was my first proper glimpse of rural Myanmar, as the scenery switched between between dusty brown plains to lush green farmland, interspersed by numerous small villages that looked like they had been torn straight out of the pages of a book of medieval paintings.
It had been more or less impossible and rather unpleasant to attempt trying to eat during the bus trip. The one attempt I did make resulted in me hitting myself in the head with my freshly peeled banana before it landed landed on the floor as the bus went over a particularly large pothole at precisely the wrong moment.
In Bagan I stayed in the budget backpacker area of Nyaung-u located ar\bout 5kms north of Old Bagan where the majority of temple ruins are. I quickly dumped my bags in my room and rented a bicycle and cycled into Old Bagan for dinner the first of the 2 vegetarian restaurants in the area.
THE MOON (BE KIND TO ANIMALS RESTAURANT)
Tucked away in a little enclave behind one of the main temples are both of the vego restaurant which are located right next door to one another. The Moon is the best known of the 2 due to its much publicized write up in Lonely Planet. It is clearly catering to the slightly more upmarket western crowd and thus was about 2-3 times pricier than what I had been paying elsewhere, which was unsurprising given that it was located right in the middle of Myanmar’s main tourist attraction. I ordered the guacamole with poppadoms and a the tofu coconut curry with black sticky rice.
The food was very tasty, particularly the curry, but the portion sizes were tiny and despite it being my most expensive meal in Myanmar to date (6000 kyats, still really cheap by western standards) I left still feeling quite hungry.
After dinner I had just enough time before sunset to check out a few of the nearby temples which I ended up exploring with a random Canadian girl who was also travelling alone. In my state of hunger I’d forgotten to bring a light with me so I had to cycle back in the dark (there are very few street lights in Bagan) which was a little scary. I stopped to ask a policeman for directions to make sure I was going the right way who insisted that I take a family photo of himself with his wife and child who were hanging out with him, so after obliging I continued on my way for a few hundred metres only to 2 other policeman jump out onto the road in front of me waving their arms motioning for me to stop. I wasn’t too sure what the problem was aside from me riding in the pitch dark with no lights on and also having not got around to purchasing my tourist permit for the Bagan archaeological area yet. It turned out they just wanted to make sure that I had enough air in my tyres and tell me that I had beautiful tattoos. Being a cop in Bagan is obviously a pretty boring job.
DAY 6: Having opted to spend the morning sleeping in instead of getting up early to catch the sunrise. Unfortunately this didn’t quite go to plan as someone fresh off a night bus checked into my dorm room at around 4am waking everybody up in the process. So although I wasn’t up early enough for sunrise, I still started the day fairly early. The bland western breakfast on offer at my guesthouse left a lot to be desired, especially for a vegan so my first priority for the day was to find a fruit stall. I spent pretty much the entire day just cycling around checking out the numerous ruins scattered throughout the area.
Temples in Bagan
By late morning I found myself in the slightly less touristy area of New Bagan where I decided to stop for lunch. Whilst vegans are pretty much spoilt for choice with just about every single restaurant in Bagan having vegan or veganisable veg options on the menu which is generally the case in the ehole of the country. There is however, in Bagan at least little to no variation of menus from one restaurant to the next wuth all but a dew catering predominantly to the bland western palate.
SMT FAMILY RESTAURANT
I chose a more local restaurant for lunch. There were quite a lot of vegan options on the menu but I ordered the fried rice noodles with veggies and tofu and a pennywort salad.
Lunch at SMT family restaurant
Both dishes were perfectly tasty and I was finally starting to get a taste for Burmese tofu which is made out of chickpeas and/or chana dahl instead of the usual soy beans which gives it a yellow colour and a fairly strong flavour.
Main rd of New Bagan
After lunch I cycled back to Nyaung-u to go changed my pants which had ripped quite badly whilst climbing a pagoda (FYI thsi pants are not well suited for such activities) and also to go the money changer in the hope of being able to change over my USA $$ that had been rejected elsewhere due to it having a miniscule pen mark in one corner.
FYI I had changed all of my money into USA currency before I arrive as I had read on various websites and in travel guides that USA currency was the standard norm and was accepted everwhere. However, as of April 2014 Myanmar has officially reverted back to its own currency as the national economy becomes more stable. Whilst USA $$ are still accepted at most of Myanmar’s major tourist attractions you will be charged a higher price than if using kyats. Most money changers are also very fussy about the condition of USA bank notes and even a minor crease may render them unchangeable. SGD or Euros are also able to be changed at all money changers so it may be a better option to bring those currencies instead as plastic is much more durable and less likely to get damaged than paper notes. Thankfully the money changers in Bagan were much less fussy than elsewhere in the country and also gave much better exchange rates on damaged notes.
After a dew more hours of aimlessly cycling around, stopping every so often to offer some of the countless stray and very emaciated dogs some banana chips that I’d bought to snack on for the following days 7-8 hour long bus ride. I then headed back towards one of the few pagodas that tourists are allowed to climb to get a prime position for sunset. Not long after the tourist police arrived to check that everyone had a permit which all foreigners must purchase to be alliwed into the archealogical zone. I hadn’t got mine yet so I just payed the US$15 (or 16000 kyat) then.
With sunset ticked off the to do list it was time for dinner. After a but of deliberation I cycled towards Bagan’s 2nd all veg eatery Yar Pyi
YAR PYI
Run by a very sweet family who sit outside their restaurant eagerly trying to poach customers from their more famous neighbour, The Moon. This restaurant, despite having an almost identical menu the The Moon (at slightly lower prices) has a much more local and less commercialised, touristy vibe. I ordered the lentil soup and a mixed veg curry with coconut rice.
Everything was pretty tasty and I felt utterly stuffed as I finished my last mouthful only to be presented with a free “present” of a sugar coated fried banana for dessert.
Dinner at Yar Pyi vegetarian restaurant
Although I enjoyed my meals at both The Moon and Yar Pyi, I think I slightly preferred the latter as it was a bit more authentic and much better value for money.
DAY 7: The most uneventful day so far which entailed a 7 hour bus ride from Bagan to a small hill station town called Kalaw in the north eastern Shan state. The day began with getting a pick up truck from where I was staying just before 7am. The truck circled around town picking up other passengers until it was so full thsy several passengers had to hang off the side as it sped along to the bus station located a few kms out of town in time for our 7.30am departure.
The road the entire way was in much better confition than the one to Bagan. The first few hours took us through rural countryside much the same as the previous bus trip. The terrain was mostly brown, flat and dusty interspersed with the occassional village and farmland with numerous horse and bullock carts hauling large loads of hay. By midday the bus finally started winding its way up the steep, narrow mountain road, as the scenery gradually transformed to green forrests.
We arrived in Kalaw just before 3pm, by which time I was starving, having only eaten a few bananas and half a pack of banana and sweet potato chips. I was keen to try some of the local Shan food which was quite distinctive to much of the other Burmese food. It was also well known to be particularly vegan friendly.
I found a great little Shan noodle restaurant just a 2 minute walk around the corner on the main road into town. As I walked in I was met with looks of utter surprise and confusion by staff and customers alike. Even when I sat down at a table and asked for a menu they still seemed quite confused about why I was there.
The lady on reception at my guesthouse had kindly qritten in Burmese “I’m vegetarian and allergic to tomato” as I had mentioned to her that I’d been having a hard time getting my tomato free requests met.
The restaurant had an English menu but yhe staff didn’t really speak any so I just pointed to tofu paste noodles and then showed them the vegetarian, no tomato sign.
Delicious tofu paste noodles in Kalaw
The noodles were absolutely delicious and it was hard to resist ordering another bowl. The tofu paste had a slightly cheesy flavour which gave the whole dish a very mac n cheese taste and texture. They were also ridiculously cheap at just 500 kyats.
With my hunger satisfied I walked around exploring the town which was merely more than blocks in each direction with a lively little market in the centre. Despite the town being a very popular place for foreigners to stopp for a few days before trekking to Inle lake. Kalaw has managed to hold onto much of its original character and charm. Most locals simply just get on with their everyday lives with little interest in tourists, although people are still quite friendly.
Markets in Kalaw
I had only booked accommodation for 1 night in Kalaw as I was still deciding on my next move. After circum-navigating the town a few times I popped into a few different places to get more info on trekking options. I was a little short on time as I had to get the night bus back to Mandalay in 2 days time so I was thinking of just doing a 1 day trek after spending another day hanging out in Kalaw. I ended up in a place called Sam’s family restaurant which also right across the street from the vegan friendly Everest 2 Nepalese restaurant. I ordered some stir fried veg with cashews and rice for dinner.
Dinner @ Sam’s Family restaurant
This restaurant is also a bysy hub for organising treks. While I was eating dinner there was a constant flow of travellers coming in to book treks. After enquiring I discovered there was 1 place left on a 2 day trek that was leaving the next morning. So on the spur of the moment I digned up for that and paid the 35 000 kyat fee.
DAY 8/9: My alarm was set for 6am but unfortunately I was woken up at 4am by the sound of crashing pots and pans coming from the kitchen below my room which made it impossible to get back to sleep. So I caved in and got up happily discovering in the process that the incredibly rusty pre WW1 era original bathroom actually had hot water and a relatively funtional shower despite it looking as though it would crumble in a million peices as soon as I tried to turn the tap on.
A quick stroll around town in the chill mountain air was just the thing to wake me up a bit and kill some time before the Shan noodle place opened. I arrived back there just before 7am, they weren’t quite open yet so I just waited outside along with a rapidly increasing line of other people eagerly awaiting a hot noodle breakfast.
I ordered the tofu paste noodles again and also the vegetarian Shan noodles. Both were delicious but yhe tofu paste noodles were still the standout.
L tofu paste noodles, R vegetarian Shan noodles
I went back to the guesthouse and finished organising my bags, ready for the 7:50am pickup which, due to a slight mix up never arrived. So after waiting for an hour I strapped on my bags and walked down to Sam’s restaurant to see what the delay was only to find the truck waiting for me there. So withour a moment to loose as we were now running late I greeted the other 5people in the group, a nice Chinese couple and 3 somewhat rude and snobby French people as I jumped in the back of the truck.
We drove for about 1 hour out of town to where there walking trail began. For the next 6 hours we walked through some stunning rural countryside full of an array of colourful patchwork fields of red chillies, mustard, corn, wheat and sunflowers. We stopped in a small village at some random old lady’s house for a vegan lunch of stir fried noodles with veggies before continuing along the path, up and down and around countless hills and through countless tiny villages.
Field of sun dried red chillies
At 4pm we finally arrived at our accommodation for the night which was a homestay in a small village made up of 8 families with no electricity or running water. Each house had 1 solar powered light in the main living area. We slept on the floor of a very sweet old ladies house.
Accidently vegan breakfast
Our dinner was also very vegan friendly. On offer were about 8 different dishes, only 1 of which was not vegan and rice. Breakfast the next morning also turned out to be all vegan as we were served lots of fruit and some accidently vegan pancakes, vegan only because they had run out of milk and so had to use water instead.
So after stuffing myself we set out for another full day of walking, but not before the owner of the house’s son smeared some traditional Burmese sunscreen on all of our faces.
The 2nd day was much the same as the first only even hotter as we wove our way mostly downhill to the flat flood plains surrounding Inle lake. We arrived in Inle lake in time for a late lunch of veggie noodle soup, after paying the US$10 fee to enter the Inle lake conservation area.
Inle lake
After lunch it was an hour long boat ride to the other end of the lake to the horrendously westernised and touristy main town where I had 3 hours to kill until my 8 hour long night bus journey back to Mandalay which I was really dreading.
The town itself really had absolutely nothing worthwhile writing about. I did eat at a restaurant or 2 while I was there but the food was unexceptional to say the least and overly priced. The main attractions here are the ones outside of yhe town on and around the lake itself which is a popular place for bird watching.
The night bus finally rolled in 45 minutes behind schedule at 7.30pm. I took my assigned seat only to discover that the air con vent above it was broken and could not be closed. So I had no choice but to put on every layer of clothing in my possession and pray that I wouldn’t come down with hyperthermia.
Thankfully the bus was fairly empty which meant that I had 2 seats to myself so could kind of almost lie down which made it much more barely. Everytime I almost fell asleep the bus’s interior lights came on as we pulled into yet another roadside stop. Finally at 3am we arrived in Mandalay. I didn’t any accommodation booked but I just got a taxi into town and rang the doorbell at Dreamland in the hope that someone would still be up. They were as they were still waiting for some guests off another night bus. They showed me yo my room and I instantly fell asleep.
DAY 10: My last full day in Myanmar had arrived already, it was also my only full day in Mandalay. Despite being quite keen to explore the city, my over tiredness and sunburn got the better of me and I woke up deeling rather unwell. I decided to spend the morning in the hostel re-organing my bags for the next days flight yo Chiang Mai (via Bangkok annoyingly because there weren’t any direct flights on that day).
By the afternoon I was feeling slightly better so I went for a walk up yo Mandalay hill. After climbing a never ending staircase for what must have been the best part of an hour I finally reached the top only to discover that the views over the city were almost non existant thanks to the large amounts if dust in the air and a forrest of trees that surroundrd the yop pagoda. So I made my way back down and towards the Burmese salad bar again for lunch.
Unfortunately my 2nd visit there didn’t quite live up to the 1st. I ordered 2 dishes neither of which was nice. After a bit more aimless walking I found myself in the market area just as it started to get dark. It was mostly a local fruit and veg market but there were slso many stalls selling mostly vegan snacks made from sticky rice. I bought a purple sticky rice savoury pancake to munch on as I wandered around and then walked back to Dreamland for some much needed sleep.
Mediocre traditional Burmese salad
DAY 11: Bofore my 10.30am airport taxi pickup I went to a local Shan noodle place on 71st st near the corner of 33rd for breakfast. It was reccommended by Dreamland staff who said that they had the best tofu paste noodles in town. I also got some fried tofu which came with a few different dipping sauces which I ordered by accident.
Delicious Burmese breakfast in Mandalay
FYI Some places sprinkle fish flakes om many dishes for decoration so always be sure to specify “thathaloo” when ordering. Best to ask a local for correct pronounciation.
Everywhere in Myanmar, particularly outside many shops and restaurants you will find containers of water. This water is free and is safe for drinking which save buying plastic bottles or fiddling around with water purification tablets.
Free drinking water is just about everywhere
Taiwan
TAIPEI
DAY 1: I arrived in Taipei just after lunch time, and was starving by the time I got into the city, although I did grab some steamed buns from a small supermarket in the airport to keep me going on the 1 hour long bus ride. After asking several people I eventually found someone who spoke enough English to tell me which of the buns were meat free. I got a taro one and the other was black sesame, both were some of the nicest steamed buns I have ever had.
It took me quite a long time to find the place where I was staying as most of the street signs were only written in Chinese, but after asking several more people until I found another English speaker I was finally pointed in the right direction. I dropped my bags off and then decided to get the MRT into the city centre with the idea of going to a vegetarian buffet restaurant called Evergreen that I had heard a lot about. However, when I got there I discovered that their dinner price was TWD600 (approx.$20) which was a bit expensive so I left in search of a better deal. Several hours later I was still walking around Zhongshan area trying to find another of the veg restaurants from my happycow list but as I was discovering cities in Taiwan (particularly Taipei) has a very complicated street numbering system which in addition to very few signs in English can make things quite challenging for a non-Mandarin speaker, especially if you’re trying to find a particular place.
LOVING HUT
Finally I stumbled upon a Loving Hut tucked down a very colourful and busy alley near Taipei main station. They had an English menu with pictures which was handy. I ordered the spicy dumpling noodle soup, soy nuggets and a very strange tasting mulberry milkshake.
Loving Hut dinner
The dumpling noodles were the standout, the other things were alright but nothing special. I wondered around for another hour or so and then headed back to the hostel.
DAY 2: I woke up very early despite still being really tired from the flight so I decided to get the MRT a few stops north to Beitou which, although is still very much in Taipei city is considered to be a village. It is famous for its hot springs. There is also a large park (sorry the name escapes me) with good hiking trails so I spent a few hours exploring around there until it was lunchtime.
44 Huaining rd, near Taipei main station
YUMMY VEGAN HOUSE
I managed to mind this cute and quirky little Japanese vegan café tucked under the MRT line opposite a big Buddhist temple. Strangely the kitchen was outside on the porch whilst the 4 small tables took up the entire inside space. I got there at 11.30am right on opening time, I was the first one there but it quickly filled up. They have a menu in English available and the staff also spoke some English. I ordered the braised rice with vegetables, the cold tofu and a blueberry milkshake.
It was all quite reasonably priced for the portion size, my meal cost around NT250.
218 section 1 Zhonggard rd south, Beitou
IVEGAN
><
After lunch I got back on the MRT still trying to decide where to go next. I ended up at ivegan supermarket, Taiwan’s 1st all vegan supermarket that had only opened a few months ago. I got off at Wanlong MRT and straight away saw the ivegan sign so followed it down a series of laneways.
The supermarket was huge and divided up into 2 sections. The 1st was the fresh produce sections with a large range of reasonably priced organic fruit and vegies.
ivegan
The 2nd was pre -packaged items including a small section of mock meats, various dried and canned goods and lots of vegan cheeses (including Daiya) which was sold either in the regular sized packs and also in 2.5kg packs for NT2000. Surprisingly they had almost no junk food except for small tubs of Loving Hut chocolate ice cream. They also have a small coffee shop just inside the entrance.
I left ivegan with my sweet craving intact so though a visit to Taipei’s only 100% vegan bakery was in order.
Near Wanlong MRT, exit 1 turn left and follow ivegan signs
FRESH BAKERY
Fresh bakery
Black forest cake
Run by an overly friendly Indian guy (sometimes a lady just wants to eat her cake in peace and quiet). I had a slice of black forest cake which was fairly nice but I thought the icing was a tad on the sweet side and there was also a bit too much of it. Fresh bakery also makes lots of different flavoured breads so I got a few to try, including one stuffed with potato and Daiya and my favourite a spiced pumpkin and nut. They are also happy to cater to anyone with allergies with several days notice so if you want GF etc just phone ahead. I had planned to have them as snacks for my day trip to Fulong the following day but after meeting a very sweet and skinny stray dog in a park I ended up donating most of the bread to them.
466 section 6 Zhongxiao east rd
It had started to cloud over by the time I left Fresh bakery and had thankfully cooled down a bit too (it was still about 38 degrees with humidity in the high 90s). I had planned on hiking up Elephant mountain and by the time I got to the nearest MRT it had started to rain but I decided to just keep going as it was only supposed to be a short hike (or so I thought).
After 100’s of steep and slippery stairs I finally made it to the top and was definitely ready to sit down and enjoy the view for a little while. The view was very beautiful and you could see right across Taipei and of course Taipei 101 which was the world’s tallest building until a year or 2 ago.
View of Taipei 101
I was about to head back down the path that I had come up on but then noticed another path that continued going up the next mountain. I was quite enjoying the cool breeze and the rain which was a welcome change from the stifling heat of the city below so I decided to follow the path up for a little while longer. Three hours and 1000’s of stairs later I was still walking; it was now starting to get dark so I was a bit concerned about trying to find my way down. I figured it was probably too late to turn back so just kept going asking the various middle aged men who passed me by on their daily run (FYI Taiwanese men apparently turn into hardcore exercise junkies once they hit 50) until I found one who could speak English and told me that it was only another 40 minutes walking.
I the path was really slippery from the rain so I went fairly slowly, I was overtaken several times by a guy of about 60+ yo literally running backwards down the stairs (he kept stopping to stretch before overtaking me again). Eventually I made it back to a road but had absolutely no clue where the hell I was. There weren’t many people around to ask except for two women but I managed to gesture to my MRT map however due to the language barrier they weren’t able to tell me directions so one of them very kindly offered to walk me to the closest station which turned out to be a 20 minute walk away which was very kind of her, especially since it was raining.
On the way back to the hostel I stopped briefly to look around Shilin night market which turned out to be way too touristy, they did have lots of cheap and tasty fruit though.
DAY 3: HO HAI YAN rock festival
I was quite excited to be getting out of the city and also at having the chance to check out some Taiwanese indie rock and punk bands at this music festival which I had heard a lot about. The whole festival which is totally free (apparently it’s sponsored by the government who is trying to encourage young people to become more involved the creative and performing arts) it goes for 5 days and takes place literally right sand on Fulong beach.
Main stage at Ho Hai Yan
There was some mix up with my train ticket and the train I had a ticket for either got cancelled or rescheduled so after a few minutes of confusion I was shoved onto one of the local all stations trains to Fulong which unfortunately meant standing up for the entire 2 hour journey, but at least it was air conditioned.
I got to Fulong ready for lunch but had no clue where or how to find anything vegan as my internet research for this town hadn’t got me anywhere. I sussed a few places out but the language barrier was becoming an issue and I was getting very over heated walking around in the hot sun so settled on a mango shaved ice (with no milk) instead. Most places it is common to pour condensed milk over the fruit on any shaved ice dessert so always be sure to ask for no milk.
Mango shaved ice
Still hungry but feeling much better I headed down to the beach to see what was going on down there. The music hadn’t started yet and the food options were even less vegan friendly than in town (not to self, beach side towns in Taiwan are really into deep fried sea food). After around an hour of walking around on the sand with the burning hot wind I was ready for another dose of air conditioning so went back towards the main street and into the 7/11. The 7/11’s in Taiwan are much more hospitable to the povo vegan backpacker than the ones in other countries and before long I was stocked up with a carton of soy milk, some cold ramen noodle salad and some stuffed tofu skin rolls. I wasn’t sure if the sauce with the noodles was soy or fish sauce (it definitely didn’t smell like soy) so I just ate the noodles plain. Most 7/11’s and Family Marts also sell whole roasted sweet potatoes and yams and will have a selection of steamed buns, with some vegetarian options too which is quite useful if you can’t find anything else to eat.
7/11 lunch
Most of the bands playing were pretty decent although the majority of them just sounded like Greenday or Offspring tribute bands. The highlight for me was a girl pop/metal band (yeah you read that one right) called P!sco. The day was also quite a good learning experience in Taiwanese culture. Firstly, I learned that Taiwan is an extremely safe country. The amount of people who I saw just dumping their bags with all their valuables in them on the sand and then just wondering off to go for a swim or to get food completely out of site from their bags took me a while to get used to, but no one seemed the slightest bit concerned about their stuff being stolen. Taiwanese also prefer to swim fully clothed and apparently don’t like to go further than knee deep. Several times I went in as far as waist deep only to have some guy (I think he was a lifeguard) frantically coming up to me in a speed boat motioning at me to move back to the “safe area”. It was a really fun festival and although I ended up with some very bad sunburn as a momento it was a great day out and met some awesome people too.
DAY 4: Feeling a bit worse for wear with my sunburn/heat stroke I decided to have a lazy inside day. After catching up on some research in internet land I ventured out into the heat in search of some food. I had planned to visit Loving Vegan, one of the only entirely vegan buffets in Taipei. It was a bit of a trek as it was right on the southern edge of the city, but when I eventually got to the address I found it was closed and semi abandoned looking (still not sure if it was closed down or just closed that day). I went to back to the MRT and headed for my next restaurant of choice.
VEGETARIAN PARADISE
This very aptly named pay by weight vego buffet is situated right across the road from Shida university about a 10 minute walk from Taipower building MRT, making it a popular hangout place for students. There was no sign in English so just look for the street number. I was really hungry by the time I arrived so I grabbed a cardboard tray (they don’t use plates for some reason) and a pair of tongs and piled up my plate as high as I could with lots of tofu and vegies. FYI many of the mock meats in Taiwan are made using egg and dairy ingredients so if in doubt it’s best to avoid them.My tray was about 3x bigger than everyone else’s and cost NT270. Everything was very fresh and delicious, especially the pumpkin.
My plate
Buffet @Vegetarian Paradise
182 Heping E rd, MRT Taipower building
HUA KWANG VEGETARIAN
On the way back I stopped in at one of the vegetarian restaurants near to where I was staying to get some takeout for my hiking trip the following day. I just kept it simple and ordered some fried tofu, rice and stir fried greens. Some of the staff spoke good English and English menu was also available. Whilst ordering I spotted a fried tofu skin dish stuffed with taro which sounded interesting so I got that for dinner.
Taro stuffed tofu skins
It was very yummy, the outside of it was several layers of crispy fried tofu skin with a thin layer of finely grated spicy veggies with steamed chunks of taro in the middle, it went perfectly with the salty crunchy pickled veggies that it came with.
357 Zhongzheng rd, MRT Shilin
DAY 5: It was an early start for the hike in Yangmingshan national park. I’d come across some hiking group on Facebook that had organised it so just joined up with them. There were about 8 of us in total, a mix of Aussies, Taiwanese, a Russian and a Singaporean. We met up at the MRT station and then got a bus to the trail head about an hour away.
The first hour of the hike was through some very scenic open grassland with lots of cows. We then walked down into a valley where it slowly turned into rainforest. The path we planned to take was “official closed due to landslides” but it was still easily accessible aside from one small section where the track was missing so we had to climb down the cliff using ropes to the next part. The forest was teaming with a huge array of insects, particularly butterflies; a couple of the others were stung by wasps along the way.
Bayan hot springs
3 hours later we finally reached our destination: Bayan hot springs, a beautiful natural hot spring that flows into a river at the base of a waterfall with a succession of pools, each a different temperature cascading down the river. It reminded me quite a lot of the amazing hot springs I visited in northern Sumatra last year. After a quick cool off in the waterfall I jumped into the hot spring with the others, it was very relaxing and peaceful. There were only 3 or 4 other people aside from our group (this hot spring is “officially closed too”). We stayed for around 2 hours going back and forth between the hot spring and waterfall and then walked the half hour back to the main road to catch the bus, stopping at a few places along the river to take photos. I just got some snacks at a supermarket for dinner and for my train ride to Hualien the next day.
HUALIEN
DAY 6: I was pleasantly surprised when I stepped off the train in Hualien to discover it was a bit cooler than Taipei (still horrendously hot though). I quickly dropped off my bags and then consulted a map to check where the closest vegan food options were located then headed out to find somewhere for lunch. My first pick was an all vegan buffet restaurant called Guo Xiang Yuan that was recommended by some random local guy I was chatting to at the train station. However after doing several laps of the street it was on with no sign of it, I gave up and headed for the next best option.
GREENLAND (also called Green Earth by locals)
It was around 3pm when I finally arrived at Greenland to discover that they had just closed and wouldn’t reopen until 4.30pm (FYI it is very common for many restaurants to close in the mid- afternoon period from around 2.30pmish- 4.30pmish). So I thought I’d just wander around the town for a couple of hours until they reopened. I only got a few hundred metres up the road when I found an ice shop which looked too irresistible given the heat so I got a matcha red bean shaved ice. Most shaved ice desserts will usually be served with condensed milk and sometimes ice cream or sorbet (some sorbets are vegan depending on which shop you go to. To ask for no milk you can either say “wo buxiang chi nai”, (“I don’t drink milk”) or if they don’t understand your pathetic attempts at Chinese pronunciation as happened to me on multiple occasions you can just point to it in a picture and say “bu” (“no”).
Matcha red bean shaved ice
Right on 4.30pm I went back to Greenland more than ready for lunch/dinner. Only very minimal English was spoken by staff but they had an English menu so ordering was easy enough. I got the sesame noodle rainbow salad, crispy fried tofu and a mystery vegetable juice (I tried to ask what was in the juice to no avail so just took a gamble that there would be no tomato in it.
Greenland dinner
Everything was awesome and even nicer than I had expected, the noodle salad was deliciously fresh and the spicy tahini sauce was really yummy. The fried tofu was also really nice and cam served with lots of veggies too.
Greenland was a little pricier than the standard veg buffets but still reasonable prices; I think mine came to around NT220.
143 Jianguo rd
DAY 7: Began with an early start to stock up on snacks and get some breakfast from 7/11 before an hour long bus ride to Taroko gorge. I just got some bananas, soy milk, a taro flavoured steamed bun and a roast purple yam.
Roast purple yam from Family Mart
Taroko gorge is an overwhelmingly huge place, with steep marble cliffs rises up right out of the ocean to over 2000m in height, the entire park covers an area of around 1000km sq. I bought the day bus pass so I could just hop on and off the shuttle bus anywhere which made it easier to hike from one part to another. I just did a few of the trails as it was a very hot and sunny day and the crowds of people in some places made it far less enjoyable. The swallow grotto trails which went along the edge of the gorge for several km’s going through a few tunnels along the way was nice as it allowed you to see all the patterns in the marble. It was however one of the most popular and easily accessible trails so if you don’t want to have all your nice gorge photos being photo-bombed by elderly Chinese tourists trying to elbow you out of the way either go here early or go somewhere else. The Bunyan waterfall trail was probably my favourite because it was mostly in the shade and a lot less touristy. It was a very pleasant 6km walk each way following the river upstream.
Taroko gorge
By around 4pm I was a bit over walking around in the heat constantly and was also getting hungry but didn’t want any of the mediocre and outrageously priced food that was available in the park so got the bus back to Hualien.
On the bus ride back into town I discovered a date bar and some nuts at the bottom of my bag which was quite exciting so I decided to skip dinner and just go straight for dessert. It was back to the previously mentioned ice shop for a mango and red bean shaved ice.
CHANG CHUN TENG
DAY 8: After one last ditch attempt to locate Guo Xiang Yuan, I finally gave up and went to another veg buffet place near to the train station for lunch before I caught my train to Ruisui. For NT200 (approx $6) this buffet restaurant is all you can eat rather than the usual pay by weight, what’s better is that it also included drinks and dessert. You pay at the counter first and are then given a spoon and chopsticks. There didn’t appear to be any order in which way you should go around in the buffet section so be sure not to pile up your ridiculously small plate too high because all the elderly Chinese people that pack out this restaurant at lunchtime seem pretty hell bent on getting to every single dish before you at any cost.
There were all the usual type dishes you’d expect at a veg restaurant, there was also a big salad bar and lots of different types of dumplings and sauces to choose from. The dessert consisted of the regular tofu puddings with tapioca balls, herb jelly and a few different kinds of mocha and flavoured sticky rice. The food wasn’t amazing by any standards and was fairly bland but it was fresh relatively healthy and cheap so it’s still worth a visit if you’re in Hualien.
22 Fu an rd
Before my train I also bought some mocha from one of the many fresh mocha stalls located next to the station.
RUISUI
DAY 9: I’d wanted to stop in one of the small towns between Hualien and Taitung to explore the area and little more, however the accommodation in most places was way beyond my budget. Ruisui, a small hot spring town about 1 ½ hours south of Hualien was the only viable option so I booked a room at the oldest and cheapest place in town which was actually about 5km’s out of town in a tiny little backwater village called Hongye. The hotel was a Japanese tatami style that has apparently been in the same family since it opened 90 years ago and very little has changed since. I had planned on doing some cycling around the area but after discovering that the hotel didn’t have rental bikes (despite their website clearly stating they did) I learned that it would be a 5km walk in the hot sun to get into town to rent a bike so I decided to just have a lazy day and make the most out of the hot springs instead.
My bamboo mat room
The hot spring water was into pumped into some very tacky looking concrete pools with a fake natural rock finish out of a natural spring which flowed down the mountain just behind the hotel. There were 3 pools with varying temperatures, the hottest being about 48C. The water in this spring is apparently very high in iron oxide and sodium which gives the water a particularly unappealing rusty brown colour but at least it didn’t have that hideous sulphur smell like many other hot springs and it was very pleasant and relaxing once I was in the pool anyway.
I had a midday train to catch t Taitung and after a bit of internet research I discovered that there was a vegetarian restaurant in Ruisui close to the train station so set off into town with plenty of time to spare to find it and have lunch. It was pretty simple to find the address but when I got there I wasn’t too sure how accurate my info was as it just looked like someone’s lounge room with a freezer full of mock meats in it. The lady inside spotted me lingering on the door step and motioned for me to come in, after a few moments of confusion and failed attempts to speak Chinese, I managed to get the point across that I was hungry and didn’t eat egg. The lady then disappeared up stairs; there was no menu so I had absolutely no idea what to expect when she re-appeared 10 or so minutes later with a lunchbox and a bowl of soup. It turned out ok, it was just very simple, plain food with rice, some green veggies and a few different kinds of mock meat. The meal cost TWD65.
2 Guoguang N rd (2 blocks from station then turn left), sign only in Chinese so look for the street number.
TAITUNG
On the train ride to Taitung I was invited out to dinner with some randoms that I’d started chatting to (they were Taiwanese but now lived in Melbourne). So I went out with them to a non-vegetarian restaurant (I have no idea what it was called but it was near the beach somewhere). I left ordering up to them since I couldn’t read the menu. The food was nice enough but nothing exciting.
I was staying right next to the night market which is also nicknamed “Fruit street” due to the huge array of fruit stalls that lined the street on both sides for several blocks. There were also about 3 or 4 vegetarian restaurants within 100m which I was completely unaware of (all the signs were only in Chinese) until the very sweet girl at my hostel kindly offered to take me on a veg tour of the neighbourhood and pointed them out. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to go to any of them but they were all in the laneways off Fruit st near the Carrefour supermarket.
DAY 10: While there were quite a few vegan eating options in Taitung they all seemed to be fairly spread out and a bit challenging to find, mainly due to there being considerably less street signs in English than other cities in Taiwan. I’d managed to find Loving Hut pretty easily but for lunch I decided to go to another less generic more interesting sounding vegetarian restaurant called Denim Elephant.
On the walk there I passed a mocha shop that I’d been told was very famous amongst locals in Taitung so I dropped in and bought a few different ones for snacks on the train (I ended up eating them all on the way to Denim Elephant).
DENIM ELEPHANT
This very funky little vegetarian restaurant is attached to an art gallery in a quiet back alley, it is packed full of elephant statues, pictures and knickknacks, the seats were upholstered with used denim jeans. It had a pretty chilled vibe and an English menu, the friendly wait staff spoke a little English but when I asked what was egg free there was some confusion, but she miraculously was able to decipher my Chinese attempt at “I don’t eat egg” (“wo bu chi jidan”) and marked the things on the menu that were vegan. I ordered the fried noodles and an iced green tea.
Unfortunately the food didn’t match the vibe, or even come remotely close; it was probably the most disgusting meal of my Taiwan trip thus far. It was literally a bland plate of stodgy partially uncooked noodles with a few token bits of veg swimming in an oily pool of flavourless liquid. It cost NT170 which I thought was too expensive for such crap and simple food. It was back to 7/11 and then the fruit market to buy food to keep me going for the 2 ½ hour journey to Koahsiung.
181 Guangdong rd
KAOHSIUNG
By the time I arrived it was pouring with rain, thundering and starting to get dark, luckily I was staying right near an MRT station. I grabbed a map of the city to find where the closest restaurants were and found one about 3 blocks away. While I was in Hualien several day before I’d also asked someone to write out in Chinese “where is the closest vegetarian restaurant” so I also showed that to a few random people on the street who pointed on a map where there were others nearby so I knew I had about 4 to choose from with a 5 minute walk of where I was staying which was quite handy.
QIAN YE VEGETARIAN
This buffet was so awesome that I ended up eating here every day during my 3 days in Kaohsiung, they had a huge range of fresh, tasty and mostly vegan dishes to choose from and it was half the price of all the other places. I piled up my plate on all 3 visits to this restaurant and prices ranged from NT95-115 which I thought was a total bargain considering the amount of food that I got and the quality.
Plate 3
plate 2
plate no. 1
131 Dayi st on the corner of Sinle st
DAY 11: I rented a bike for the day and cycled around the city, up to the Lotus pond and then down along the river. Despite continuously putting on huge amounts of sunscreen throughout the day I still managed to get horribly sunburnt (and I’d only just recovered from my Hohaiyan sunburn, sigh).
LIN SHI JIE
During my bike ride I stumbled upon this street side eatery, there was a large picture menu so it was easy to order just by pointing. I’m not sure if it’s entirely vegan but when I queried (in Chinese) I was told that everything was egg free and meat free. My Chinese pronunciation of the word milk (“nai”) still need some work it seems so I couldn’t find out if anything contained dairy. I got a veggie curry for NT70, it was pretty tasty.
337-1 Huarong rd
For dinner it was back to Qian Ye (see above for picture).
DAY 12: I had planned a day trip to Meinong to cycle out to Yellow butterfly valley and take in some of the local Hakka culture of the area, I trip which I’d been looking forward to for a while, but I woke up feeling a little worse for wear from my sunburn. I had also realised that it was Monday (it took me a while to figure that one out) and the Hakka museum I wanted to go to in Meinong was closed on Mondays, so I ended up having an inside day and caught up on some washing and travel planning. I couldn’t really be bothered to venture too far in search of food so I ended up back at Qian Ye for round 3.
TAINAN
DAY 13: I was quite happy to be getting out of Kaohsiung, it was an alright city but didn’t really like the vibe that much and was starting to get a bit bored. It was just a half hour train trip to get to the much nicer and friendlier Tainan. After a few hours of wondering around the city centre I went to Guli’s natural vegetarian restaurant but it was closed. I then went to see the Confusionist temple where I found another veggie place across the road but decided to go to a vegetarian buffet restaurant near to where the Monday/Tuesday night market is held.
LONG SPRING
Long Spring vegetarian buffet
It turned out to be a pretty choice to come here instead and totally worth the 20 minute walk. This place was massive and had a huge range of dishes, with quite a lot of Japanese style stir fried vegetables and a good selection of vegan sushi rolls. My plate cost NT180 and was delicious.
Long Spring plat #2
201 section 1 Datong rd
DAY 14: The plan for the day was to rent a bike and explore the outer edges of Tainan and the historic old city of Anping. However, thanks to typhoon Matmo that plans got canned pretty quickly when I woke up to the sound of torrential wind and rain lashing the rooftop. Thankfully Tainan escaped the brunt of the storm which mostly hit around the Hualien area and by late morning it seemed to have cleared enough to venture outside. I decided to walk into town instead of going by bike, figuring that I could just get a bus if it started to rain again. It was very pleasant walking (for a little while at least), the rain had cooled things down considerably to a refreshing 29C. About 20 minutes into my walk it suddenly started to pour again and a rather strong wind came up. Just as I was attempting to get my raincoat, which turned out to not be anywhere near as waterproof as I’d hoped, out of my bag some random guy on a motorbike pulled up beside me and gave me his spare raincoat (Taiwanese are seriously the nicest people ever). The raincoat proved to be an invaluable item of clothing for the day as the wind and rain kept pelting down in sudden bursts throughout the day. I had hoped to go to Guli’s natural veg for lunch but when I got there I found that it was closed still (there is a slight possibility that I had the wrong address) along with just about all the other shops due to the typhoon. Wandering where to go for lunch I tossed up the idea of going to one of the places in Anping but figured that I probably wouldn’t make it there in time for lunch. By this point I was fairly close to Long Spring vegetarian buffet so ended up eating there again.
After lunch I walked all the way to Anping, it took around 2 and a bit hours because I kept having to stop and take shelter every time there was a torrential downpour or the wind came up. Eventually I made it to discover that just about everything aside from 7/11 and a few dessert places were closed and the streets were largely disserted so I just wandered around looking at all the old buildings etc for a while until I came to Yunhe st which I knew had a small street side vegan eatery on it.
PU YUAN SU SHI GUO WO
I found it pretty easily as there is a large green vegan sign out the front as well as lots of vegan stickers. It was however, all closed up but stopped briefly to look at the menu display board (it was all in Chinese), just then someone opened the roller door and came out. After asking the very lovely women (named Jessica) if they were going to be open for dinner she told me that they were closed for the day because of the typhoon but if I told her what time I wanted to eat she’d happily cook me something. I arranged to come back in a few hours and then set off on a bit more exploring. Everything I wanted to do/see in the area was closed including the Anping tree house and the Aboriginal cultural park but I did find a nice park with some quality play equipment during one of the brief dry periods of the day so that was good.
I went back to the vegan street stall at the specified time to find that Jessica had a 5 course meal ready and waiting for me (I really would have been happy with just one dish since I was still pretty full from lunch). I had some delicious dumplings, easily the nicest I’ve had in Taiwan thus far, she had also made some very tasty mushroom rice with veggies, soup, a fruit bowl with some chips and a cup of freshly made soymilk. If that wasn’t enough already she then brought out a bowl a freshly made herb jelly in a sauce made of sweetened black soy milk.
Everything tasted amazing and was so lovingly made. Jessica was really sweet and spoke excellent English so we chatted a bit. She told me a story about how she went backpacking in Europe about 20 years ago (long before it became the vegan wonderland it is now), and she nearly starved to because it was so hard to find food so now every time a vegan traveller shows up at her stall she always wants to make sure they’re well fed.
Dumplings and mushroom rice
After enjoying my awesome vegan dinner and refusing Jessica’s repeated attempts to laden me with yet more food I got up to pay and was shocked when she said it only came to NT50 (less to AU$2) for everything. I tried to convince her to charge me a more reasonable amount but she wouldn’t have a bar of it and said she just wanted to spread some good vegan traveller karma. If you’re visiting Tainan this place is definitely worth a visit, the food was so delicious and fresh and made with such love, not to mention the nice atmosphere and the pleasant view overlooking the water, and please say hello to Jessica for me.
24 Yunhe st, Anping
CHIAYI/ FENQIHU
DAY 15: My original plan was to travel from Tainan to Chiayi and then onto to Alishan by bus for 1 day before going on to the small mountain village of Fenqihu where there were some hiking trails that sounded interesting before returning to Chiayi via the Alsihan forest train for a music festival. However, typhoon Matmo put these plans into jeopardy as much of the transport in the area had been suspended until further notice due to the weather and the national park around Alishan had also been closed off to visitors. In the morning I was due to leave Tainan, however I heard that the park was likely to reopen the next day so I decided to get a train to Chiayi anyway and figure out where to go from there. When I arrived I found out that the trains were still not operating but there were buses, the only hostel (and only affordable place to stay in Alishan) would not reopen until the following day. Since I was running out of time in Taiwan I couldn’t really spare a day waiting it out in Chiayi so I decided to head to Fenqihu first and then onto to Alishan from there, even though that meant having to get the much more nauseating and far less scenic bus in both directions and missing out on the famous Alishan forest mountain train (the train line currently only goes as far Fenqihu due to typhoon damage from several years ago, repairs on the Alsihan leg are still underway).
The visitor information desk at the train station were able to call ahead and book the hostel in Fenqihu for me so with 3 ½ hours to kill before my bus I wandered off in the directions of the closest vegetarian buffet restaurant which was only a few hundred metres from the train station.
GONGDING SU SHI
Tucked away under a large sign, I walked right passed it the first time. Probably one of the less impressive veg buffets of my Taiwan trip, it was more of a local budget joint. Despite it being bang on 12 midday they didn’t seem to have much food left, it also didn’t look particularly appetising but figuring it was possibly my last chance for a few days to have a decent meal I thought I should get something so I picked out some of the scraps that looked the least likely to give me food poisoning.
There were quite a few tofu dishes and hardly any mock meat which made a nice change, the dumplings were actually quite good, everything else was edible but that’s about it. It cost NT83
257 Ren’ai st (directly opposite train station)
After my meal I walked along the street for a little while and then headed back to the train station. I stopped and got a very delicious mango smoothie bubble tea (with no milk or sugar) from a small shop across the road from the restaurant. It was bloody huge and super tasty with lots of chunks of fresh mango and coconut, and it only cost NT65.
The bus ride to Fenqihu was certainly not boring, although the steep, narrow and nauseatingly winding road did make me regret eating beforehand, not to mention the erratic driving of the bus driver who didn’t quite seem to understand the concept of braking/slowing down before going around a sharp bend. He instead seemed to take great delight n going as fast as possible around every corner and seeing how many passengers would get thrown from one side of the bus to another. Within 30 minutes of driving we were already almost 1000m higher in altitude.
2 hours later I arrived in Fenqihu in one piece, and followed some random strangers from the bus who were also staying at the same place down the hill to the Catholic church which had the only affordable accommodation in town. I’m not usually one to go within sight of any kind of religious establishment but given the distinct lack of any other affordable options in town there wasn’t really much choice. The hostel is run by a very sweet, albeit rather nosy little old nun from Switzerland, they offer very basic and somewhat musty and weird loft dorm rooms to povo travellers like myself, and at NT300 a night it’s about a tenth of the price of any of the nice little b & b’s in the village.
After checking in to my 15 bed dorm room that I had entirely to myself (thankyou typhoon Matmo), I ventured out for a short stroll before it got dark. I found myself on the giant cypress boardwalk trail just a few minutes later. The path was extremely slippery due the large amount of moss covering the wooden planks and it was littered with lots of branches and fallen trees that came down during the typhoon the day before so it was quite slow going but very beautiful and peaceful. About an hour later I exited the trail and walked back up the steep hill to the Old st where there were a few shops. Market stalls and a 7/11. Most places were closed already so my only dinner option was 7/11. I bought a few packets of nuts to have as snacks for my hike the next morning and some cookies. I walked up the hill to a bench to eat some of them and was followed by a very sweet, sad and hungry stray dog so I ended up sharing a pack of Oreo cookies with him before returning to 7/11 to buy him some noodles for dinner because I felt so sorry for him.
DAY 16: The next morning I was up at 4:45am to hike the Fenqihu- Ruili historic trail which I had seen pictures of on the internet and thought looked rather spectacular. The trail is 7km’s each way and goes through some stunning giant bamboo forests to the peak of a mountain before going back down into a valley to the small town of Ruili. The track is only one way and there is no public transport between Ruili and Fenqihu so if you go there you then have to turn around and hike the 3 ½ hours back along the same path.
The plan was to hopefully make the return journey and then be back in Fenqihu by 12 midday to catch the last bus to Alishan, otherwise I would have to spend another night in Fenqihu. It was a beautiful clear morning, with lovely fresh cool mountain air and almost no humidity thanks to Fenqihu’s 1500m elevation so walking up the hill to the start of the trailhead was very pleasant. I found the track easily which was clearly marked (in English), the first hour was up some very steep and slippery moss covered stone steps. I had to go very slowly as the track had not yet been cleared after the typhoon and there were a lot of fallen trees that I had to duck under/climb over. After a while it finally levelled out a little to a dirt track as the scenery gradually changed from rainforest to bamboo forest. At one point there was an eerie mist flowing up the side of the mountain that got caught in the sunlight making the forest look like it was straight out of a fairy tale.
Fenqihu-Ruli historic trail
The trail was easy to follow as it was well signed the entire way telling you how far you’d gone and how much further there was to go. Eventually I made it to Ruili and sat down in a clearing on the side of the road to have a rest and some snacks. About 30 minutes later I was contemplating heading back when it started to rain fairly heavily. I wasn’t that keen on hiking all the way back to Fenqihu in the rain given how slippery the path was and it was also getting quite late and knew that if I hiked back I definitely wouldn’t make it back in time for the bus so I decided to hitchhike back instead. Although the trail is only 7km’s from Fenqihu to Ruili the road is 22km’s and there was very little traffic so I was really hoping I didn’t have to walk all the way back along the road in the increasingly heavy rain. Thankfully though after just a few hundred metres of walking a nice old man in a fruit and vegetable truck stopped to offer me a ride. I had no idea where he was going and vice a versa due to the language barrier but I eventually managed to find a map of the area written in Chinese in my bag and pointed to where I was going. He wasn’t going anywhere near there but kindly gave me a ride all the way back anyway, he even stopped a few times to let me take photos which was super nice of him. I made it back to Fenqihu by 11.30am so I had plenty of time to pick up my bags and also grab some take-away food for the bus ride to Alishan.
FENQIHU HOTEL
I didn’t know of any vegetarian places in Fenqihu since it was so small but I thought I would go and see if Fenqihu hotel had anything vegan as they are famous for their lunchbox meals which come served in a cute little take-away box made out of bamboo. No English was spoken so I attempted to tell them in my horrendous Chinese that I was vegetarian and didn’t eat egg, which the women thankfully understood and disappeared off into the kitchen. She came back a few minutes later with some food for me so I paid the NT100 and headed up the hill to the train station to wait for the bus.
Vegan lunchbox from Fenqihu hotel
My lunch was surprisingly delicious, it had a base of rice with various stir fried vegetables (I have no idea what the bright red stuff was but it was really tasty) and some kind of fake dead thing.
Fancy lake hotel is on the Old st directly below 7/11
ALISHAN
I didn’t have any accommodation booked yet in Alishan as the Catholic hostel there was closed the previous day so hadn’t been able to call ahead (the only cheap accommodation in Alishan is also the same deal as in Fenqihu). When I eventually arrived I went to the visitor centre to get directions and was told that the hostel ws already fully booked but they knew of another place nearby that had cheap dorm rooms so they took me over there.
It was a crappy, musty and very run down looking hotel just off the main parking lots where all the shops are. It was a bit more expensive than the Catholic hostel (NT700) a night for the dorm room and was definitely way more disgusting but there wasn’t any other choice and by this time it was pouring with rain so I settled for a bed in a damp and musty dorm room which I ended up having all to myself. As soon as the rain let up a little I went out for a walk, the park is horrendously touristy during the day with busload after busload of elderly Chinese tourists but from 4pm onwards it is almost completely disserted and had a much nicer vibe. I finally found my way to the giant tree trail which was one of the main reasons I’d wanted to go to Alishan to see. It was still raining fairly steadily so the rain coat that the kind random guy on a motorbike in Tainan had given me came in handy once again. I walked past the 3rd generation tree which was pretty amazing and also the huge “sacred tree” to the board walked giant tree trail 1 that goes through a beautiful forest of giant red Cyrpress trees, many of which are around 2000 years old.
I finally arrived at the end of the track which opened up into a viewing area on the edge of the mountain and was greeted with an absolutely stunning sunset, so I hang around to watch that and then made my way back to the village to find somewhere to have dinner.
ALISHAN RESTAURANT OF FINE FOOD
Located around the corner from the main tourist drag near the train station, they had an English menu available and the staff happily pointed out which things were vegan once I explained what I wanted (or didn’t want).
I ordered the sizzling tofu with some rice, nothing fancy or amazing but it was fairly tasty and filling.
Around the corner from 7/11 going towards the train station
DAY 17: I woke up at 3.30am and stumbled out of the hotel and towards the already packed train station to purchase my ticket for the sunrise train which, as I kept getting told was a “must do” in Taiwan. The train took 20 minutes to reach the top of the mountain at an altitude of around 2600m. While 99% of people went straight for the horribly over crowded viewing platform directly in front of the station I decided to walk a few hundred metres further up the path to an area that had far superior views and very few other people.
Sizzling tofu
The sunrise was quite stunning; as the light increased a sea of cloud completely enveloped the mountains below making it appear as if the top of the mountain where I was standing was floating above to clouds.
To get back down the mountain there are 2 options, the train which involved a long wait in line and then a chaotic fight with a whole bunch of elderly Chinese tourists who seemingly want nothing more than to elbow everyone out of their way and even knock others to the ground just so they can get a seat on a mere 20 minute train ride, or a nice leisurely 1 ½ hour stroll downhill on an almost disserted trail through some beautiful forests with stunning views across the countryside. I personally would recommend the latter.
Sunrise
Alishan sunset
3rd generation tree @ Alishan
I got back to my hotel at about 7.30am and noticed a lot of people going in and out of the basement carrying plates which I had assumed was just storage or something else equally as boring. I’d already had my usual banana and soy milk breakfast from 7/11 so wasn’t really hungry but curiosity got the better of me so I went downstairs to see if there was any worthwhile. As it turned out the was a considerable upside to staying in a hotel as opposed to a hostel, FREE BREAKFAST. There weren’t any labels on the food so I just asked someone if anything was vegetarian, to my surprise I discovered that everything was actually vegan by default. The breakfast buffet consisted of rice porridge, steamed bread, freshly made hot soy milk and a selection of stir-fried tofu and vegetable dishes. I grabbed a few different things for my 2 ½ hour bus ride back to Chiayi and then went back to my room to pack my bag.
While waiting for the bus I did a quick lap past all the tourist shops to have a look and couldn’t go past the mocha stall without getting some. I got a few different flavours of mini mocha on a stick; each mochi cost NT8 each and were all delicious.
Mochi on a stick
CHIAYI- WAKE UP FESTIVAL
I’d heard about a 3 day metal/punk music festival happening in Chiayi and luckily it happened to coincide with when I was passing through Chiayi. I’d originally planned to go to Taichung as well but I was running out of time so decided to give it a miss in favour of going to one day of Wake up fest. The hostels were all booked out and I couldn’t find anyone to couchsurf with at such short notice but at the last minute I found a place on airbnb. The owner only sent me the address and directions in Chinese and when I cut and paste them into google translate they made absolutely no sense whatsoever. So I arrived in Chiayi with only a faint idea of where I was actually going. I managed to find the right area easily enough but there were no street signs so I had trouble finding the correct street but some random guy on a motorbike stopped and asked if I needed help and then gave me a ride to the street I was looking for. Unfortunately though, I had the wrong street number for the place (FYI Google translate is shite), so I ended up walking all the way back to the station in the hope of finding internet so I could ask a person to translate my Chinese directions. I was almost all the way back at the station when some random guy wanting to practice his English asked if I needed help. He kindly let me check my emails on his phone so I could get the address and then he called up the place where I was staying to get directions (apparently they didn’t make any sense in Chinese either). The guy who owned the place where I was staying offered to come to the station to pick me up since it was so hot, which was awesome so I sat down and chatted to the random guy for a while until my lift arrived.
It was getting late and the festival had already started so I dumped my bags in my room and quickly headed back out again. The festival took place in the creative industries and cultural park just next to the train station so it was just a short walk. Wake up fest is quite a small more DIY type festival but it had a really cool chilled out vibe, quite unusual for a metal festival. There were 3 outdoor stages and one inside an air conditioned warehouse, there was also an alternative clothing market with lots of handmade fashion by local designers and the usual type of festival food stalls. Most of the bands were local Taiwan bands but there were also a few from other countries including South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, China, Australia and UK.
I was really surprised at the diversity of the crowd, although it was mostly 15-25yos, there were also quite a lot of families with young children and even a few 70+ yos who were rocking out including a sweet little old lady who was pushing her husband around in a wheelchair. I discovered a tonne of new favourite bands throughout the day, but my top picks were Solemn, an epic 7 piece metal band with one of the best female metal drummers that I have ever seen and 88balaz, a fun punky 3 piece. There was also a Korean black metal band called SEED who were pretty rad too. The festival was quite an interesting insight into Taiwanese culture, despite the majority of bands being on the heavier side which is usually a very male dominated scene in most countries, over half of the bands at Wake up fest however had at least one female band member and quite a few were all girl bands. The crowd also had a much higher percentage of women than you’d expect to find at most metal festivals in other places, and were almost even numbers. I was also quite surprised to see so many girls diving into the circle pits which was pretty awesome to see, girls in Taiwan are obviously way more into their metal and music in general than in other places.
Solemn- one of my new favourite bands @Wakeup fest
I was really impressed with all of the bands although Solemn were still my definite favourites, once again there were a high percentage of women there rocking out. The crowds in Taiwan are also considerably better than in Australia (no drunk bogan dickheads) which meant that I could quite easily get up the front and enjoy myself without having to worry about get pushed and shoved about by some egotistical wanker.
None of the food stalls at the festival were vegan friendly from what I could tell so I went back to that cheap veg buffet place (Gongbing) near the station to grab some food to go, as well as another mango bubble tea from the shop across the road before heading back to the fest to eat it.
Wake up fest was probably my favourite music festival of the 2 that I went to as it had a much cooler vibe and was more alternative and DIY than Ho Hai Yan, I was way more into the line-up too. Of all the bands I saw only one was kind of crap (the UK one) all the local bands were awesome and I was really impressed with the quality and ingenuity of the alternative music scene in Taiwan which seems to be very much alive and well.
TAIPEI (again)
TONG DE SU SHI
DAY 18: I had a ticket already for the 12:20pm train back to Taipei which took 3 ½ hours. After checking out I walked about 15 minutes up the road to a small, more local budget vegetarian buffet to get some food for the train ride. This buffet was pretty much indistinguishable from most other buffets in that price range, with all the usual types of dishes on offer. I piled up my cardboard take-out container and paid the NT83 then made my way back to the station stopping at one of the many breakfast places to buy a vegetarian steamed bun and some soy milk for breakfast. Sorry forgot to take photo.
419 section 1 Bo’ai rd
The train ride back to Taipei was quite pleasant (trains in Taiwan are considerably nicer than Australia’s), the journey seemed to go quite quickly and before I knew it I was back in Taipei main station. Although I was excited to be back in Taipei it also meant that I was near the end of my Taiwanese trip which was a shame.
Earlier that morning whilst trying to find out the names of all my new favourite bands in English (the info on set times at the festival was all in Chinese) I’d found out that one of my new favourite bands from Wak up fest (Solemn) was playing a show in Taipei that night at one of the most well-known live indie music venues in town called the Wall so I was keen to go and check them out again. Solemn were part of a 4 band line-up that consisted entirely of female fronted metal bands, 3 were from Taipei and the headliners Head phones president were from Japan.
DAY 19: After a bit of a sleep in I walked around the corner to a fruit shop to grab some fruit for breakfast when of course I came across a vegetarian buffet restaurant so a few hours later I headed back there for lunch. It was the standard mid-range buffet similar to Long Spring in Tainan, but they had a few less common dishes including steamed taro. My plate cost about NT170
Yummy vegan buffet lunch
286 Dalong st (sing only in Chinese)
After lunch I got the MRT to Da’an park as it was one area of the city that I hadn’t spent much time yet. I ended up having a bit of a knap in the shade before making full use of the awesome play equipment and monkey bars in the park’s play area which seemed to have an unusually high number of adults playing there (or maybe that’s just normal in Taiwan).
By chance, on one of my first days in Taipei several weeks earlier I’d heard about a tattoo studio in Taipei called Queen Tattoo Ink that only tattoos women. I really liked their work that I’d seen on their Facebook page which had lots of beautiful colour and shading. I’d been thinking about getting one of my tattoos turned into something else for a while but hadn’t really given it much in depth thought until I heard about this studio but thought they sounded like the perfect place to get my dodgy spur of the moment Thailand job fixed up. So that evening I went to their studios to discuss the design etc and made an appointment the following day to get it done. I didn’t really have any definite ideas about what I wanted so I just left it up to the artist to design something.
OOH CHA CHA VEGAN HEALTH BAR
DAY 20: Since I only had a couple of days left in Taiwan and realising just how many awesome veggie/vegan restaurants there were left on my list, I decided to skip the buffets for the day. Although I really liked most of the buffet restaurants I’d been to I was keen to try a few different cuisines so I went to Ooh Cha Cha an all vegan health food bar located right next to Guting MRT. I’d checked out their menu online a few days prior and it looked interesting, lots of quinoa and tempeh dishes and a variety of sandwiches and raw desserts. There were also lots of gluten free options, which were well labelled.
Tofu bahn mi sandwich and smootie
Banana swirl cheesecake @Ooh Cha Cha
I ordered the tofu bahn mi sandwich, a cacao, goji and banana smoothie and a slice of the banana swirl cheesecake for dessert. The sandwich was fairly tasty but nothing too exceptional, smoothie was really nice but I thought it was quite tiny for the price and the cheesecake was really tasty and not too sweet.
207 Nanchang rd (30 second walk from Guting MRT exit 2)
After lunch I went to the tattoo studio for my 2pm tattoo appointment. I’d left the design pretty up up to the artists as I wasn’t really sure of exactly what I wanted. When I arrived they showed me what they had drawn up which was a mostly turquoise and blue Chinese style phoenix with lots of tiny detail and shading on the feathers.
It turned out to be quite a marathon job, taking just over 5 hours to complete due to all the fine details so it was almost 8.30pm by the time I finally left in search of some dinner.
Before and after tattoo from Queentattoo Ink
SOUL R CAFÉ
Another of Taipei’s 100% vegan restaurants, it was only about a 15 minute walk away from the tattoo studio so I thought I might just make it before closing time at 9pm. They have a mostly western menu dominated by various kinds of burgers and pasta with a heavy use of mock meats. Personally pasta is the last thing I would ever consider eating when it’s 40 degrees with high humidity outside, especially in a place like Taiwan where there is an abundance of amazingly fresh and delicious fruit and vegetables on offer, but I guess it must be fairly popular since half of the menu at Soul R Café are pasta dishes. They do however have an excellent and very extensive dessert menu offering a variety of homemade vegan desserts including ice cream, waffles, brownies and crème brule.
It was just before 9pm when I finally arrived here to find that they had literally just closed, but the staff kindly offered to make something for me to takeaway. They only had a few things left so my choice was very limited. I eventually settled on the apple burger and the chocolate walnut waffles.
Impressive vegan dessert menu @Soul R Cafe
Mediocre apple burger @Soul R Cafe
Chocolate and walnut vegan waffles
The burger was quite literally just a bun with some lettuce, a slice of apple and some vegan mayo on it so not entirely sure why it took them over 30 minutes to make, the waffles however, were much better and some of the nicest waffles I’ve had. Soul R café is definitely a good place to go for desserts but I don’t think I’d bother going back for mains.
6 Alley 1, lane 217, section 3 Zhongxiao rd E
DAY 21: My last full day in Taipei had sadly arrived. I was up fairly early as I planned to go to Wulai which was the top of my long list of places that I still wanted to go. It was about a 30 minute train ride and then another 30 minutes on the bus. Wulai is a tranquil Aboriginal community with some of the most stunning hiking and scenery in the country. It is also really interesting from a cultural perspective as the traditional culture and the Atayal (the original inhabitants of the area) is still very much alive and well in the village despite it being a very popular tourist destination.
Wulai Old st
Wulai waterfall
After a quick stroll through the old st I walk up the road to look at the waterfall. It was a very hot day and my leg was a little bit sore still from the previous days tattoo session so I wasn’t really up to do any of the more lengthy hikes in the area or visit the hot springs so I walked back to town and went to the Atayal Aboriginal culture museum. Despite it being quite small the museum was really interesting with lots of photos and miniature replicas of traditional houses and info on traditional foods etc. Unfortunately a large group of very unruly school children arrived there at about the same time and seemed to find me a much more interesting subject to stare at which made it slightly less enjoyable.
TAIYO POPO RESTAURANT
I was quite interested to sample some of the Aboriginal cuisine that Wulai is famous for, I had done a little research to see if there were any vegan friendly restaurants around town and I’d come across Taiyo Popo which was almost right next to the museum. They had an English menu so after checking what was “su”, I ordered the tossed betul nut flower salad with sesame oil dressing, a taro rice dumpling and some millet rice.
Everything was really good, the salad was very fresh and tasty and the dumpling had a delicious smoky flavour.
Tossed betul nut flower and sesame salad with millet rice
Taro rice cumpling @Taiya Popo
14 Wulai old st
There were many little street stalls scattered along the main st selling a variety of traditional snacks, many of which were vegan so I got a grilled rice cake stick with soy sauce and seaweed topping which was delicious and a box of one of my new favourite foods: candied wild yam which was also really yummy.
Grilled rice cake with soy sauce and sea weed
One of my fave Taiwanese food- candies wild yam
I ended up going back to buy two more rice sticks, this time I got one with brown sugar and black sesame topping and the other with matcha red beans. The former being the much nicer of the two as the red beans made the rice cake all soggy.
More rice cakes, top: brown sugar with black sesame, bottom: matcha red bean
After another hour of ambling around I was feeling quite tired and sunburnt so jumped on the bus back to Taipei.
DAY 22: I had been putting of packing for the last few days as I was in denial that I was leaving, but I really couldn’t put it off any longer since my flight was now just a few hours away. So I quickly rammed everything into my pack and then set out to get some takeout lunch to eat on the way to the airport. I had planned to go to Minder a vegetarian buffet restaurant chain as they had a branch in Taipei main station but then I discovered that the airport bus stopped just a few blocks away from where I was staying so it seemed more practical to just go to the veg buffet around the corner to get food instead.
Lunchbox from Chinese veg buffet
There is also a vegetarian /vegan restaurant in the airport serving mostly Korean and Taiwanese food. It’s located in Terminal 1 B1 foodcourt.
Vegan restaurant in International airport
Melaka Malacca Malaysia
After hightailing it out of the meat filled concrete jungle of Ipoh two days earlier than planned due to the distinct lack of edible food ( must be the only town in Malaysia where finding bananas is a chore) I jumped on a bus and headed straight for the very touristy former Dutch colonial town of Melaka.
Some of the sights in Melaka
FO KWANG
I arrived at my hostel hungry, tired and more than ready to sample some of the vegan food that this town had to offer. Upon check in I was directed to this restaurant by the friendly man who owned the guesthouse I was staying in. It was about a 10 minute walk from the tourist hub of Jonker st and is located right in the heart of the old Chinese quarter near to Bukit Cina (old Chines grave yard).
While it may not be the most amazing vegan food I have ever had at RM2 (70 cents) for a large plate (or should I say a basket lined with grease proof paper) for rice and 3 choices of veg it’s definitely got to be one of the cheapest.
Cheapest lunch ever
I was quite surprised just how much food was shovelled into my basket, it’s amazing they can actually stay in business for that price. Little English was spoken by the guy behind the counter but everything is vegan anyway. All the food was quite fresh considering it was well past lunchtime and not quite dinner time yet (I ate here at 4.30pm). Well worth a visit!
117 Jalan Temanggong
GEOGRAPHERS CAFE
A fellow vegetarian staying at the same place as me suggested this vegetarian friendly restaurant conveniently located right in the middle of Jonker st so figured it was worth checking out.
I ordered the Straights of Malacca salad which had an assortment of grated veggies and rice cubes with fried tempeh and tofu and a spicy curry dip. At RM9.90 I was expecting a reasonable sized plate of food so was quite disappointed to see that it was merely more than a few mouthfuls. It was quite tasty though.
83 Jalan Hang Jebat
VEGGIE PLANET
I had read good things about this restaurant on other vegan blogs so was looking forward to trying it for myself. I ordered the fresh veggie rolls, fried curry tempeh and the veggie raman noodle soup.
I enjoyed the tempeh, it was coated with curry powder and sprinkled with roasted curry leaves and it had a nice crunchy texture. The veggie rolls were alright, although as much as I like spicy food I wasn’t a fan of the very large chunks of raw red chilli throughout, especially since it came with a spicy dipping sauce.
The raman noodles were even more disappointing, or should I say disgusting. They had no flavour at all aside from the overpowering taste of salt and there were large chunks of some revolting tasting and overly chewy brown thing in it. Not sure if it was mushroom or some kind of fake dead thing but it was rank. So despite being quite hungry I left the bowl mostly full and forked out the rather hefty RM22 for my meal which did not include a drink because all the drinks were so outrageously expensive (RM10 for fresh juice when they cost max of RM4 everywhere else).
41 Jalan Melaka Raya
HUI YUAN VEGETARIAN
Another of the places suggested by the guesthouse owner, this cheap and relatively cheerful Chinese buffet restaurant is 100% vegetarian but some dishes did have egg. I piled up my plate with as much fried tofu and vegetable curry as could possibly fit and it still only cost RM7 ($2.50). They had quite a nice tofu dish that had big cubes of crispy fried tofu in a thin soy and chilli sauce as well as the usual Malaysian type curries and some stir fried greens.
6B Jalan Laksamana 12
SIMPLE LIFE TRACEY’S KITCHEN
I discovered this 100% vegetarian and organic restaurant whilst cycling past after my disappointing meal at Veggie Planet and after a quick stop to check out the menu decided it was worth a visit so headed back a day or two later for dinner.
I had a fresh watermelon juice, a red bean steamed bun and the vegetable curry pot which also came with a number of side dishes including a cucumber and bean salad, clear thin soup, a tofu and herb pickle type thing, a bowl of brown rice and also a slice of watermelon.
Yummy dinner at Simple Life
This was easily the best meal that I had in my few days in Melaka, the vegetable curry pot being a particular standout. Although quite similar to a traditional Malaysian laksa minus the noodles, it differed in that, rather than having a coconut milk base it was made with cashew nut milk instead which gave it quite an interesting and unique flavour.
The other side dishes provided the perfect contrast to the curry which was very spicy and as much as I enjoy strong curries it did leave me with burning lips and a sweaty brow.
The only thing I didn’t like about this restaurant were some of the staff. Despite being quite polite and friendly, they seemed completely shocked that I (a western tourist) would knowingly order a rather spicy curry and then also decide to use chopsticks rather than a fork to it with. One particular staff member at Simple Life literally sat there at a table on the other side of the restaurant almost the entire time I was eating staring at me and making comments in Malay to the other staff as I ate my spicy curry with chopsticks which made me feel quite uncomfortable and a little irritated. Thankfully some more customers came in and otherwise kept her busy. I would still go back and eat there again though as the food was worth it and it was quite good value for money at RM21 for everything.
150 Jalan Merdeka Taman Melaka Raya
Cambodia- Battambang, Siem Reap, Phnom Penh
BATTAMBANG
I had to wake up at 5am in order to get the first train to get to the bus terminal in time for 7am bus to the Cambodian border. I arrived 20 minutes before the scheduled departure time to find the bus was almost full already. I scrambled on board and squeezed into my assigned seat (literally, the seats were tiny). Despite being only 5’3″ I found myself almost unable to move my legs due to the near non existent leg room. The sun may have only just risen but I knew it was going to be a very long day. There is also a train that goes from Bangkok to the border but after lots of internet research I decided to fork out the extra 150 baht for the bus instead as it was supposedly faster and more comfortable.
It turned out to be quite a strange and eventful bus ride, due to my considerable lack of Thai language skills I wasn’t able to find out what was going on most of the time, 30 minutes before the scheduled arrival time of 11.30am we stopped for a break at a petrol station. It took about 5 minutes of trying to ask various people if this was the border or how long we would be stopping for. I eventually managed to find out we were just stopping for about 15 minutes and that the border was still another 2-3 hours away. I joined the extremely long toilet queue and by the time I got out I turned to see my bus slowly driving away in the direction of the road. Panicking, I bolted back and virtually had to throw myself in front of the bus to get them to stop and let me back on. About an hour or so later the bus was stopped by two men in army uniforms on the highway (in the middle of nowhere), they boarded the bus and wanted to check everyone’s ID before escorting a middle aged women with a small baby off the bus (still no idea what that was all about).
At 1.15pm (2 hours after the scheduled arrival time) we finally reached our destination. I’d read that there was a lot of corruption in this area with many immigration officials trying to rip off tourists so to be on the safe side I got my visa online several weeks prior to my trip. Next to the bus stop is a white building where you are herded into to get your “Cambodian visa”, this from what I read was the place to be avoided as you have to pass through Thai immigration first before you can officially enter Cambodia. I walked a few hundred metres down the road to the Thai passport control then proceeded to the Cambodian immigration office to get my visa stamped. This whole process took around 2 hours, after which I was finally officially in Cambodia. By this time it was too late to get a public bus to my final destination of Battambang, so I walked passed the “free tourist shuttle” to the bus station (apparently taking unsuspecting tourists to a bus station with extremely inflated bus ticket prices). Instead, I continued walking down the road through the hideous border town of Poipet.
Although it was hot, humid, dusty, smelly, noisy and full of people hassling me I was glad to be getting some exercise and have the opportunity of moving my legs again after the arduous bus ride. All the bus companies operating in Poipet have offices along the main street, so to find a bus you have to walk along the road and stop in at all the small desks in every office to check on bus times and prices. There weren’t any buses going to Battambang for several more hours so I walked back towards the beginning of town to where I’d seen a shared taxi office. It cost $8 for the 3 hour journey and we left straight away, picking up and dropping off other passengers along the way.
At 6pm, 11 hours after leaving Bangkok I finally arrived in Battambang just as it started to get dark.
Despite Battambang being the second largest city in Cambodia it has a very laidback, non touristy small town vibe and is easily small enough to walk or cycle around. There are two 100% vegetarian restaurants in town so after a well deserved sleep in I ventured out to check them out and explore the area.
TE KUCHA A RESTAURANT
In Battambang they’re not really into naming streets or having street signs for that matter, so to find particular places requires you to count how many streets away from the river you are and then find a landmark or prominent building in order to figure out where you are. Thankfully this was quite easy thanks to the town’s small size and the fact the two veg restaurants were both located across the road from each other near a well known hotel.
Te Kucha a is the better known and slightly classier of the two, it was the first one I found so decided to stop in for breakfast/brunch. The menu had lots of pictures and was written in English and Khmer. Enough English was spoken by the friendly staff for me to find out which items were egg and dairy free. I ordered a fresh watermelon juice and the teppenyaki tofu with rice. I wasn’t really sure exactly what teppenyaki was but it turned out to be a good choice. It’s a sizzling stir-fried tofu and vegetable dish with black bean sauce, very tasty and quite a lot of food for $2.
La Ha rd (opposite Asia Hotel, street has no sign but it runs diagonally north from Phsar Naht market).
I spent the remainder of the day exploring the town and chilling out at my hostel. Whilst walking around one of the more residential areas and trying to find a shop where I could buy some snacks as I was starting to get hungry, I saw a small street stall selling banana kebabs so walked over and bought a couple for my lunch. They were the best banana kebabs ever, they’re were lightly sprinkled with brown sugar, then roasted on an open fire until they became crispy and caramelised on the outside and mushy on the inside. Each kebab has 4 small bananas on it and cost only 1000 riel (25 cents), total bargain.
Delicious banana kebabs
WOODHOUSE RESTUARANT
For dinner instead of going to the other veg restaurant which was more of a breakfast place I decided to try a veg friendly restaurant near Phsar Naht market that I’d checked out earlier in the day. I’d chatted to the friendly owner a bit while I was looking at the menu after my breakfast who was a vegetarian herself and spoke quite good English, I explained that I was vegan and didn’t eat tomato. She was very happy to accommodate these requirements and offered to customise whatever I ordered off the menu. For dinner I ordered a mango shake and the masala veggie wrap with side salad, which I expected to be just curried veggies in a baguette etc. So I was quite surprised to discover in was in fact a savoury stuffed pancake somewhere in between an Indian dosa and a French crepe but with a SE Asian twist. Although it was a little on the oily side the wonderful flavour more than made up for it, even the salad was full of flavour.
Masala veggie wrap
opposite Royal Hotel west of Phsar Naht market
CAFE JIRAH
My last full day in Battambang already, for breakfast I went to Café Jirah, they didn’t have many vegetarian options on the menu but when I enquired they, like most of the other restaurants in Battambang the overly friendly staff were only too happy to accommodate my dietary needs and change anything on the menu to suit. I ordered the sweet potato noodles with stir-fried veg and no egg or meat.
Sweet potato noodles with a side of rice
It was very nice but not amazing by any means, I was a little perplexed as to why a noodle dish would come with a side of rice though. I think they just wanted to make sure I had enough food since I didn’t want the two main ingredients, it also came with a small plate of pickled veggies that I wasn’t that keen on.
street 3 south of Phsar Naht market
For the afternoon I had booked a sunset and bat caves cycling tour through a small local company called Butterfly tour. Started up just a few months ago by a lovely university student named Sopheap. I was picked up by tuk tuk surprisingly on time (I was expecting Asian time) and taken to the office down a very picturesque rural laneway to get our bikes. Myself and another girl from Belgium and our guide Sopheap then set off for the relaxing 11km ride through farmland and rice paddies.
Sundried rice
We had a short stop about half way for a drink and then continued on until we reached a very steep hill/cliff jutting out from the otherwise flat landscape. It was a 10-15 minute walk up to the top of the hill which has a Buddhist temple and a number of caves. We found a spot to sit in the shade whilst Sopheap told us a little about Cambodia’s history and current political situation which was very interesting to hear about from a locals perspective. Afterwards we had a look around some of the caves, many of which were used as prisons and torture chambers during the Khmer Rouge era, which although was shocking and rather depressing it is also important to better understand the current political situation and the issues Cambodia faces today. We took a few photos of the large gold statue of the sleeping Buddha and then walked back down the hill towards the bat cave just in time for sunset. We stayed for around 15 minutes and watched the thousands of bats flood out of the cave before grabbing our bikes for the ride back into town.
Sleeping Buddha
Bats, bats and bats
The whole tour was very well organised and professionally run, Sopheap is a very lovely guy with a genuine passion for making Cambodia a better place for everyone and educating foreigners and tourists alike on the history and politics of the country. The 5 hour tour cost $11+ a $3 cave entrance fee which was fantastic value for what you get and well worth the money. Tours can be booked in advance on their website.
http://www.butterflytour.asia/#/
GREEN MANGO
Before my midday bus ride to Siem Reap I went for a walk around the corner from my guesthouse to the less touristy part of town for breakfast at a café called the Green Mango. I ordered the Asian salad with sesame dressing and the trio pita small plate which consisted of some freshly baked pita bread with hummus and black bean hummus and pesto (I did ask for mine to be pesto free with more of the other two instead but that request got lost in translation somewhere I think). The salad was much larger than I expected and fairly tasty. The black bean hummus was very nice and although the hummus was very hard and crumbly making it difficult to spread it did have a nice flavour.
Asian salad
Trio pita hummus plate
The Green Mango had quite a large and varied international menu with plenty of veganisable veg options (if you can get that point across to the staff) and also serves as a training school for impoverished girls from the area to give them a start in the hospitality industry.
SIEM REAP
I arrived in Siem Reap on New Year’s eve in the early afternoon after a 5 hour bus ride. After checking in to my guest house I grabbed a map to see where the closest place for lunch was, Peace café turned out to be just down the road and since it was one of the top picks on my list I wasted no time in getting there as I was pretty hungry by then. My guesthouse were all out of rental bikes so I went to the one across the road, which were surprisingly laid back about the whole rental process. They didn’t want a deposit, nor did they even ask me for I.D or my name etc and they said I could pay the $1 per day hire fee when I brought the bike back. So off I went, arriving at the tranquil garden setting of Peace café just 5 minutes later.
PEACE CAFE
Peace cafe garden
Most items on the menu were vegan aside from the ones listed inside the front cover as containing milk. Peace café is 100% vegetarian and also egg free. I ordered the taro fries, lemongrass tofu with brown rice, a mango shake and for dessert I was excited to discover that the banana and raison stuffed chocolate crepe was vegan so obviously I had to get one.
Lemongrass tofu
Taro fires
Very delicious stuffed chocolate crepe @Peace cafe
Well everything was absolutely delicious and it was such a peaceful and chilled area to relax in after the tiring bus ride. They had a book shelf with lots of books that people have donated so I grabbed an old Lonely Planet on Cambodia and found a comfy couch to sit on.
Peace café also run a number of community classes/workshops including yoga, pilates and some language lessons, English and Khmer. most of them are for a donation, the yoga costs $6.
I also returned to Peace café the following day (New year’s day) for lunch after my marathon bike rice around Angkor Wat and ordered the Green Goddess smoothie, the vegetarian shish kebabs, fresh spring rolls and a small Bong Chum salad.
Bong Chum salad
The shish kebabs were very tasty, with about 5 or 6 different vegetables and tofu and had an unusual spicy flavour that I couldn’t quite figure out what it was. The Bong Chum salad was also nice and very fresh but not as quite as good as it sounded on the menu.
My third and final visit here was on my last morning, after a mix up with my bus ticket to Phnom Penh I had an extra hour to spare and as I was getting a little hungry and knowing that I had a 7+ hour bus ride ahead of me raced over to grab some take out for the road. I got stir-fired tofu and veggies and what turned out to be a particularly yummy brown rice salad with dates, raisons, ginger, walnuts and celery. I also had a delicious papaya shake while I was waiting for my food.
st 26 between river rd and Wat Bo rd
After my lunch I cycled into the town centre to check out the touristy area where the majority of NYE celebrations were taking place. I wasn’t really expecting there to be much happening since Cambodia is a mostly Buddhist country that follows a different calendar, but as it turned out Siem Reap is one of the most touristy towns in the country and I arrived on the aptly named Pub st to a sea of people, a mix of tourists and locals filling up several blocks dancing enthusiastically to some very very loud and bad 90’s dance music.
NYE in Siem Reap
I parked my bike in one of the side streets and then spent the next hour exploring all the quaint and very Parisian looking laneways around the night markets and old market areas,then it was time for the circus. I had heard about a Battambang based organisation called Phare Ponleu Selpak which offered free performance and visual arts programs as well as free schooling and medical treatment to under privileged and at risk children and young people. As it so happened they were performing in Siem Reap when I was there so went along to watch their show which was a lot of fun. For further info on this organisation check out their website http://www.phareps.org/
After the performance I went back into town to join in with some of the celebrations, shortly before midnight I decided to head back as I was very tired from all the travelling and was a bit over the crappy music and crowds of people. It took me a while to find my bike since I wasn’t yet familiar with the town and couldn’t quite remember exactly which street I had parked it on, I eventually found it about 40 minutes later and cycled back while watching the midnight fireworks.
The plan was to get a few hours of sleep then cycle the 11km’s out to Angkor Wat in time to catch the sunrise. Unfortunately, though I was kept awake most of the night by the guy in the room next door who’d obviously over-indulged in the NYE celebrations and was up retching and vomiting at an horrendously loud volume for most of the night. Turns out the walls of my $4 a night hostel were paper thin.
I’d literally just dozed off when I was greeted with the joyful sound of my alarm blaring out into the dark silence at 4am. I scrambled out of bed and jumped on my bike heading towards Angkor Wat. It was quite a pleasant and easy ride out there, with hardly any traffic and the cool early morning air gently waking me up. About 30 minutes later I reached the main entrance where I bought my ticket then carried on to the bike parking station under a tree, and followed the growing masses of people along the path to the lake in front of the temple.
The long wait for the sun to rise whilst constantly having to defend my much sort after second row position from the hoards of over excited Japanese tourists that surrounded me was enough to make me consider moving somewhere a bit less touristy, but as the rising sun slowly began to reveal the incredible beauty of Angkor Wat I decided to stay and join in the elbow fight.
Sunrise @Angkor wat
Once it was light I wandered off to explore the inside of this vast temple complex. I spent the best part of an hour walking around the seemingly endless labyrinth of tunnels, staircases and stone carvings, before consulting my map and cycling on the see some of the other buildings and ruins of this once mighty city.
Eager crowds awaiting the new years day sunrise
Unfortunately due to time constraints I only had 1 day to see this area, which although sounds like a long time it isn’t anywhere near enough (a 3 day pass is optimal to visit the majority of sites). At the time Angkor was built it was thought to be one of the largest cities in the world spanning an area of approximately 1000 square km’s. There are distances of 1-5km’s between each building so cycling from one to the next was quite time consuming and tiring as it had turned out to be quite a warm day. I filled up on mangos and bananas at the numerous fruit stalls along the way and spent the best part of the day sight seeing.
One of the many amazing sites @ Angkor wat
By around 3pmish I was getting a little templed out and exhausted from being constantly bombarded by cute little kids trying to manipulate me into buying some souvenirs and then trying to me feel guilty when I said no, and also having cycled an estimated 60+kms on next to no sleep I decided it was time to head back into town. I had planned to go to the vegetarian friendly Butterfly Gardens restaurant for lunch but after looking at their boring sounding menu I ended up heading back to the tranquil garden setting of Peace café a block away to spend the afternoon relaxing in their garden with a book.
THE SINGING TREE
My evening was spent strolling around the various night market and getting a well deserved $2 hour long foot massage. I also stopped in at The Singing Tree restaurant for a bite to eat. Located in a trendy little laneway full of bars, restaurants and fashion boutiques you could be mistaken for thinking you’re in Paris or London. I ordered a fresh coconut juice and a veganised version of the national dish, the tofu Amok which is a mild and very coconutty curry served with veggies and of course rice. I enjoyed the Amok although it wasn’t quite spicy enough for my taste. The Singing Tree serves meat but has a large vegetarian menu with vegan options labelled with a “v”.
Tofu amok curry @the Singing Tree
The Passage (near Old market)
Realising it was my final day in this very touristy but charming little town I was adamant on doing one thing, finding the vegetarian restaurant that had thus far alluded me Chamkar.
CHAMKAR
This tiny hole in the wall restaurant located in the same laneway as The Singing Tree is rather easy to miss as it is not that well signed, but my persistence finally paid off. It only has room to seat about 10 people at a time so eating here often involves a wait of up to 1 hour, especially at dinner time, but it’s totally worth it. After eating here twice (in one day) I would go so far as to describe Chamkar as one of the best and most inventive vegetarian restaurants in the world, easily up there with Millennium in San Francisco which is a pretty big call. For lunch I ordered the pumpkin and basil curry stuffed tofu which a number of reviewers on happycow.net had raved about and a mango shake.
Extremely delicious stuffed tofu from Chamkar
The tofu was served with a spicy mushroom and onion gravy that complimented the other flavours perfectly and a big bowl of organic brown rice. I couldn’t quite identify which spices were used in the gravy as it had such an unusual and distinctive flavour but this is one dish I would happily eat every single day.
For dinner I returned feeling the need to make up for lost time as there were so many things on the menu I wanted to try. I got an iced lemongrass tea, the creamy mushroom dip which was recommended by staff and came served with slices of toasted baguette and the root vegetable fritters. Unfortunately the battery of my camera died during the afternoon so no pics of dinner but it was easily as good as lunch if not better. The dip was recommended to me by the staff and is a Chamkar specialty and very delicious. I not usually a massive mushroom fan but this dip was more of a thick coconut curry more than anything. The fritters were also quite unique, being made predominantly of mashed cassava which was then dipped in a yellow curry paste batter, rolled in panko break crumbs (I think) and then deep fried. It was served with a spicy green mango chutney and the chutney of some other exotic fruit I can’t remember the name of, but it was yellow and tasted somewhere in between a squash and a pear.
I couldn’t leave without dessert, unfortunately they were out of my first option of the traditional Khmer yellow bean cake so I opted for the banana in warm coconut milk with crunchy toasted yellow split peas, yum yum yum!
The Passage (Old Market, opposite end of laneway to The Singing Tree)
In between my indulging at Chamkar on my last day I also went on an organised group tour to the floating village, well that’s where we were meant to go but due the low water levels and the fact that the village had floated to an inaccessible part of the lake, we were told that we’d be going to Kampong Phluk, the stilted village instead.
It was a 30ish minute drive from Siem Reap and then a further 40 minute boat ride on one of the dodgiest looking boats I’ve ever seen. Thankfully it didn’t capsize on the way and as it sailed around a corner we were greeted with the fascinating first glimpse of the stilted village. It was much larger than I had expected with everything from a school, restaurant and even a police station and medical clinic, all perched on top of stilts up to 10-15m above the water it was quite a spectacular sight, they even had a boat that had been converted into a greenhouse to grow veggies.
Kampong Phluk
As we reached the far side of the village the stilted houses gave way to an immense and beautiful flooded forest. The boat moored at a restaurant so we could have a look around and we were also given the option of taking a small dugout canoe through the forest for an extra $5 which I decided to do.
As we paddled deeper into the forest the noise of the village gave way to a serene silence and an incredibly peaceful atmosphere. At the far end of the forest there was a huge treetop walkway that allowed villagers to go from their houses to their fishing nets without having to use a boat, we glided under it into a clearing and then slowly drifted along as the sun set over the water which was a truly breathtaking sight.
The serene flooded forest
We paddled back to the bigger boat to join the others then set off for the centre of the lake to continue watching the sunset. Once it was nearly dark we turned around and made our way back up river to our waiting van. Unfortunately my camera battery died from taking so many forest and sunset pics so I missed the stunning scene of the silhouetted stilt houses with the backdrop of the red and purple sky with the setting sun glistening on the water. It was an eerie yet incredible sight.
After dinner at Chamkar I walked around the markets once again to stock up on snacks for my 9 hour bus ride to Phnom Penh the following day then went back to my hostel to pack.
VITKING HOUSE
Although I didn’t actually get a chance to eat here I did drop in to get a drink and take a squiz at the menu. Located about a 15 minute walk out of the town centre in a very residential area, this place offers lower prices and a more authentic Khmer dining experience than restaurants in town.
The staff seemed quite shocked when I walked in and asked for a menu, I got the impression that “tourists” don’t eat here that often and that they assumed I was probably just lost and after directions. I had an iced jasmine tea with coconut milk with was just the thing for a hot afternoon. Mains were all around the $2-3 mark and were quite generous sized servings. The restaurant is set in a large and relaxing garden with low tables and cushions on the floor to sit on.
Iced Jasmine tea
st 7 (Makara) next to University of SE Asia Wat Bo area
PHNOM PENH
Despite the distance between Siem Reap and Phnom Penh being only around 200km, travelling between these two cities requires an arduous 9 hour long bus ride. I had booked the 10am bus thinking I’d arrive with enough time to go for a walk around the city before bed time but due to some complication with my booking (the guy who booked my ticket got confused with the date and accidently booked me on the 10am bus the prior day) I ended up having to get the midday bus instead which left 1 hour late.
The journey seemed to take forever, not helped by the really weird (and bad) 1980’s B grade Chinese zombie action movie that was being played on the bus over and over again at an ear piercing volume, not even my mp3 player at maximum volume provided an adequate escape. Also due to the extremely underdeveloped infrastructure in Cambodia, the roads are in such a terrible condition that the maximum speed of most vehicles is around 30-40kms an hour. I eventually stumbled weary eyed into my hostel near the central market at around 10pm.
I had heard from Sopheap (bicycle tour guy in Battambang) that there were anti government protests happening in the capital but didn’t think to check exactly where they were when finding a place to stay. They turned out to be literally right across the street, I wasn’t too concerned though as they seemed to be very peaceful and appeared to be more like a giant picnic than anything else with the majority of the protesters being families with young children, monks and the elderly.
The following morning on my way out to buy some fruit from the markets for breakfast I took a detour through the park and stopped to chat to a few of the protesters to learn a bit more about what was going on.
After breakfast myself and another girl from the hostel decided to share the tuk tuk ride out to the killing fields. I had been in two minds as to whether I wanted to go here or not, but a number of other travellers I’d met said it was really interesting and not as bleak and depressing a place as the name might suggest. I also thought the idea of turning a place with such an horrendous history into what is essentially a commercialised for profit tourist attraction to be rather distasteful to say the least, but I wanted to learn more about Cambodian history in order to better understand the country and the political situation that was unfolding across the street from my hostel. I also thought it would be better to see it for myself before deciding whether to be for or against this kind of “tourist attraction”.
Whilst I wouldn’t exactly agree with the “peaceful” label that most other travellers I’d met had described it as, it was certainly interesting but still rather horrific. The entry fee gets you an audio guide which you can listen to at your own pace whilst walking around the area which was very informative, well done and included lots of personal stories of many of the victims and survivors of the Khmer Rouge and their friends and family members.
Excavated mass graves, victims skulls and the killing tree
Some things though I did have to skip as they were just far too gruesome and detailed, such as the documentary film that is played in one of the museum rooms every hour or so and some of the signs, particularly the pictures of victims around the killing tree where many children and babies were murdered by soldiers.
KN’YAY
A much happier sight @Kn’yay
After spending around 2 hours here I found my travel buddy for the day and our tuk tuk driver and headed back into the city. I asked to be dropped off at a vegan restaurant for lunch that I’d heard was good. As soon as I stepped out of the tuk tuk I was greeted with a sign that I was very happy to see: vegan ice cream!
The menu
Located in a rather posh terrace guesthouse I felt a bit out of my comfort zone in such an upmarket environment but quickly got over that once I looked at the menu. As is often the case when eating at all vegan establishments, the option of being able to eat everything on the menu can be a little overwhelming. Eventually I ordered the sweet potato, and pumpkin curry, fresh spring rolls and a watermelon and chilli shake.
The spring rolls were tasty but quite standard as far as Cambodian spring rolls go, the dipping sauce was the real stand out. Instead of the usual sweet chilli vinegar it also had coconut milk and finely chopped herbs, giving it quite a distinctive flavour.
I also enjoyed the curry, the only downside being that the pumpkin was a bit undercooked.
For dessert I got 3 scoops of ice cream: coconut, coconut ginger and chocolate.
The Terrace @41 street 95 of Monivong Blvd
After lunch I slowly made my way back towards Central market on foot, meandering through the many small laneways and street markets in the very Parisian looking BKK area.
EVERGREEN
The closest vegetarian restaurant to where I was staying and one of the few that was not in the BKK or Independence monument area, I dropped in for dinner here on my way back from my walk.
I got the fried yellow noodles with tofu which came to about $2 (tofu was 50c extra), it was quite substantial and fresh, definitely good value. A cheap filler if you’re in the area but not worth going out of your way for.
109 street 130 (near the riverside)
Just before dark I arrived back near my hostel and was surprised to find that the ironically named “Freedom Park” that had been bustling with protesters earlier that day was now completely empty, barricaded off and surrounded by hundreds of riot police who filled up the sidewalk for several blocks on every side of the park. It took around 20 minutes to convince the cops to let me through the barrier to get back to my hostel where I was met with a large crowd of stunned backpackers angrily discussing the scenes that had taken place during the day.
I managed to get filled on what had happened, apparently about an hour or so after I had left that morning and despite the protest being extremely peaceful, the government (which in Cambodia is essentially a very corrupt dictatorship) who are very intolerant of anyone who opposes them sent in around 500+ riot police (the protesters in the park that morning were around 300), who started beating people with batons and rounded them up into a corner of the park. They then began to open fire in an attempt to deter the protesters from returning, 5 were killed and dozens of others were injured.
Riot cops
For the remainder of my time in Phnom Penh the area around my hostel was blocked off every evening by hundreds of police who refused to let anyone in or out and every single park and public space in the entire city was filled with riot police armed with batons and automatic rifles under strict orders to not let anyone so much as sit in the park (including tourists). There was also a complete ban on anyone gathering in a group of more than 5 persons which seemed to me like a rather pointless and impractical law to try and enforce.
Given that no one was allowed to go out for the rest of the evening and the night markets having been cancelled due to the ban on large gatherings, I spent the night hanging out with and swapping stories with the other people in my hostel.
After such an eventful first day in Phnom Penh I was hoping day 2 would be a little more subdued, and with rumours circulating of retaliation against police for their over the top brutality I decided to spend the day strolling around the expat enclave of the BKK district.
CAFE SOLEIL
My first port of call was a brunch stop at a cute little French inspired vegetarian café sharing my name located in the hipster central area of street 278.
The menu was a bit of a mixed bag of dishes from all corners of the globe but with a particular focus on French and Cambodian staples. I ordered the mango, tofu and cashew nut curry, a bowl of mixed fruit salad and a watermelon juice.
The curry was very yummy, the mangoes weren’t too overcooked as is often the case, still quite firm but also full of flavour having soaked up all those spices and curry paste. The crunchy roasted cashews and tofu also gave the dish some extra texture.
22 DEo street 278
ARTILLERY CAFE
I had come across a few other vegetarian friendly restaurants in one of the visitor guides that are in just about every shop in Phnom Penh. This place sounded like it was worthy of a visit but as I was a bit perplexed as to where street 2401/2 was it went to the bottom of the list.
Having barely left Café Soleil I was surprised to find this place on the same street less than a block away, so figured I may as well make the most of it and try some of their raw vegan desserts.
Although there were a few token meat dishes on the menu as seems to be the case with all the vegan restaurants in Cambodia, this café, that was packed to bursting point on both of my visits with fashion conscious expat hipsters and offered an interesting array of healthy vegetarian dishes with a large number of vegan, raw and gluten free options.
I had a slice of the raw cheesecake and a banana and date smoothie, both were top quality.
I also returned here for brunch the following day and had the very delicious and huge Angkor salad, the hummus heaven plate and a raw cacao and goji berry smoothie which were all incredibly delicious.
Angkar salad
The heavenly hummus heaven
The hummus heaven being a particular standout due to the yummy freshly baked walnut bread it was served with. Artillery is definitely one of my top vegan picks in Phnom Penh.
street 278 (near the corner of street 63)
VEGO SALAD BAR
After a few more hours of taking in the sights (and smells) of the area and a brief visit to Russian market I slowly started heading back towards the hostel. Figuring I’d probably get hungry later and wouldn’t be able to get out due to the riot police street blocks I decided to grab some food to go from another one of the veg places that were advertised in the visitor guide.
I was surprised to discover that despite the name it wasn’t entirely vegetarian, but they still had plenty of vegan options for the wraps and sandwiches and also a well priced pick n mix salad bar at $3.95. I opted for the Tel Aviv pita (felafel) with avocado.
I wasn’t really expecting much from it to be honest other than a cheap meal, but it was actually pretty good, probably some of the best felafel you’re likely to get in Cambodia, not that there’s much competition.
21B street 294, also second location street 51 behind Wat Lanka
My final day I decided to rent a bike to explore the more far flung corners of the city that were too far to go on foot. After my yummy brunch at Artillery I headed west around the outskirts of the city then along the picturesque river front past the grand palace which looked incredibly similar to the one in Bangkok.
THE CORN
By mid afternoon I was feeling the heat and the effects of the ungodly amount of traffic fumes and dust I’d been inhaling whilst cycling around so decided it was time for a rest and a bite to eat.
I was surprised to find this restaurant was empty when I arrived even though it was in between lunch and dinner time, it is located down the end of a tiny little lane that I would have easily walked passed if it weren’t for the vegan sing and menu out front.
I got a fresh coconut juice, the very tasty but rather uninspiring and disappointing looking roasted pear and pumpkin salad and the tofu, banana and sweet potato curry.
I thought the salad was tasty but for $4 (quite a hefty price tag for an entrée in Cambodia) for a pile of pale lettuce leaves with a few token slivers of pear and pumpkin was quite over priced I thought. The curry was good but not great, aside from the banana it tasted almost identical to the curry that I’d had at Kn’yay, not that that was necessarily a bad thing.
I also got some dessert here figuring it would probably be the last time in a while that I’d be able to order a vegan crepe with ice cream (raspberry) for $4.
The crepe was nice if a little on the tough side but once the ice cream melted a bit it was pretty good.
26 Preah Suramit Blvd
THE VEGETARIAN
Unfortunately I didn’t have time to eat a proper meal here but I did drop in for a drink and more dessert on my way back from The Corn. Prices were quite reasonable ($2-3 for mains) and the plates of food looked pretty huge. They offer the usual mix of veganised traditional Khmer and western dishes. I had a fresh papaya juice and a bowl of cashew and black sesame pudding.
158 street 19
Bangkok-Thailand
UPDATE
On a recent visit to Bangkok I ate at a few new places and also visited (several times) Bangkok’s fabulous all vegan bakerie, Veganerie.
VEGANERIE
I was pretty excited to finally have the chance to check this place out as I’d heard a lot about it and had seen quite a few very enticing looking photos, thankfully it didn’t disappoint.
Veganerie’s strong point is definitely the ice cream, waffles and smoothies. I tried quite a few different items during my 3 visits there including things from their ready baked section and from the menu. While most of the baked goods were very nice they weren’t always up to the same standard as the menu, but overall I thought this places was great and definitely worth a trip to Bangkok.
Baked goods @Veganerie
Raw carrot cake GF
apple crumble with black sesame and almond, coconut ice cream.
Pumpkin brownie
Green smoothie
Red velvet cake
Chocolate fudge brownie frappe
4F Mercury Ville, Chitlom BTS, Lang Suan Street
SOYA SOYUM
I accidentally discovered this place on my first trip to Veganerie. It’s located right below the bakery on the 3rd floor which makes choosing where to get your sugary vegan fix somewhat difficult.
It’s not all vegan as some things contained honey, the whipped cream was made from coconut milk and was seriously delicious.
Chocolate soy milk shake bubble tea frappe
Mercury Ville shopping centre
Level 3
BONITA’S CAFE
Cute little all vegan cafe with vintage decor and a western, Japanese fusion menu. I tried the tofu terriyaki burger and the datorade (date) shake. Both were good.
56/3 Pan Street, Silom
MANGO
Another of the veg/vegan restaurants located near the hideously touristy Khoa Sna rd district. This restaurant also serves as an art gallery. The menu is very very similar to Etho’s which is literally just around the corner. The presentation of the dishes and a slight variation of ingredients is pretty much all that set the two apart.
I ordered the tempeh salad which came served in a bowl approximately twice the size of my head. It was very fresh and tasty and quite filling. I also had a hibiscus juice.
Gigantic tempeh salad @Mango restaurant
13 Tanao RD
BANANA FAMILY PARK VEGETARIAN FOOD COURT
Banana family park
A fellow vegan got me onto this place which made a nice change from the more expensive restaurants. It’s tucked away down a small alley behind other buildings about 100m from Ari MRT. Set in a peaceful garden with a number of all vegan food stalls to choose from. Most of the stalls were shut when I went there so chose was somewhat limited. Rice with 4 choices and a fresh spring roll came to just 40 baht.
17/1 Phahon Yothin Rd, Phaya Thai
After a very early start from Chiang Mai I arrived in Bangkok and hopped aboard the bus from the airport before wandering around for about 30 minutes trying to find someone who could speak enough English to get directions to my some what elusive hostel. Eventually I found it tucked away in a very quiet residential laneway with no street sign.
This was my first visit to Bangkok as my previous trip to Thailand was during the devastating 2011 floods when much of Bangkok was under water, which resulted in me spending more time in Chiang Mai instead. I’d met quite a few people on my travels that had been to Bangkok and after asking them what it was like it would seem that it’s a city you either love or hate so I was keen to see it for myself to make up my own mind. It certainly sounded pretty vegan friendly if happycow.net was anything to go by so I was confident I wasn’t going to starve at least.
Although I intentionally booked a hostel far away from the superficial bogan central of Khao San rd it seemed that was where the 2 best vegan restaurants in the city where located, so begrudgingly I jumped on a bus headed in that direction. 1 1/2 hours later after weaving through every little alleyways in Chinatown and getting dizzy from inhaling a disgusting amount of exhaust fumes and pollution (public buses in Bangkok have open windows instead of air-con) I finally arrived at my destination.
ETHOS VEGETARIAN CAFE AND BAKERY
I was craving something light and healthy to counteract all those exhaust fumes so I ordered the mixed salad (no tomato), some deep fried tofu, an iced hibiscus tea and a blueberry and coconut shake because I couldn’t decide between the two. It all arrived within 10 minutes and was so fresh and tasty, even the salad which I expected to be quite plain was very tasty, the portion sizes were also quite generous.
Tempeh burger
This café had a really great vibe, tucked away in a quaint little laneway right next door to 2 other veg restaurants (May Kaidee’s being one of them), with lots of funky artwork adorning the walls and cushions on the floor to sit on. The staff were all very friendly and helpful, even to the point of inviting me to go out with them the following evening after learning that I was travelling alone.
I also went back here on my last day for dessert and to get some takeaway for my bus trip to Cambodia the next day. I got a delicious apple crumble that had black sesame seeds in it and was served with a very yummy custard made from coconut cream and a soy masala drink which was like and chai flavoured shake, so yummy. For takeout I ordered the red curry tofu and veggies, which was still delicious even when it was cold the next day. They also have vegan, gluten free pancakes on the menu as well as quite a few other vegan desserts. Ethos is a definite must if you’re in town.
Yummy apple crumble @Ethos
85 2 Tanoa rd (look for small laneway next to Burger King)
My second day was spent wandering around the area of Sukhumvit rd, an interesting combination of huge shopping malls, rich expats and seedy bars and night clubs.
TERMINAL 21 FOOD COURT
After several hours of people watching and window shopping I ended up at the end of Sukhumvit rd in Terminal 21 shopping centre, which turned out to be a bit more than your average Bangkok shopping mall. Each level of the mall is decorated in the theme of one of the great cities of the world, so after a quick stroll through Rome, London, Paris and Istanbul I found myself in San Francisco’s Pier 21, also known as the food court.
The Bay area comes to Bangkok
None of the stalls in the food court take cash so first you need to go to the counter next to the escalator where you can exchange cash for a pre paid voucher card. With card in hand I found the vegetarian food stall which was near the juice/dessert stand with an eye catching display of mangoes and dried fruits. Little to no English was spoken so I just had to point and guess which things were egg free. I ended up with brown rice, pumpkin curry, stir-fried mixed veggies and some very spicy tofu curry which came to 40 baht ($1.50), the portions were quite big, especially for the price and it was quite fresh and tasty for food court food.
Vegan food court lunch
I also got a fresh mango and banana shake from the juice bar next door. With my mouth and lips burning from the tofu curry I headed straight for the dessert stall to get something to cool off. I ordered a small mango sticky rice and one of my favourite Thai desserts mung bean (split yellow peas) with coconut milk. Yum!!
Mango sticky rice and coconut mung dahl
Terminal 21 shopping mall level 5 food court (San Francisco pier 21)
Feeling rather full after all that food I strolled around the other levels of the mall winding up in the international gourmet food market on the lower ground floor which has a large supermarket that seemed to cater predominantly to the upper middle class expats that live in the area. This store had quite a lot of vegan products including chocolate coated sun dried bananas and my favourite find, pear and almond flavoured chocolate bars. There is also a large bulk goods sections with lots of dried fruit and nuts so I stocked up on some snacks for my upcoming bus ride in a few days time.
Day 3 I went back to Sukhumvit rd to the Eastern bus terminal to buy my bus ticket to the Cambodian border for the following day. Once that was all organised I went to check out a nearby veggie restaurant called May Veggie Home on Sukhumvit soi 55, but finding that closed I got some fruit from a few different street stalls for my breakfast instead. I got a bag each of watermelon and mango and then also got some grilled bananas which were char grilled with the skin on so they go all gooey and caramelised before being peeled, chopped and placed in a bag which you eat from using a kebab stick. All fruit bags were 20 baht each
MAY KAIDEE’S
For lunch I headed back up to Khao San rd to what is considered to be one of the best vegetarian restaurants in Bangkok if not Thailand, May Kaidee’s, and it didn’t disappoint. They have a huge menu so deciding what to get was difficult but eventually I opted for the mint and coconut shake, spicy green mango salad and some red rice with tofu and an assortment of stir-fried curried veggies including broccoli, basil, taro and sweet potato.
Delicious lunch from May Kaidee’s
Everything was exceptional, especially the mint, coconut shake which was just the things after traipsing around Bangkok on a hot and humid day. The only downside was that I was too full to try any of their amazing sounding desserts. If you are around on a Saturday they have an evening all you can eat buffet for just 150 baht ($5) too.
59 Tanoa rd (small laneway behind Burger King)
My last morning in Bangkok had arrived already despite the fact that I’d been so busy enjoying just exploring the city that I hadn’t had the chance to do any of the usual touristy things like visit the Grand Palace or any of the temples. Since my hostel was situated right near some of the biggest malls in Bangkok I decided to make them my first stop of the day. On the way I got some red sticky rice with taro that was wrapped up in banana leaves from a street stall outside MBK mall for breakfast before some window shopping which I quickly got bored so headed up to the food court level where there was a vegetarian food stall.
MBK FOOD COURT
The MBK international food court has a bit of a weird system, when you first enter you are given a pre paid card that I already loaded with 1000 baht, you then go and order the food you want form any of the stalls and only pay the deducted balance upon exiting after you’ve eaten. I found the vegetarian stall towards the front of the food court ( there were also several middle eastern stalls with vegan options). At the front of the stall all the available options were displayed in plastic form in bowls (Japanese style), it was a bit on the pricy side for a food court, at around 120-150 baht depending on what you get. I decided on the basil fried rice with tofu and veggies. It was nice but nothing that spectacular, especially given it was more expensive than most of the mains at May Kaidee’s but if you’re hungry and nearby it’s a decent enough option.
The menu
Over-priced and boring lunch @ MBK mall
MBK mall international food court level 5
Being well and truly over the mall experience I quickly went back to the supermarket in Terminal 21 to stock up on snacks for the next days buy more pear and almond chocolate and some snacks for the next days bus trip and then jumped on the bus back to Ethos for dessert and some takeaway food for tomorrows lunch.
Chiang Mai- Thailand
Chiang Mai a quaint and historically significant city surrounded by a 13th century wall and moat which remains largely intact adding to the old world charm of this city. Not only is Chiang Mai the capital city of northern Thailand it is also the Thai capital of all things vegan.
Chiang Mai wall
My 1st visit here 2 years ago left me overwhelmed by a seemingly endless choice of quality and reasonably priced vegan food options and probably a good few KGs heavier, so of course I was more than happy to return. Although the old walled city of Chiang Mai is quite small, being roughly a 30 minute walk from one side to the other it is absolutely bursting with vegetarian restaurants not to mention the 100’s of vegetarian friendly ones. It’s near impossible to walk more than 20m without seeing at least a few restaurants advertising vegetarian food.
The following list is not an extensive one by any means (happycow.net listings for Chiang Mai seems to be fairly up to date) but a brief guide to some of my favourite vegan discoveries.
After a couple of hot and steamy days in Singapore and KL I touched down in the more temperate mountain climate of Chiang Mai. With 3 days to kill before a week of volunteering at the blissful human and animal sanctuary of Elephant Nature Park (my previous visit to Chiang Mai also included a 2 week volunteer stint at the park). Armed with a list of my favourite vegan eateries from last time and what turned out to be a very accurate memory of the location of a few hidden vegan gems in the vast number of street markets that this city has, I felt well prepared to eat my way through as much of the city as I could.
AUM VEGETARIAN RESTAURANT
100% vegetarian and organic AUM veg specialise in maki rolls aka vegetarian sushi which they make fresh to order. After a 5am start and a 2 1/2 hour flight from KL I was quite hungry so I ordered the pumpkin maki rolls, an avocado smoothie and the cashew nut stir-fry with tofu and veggies and some brown rice. It all arrived very quickly and was as delicious and fresh as I remembered it being.
Pumpkin maki @Aum veg
Cashew nut stir fry, avocado smoothie and rice
66 Moon Muang rd (eastern wall near Thapae gate)
BLUE DIAMOND
A lovely lady named Jodi who works at Elephant Nature Park had told me about this place last time and I am glad she did as I never would have gone to it otherwise as I generally prefer to stick to entirely veg places when travelling. Part grocery store part restaurant and part bakery Blue Diamond has just about everything an eco conscious traveller may need, from chemical free skin care products to homemade vegan cookies, they also specialise in GF baking, and if that’s not enough to make you want to go there they also make their own vegan ice cream and yoghurt (soy and coconut milk based). They also make some pretty tasty vegan and GF pancakes and have a very extensive list of flavours to choose from.
Apple and cinnamon pancakes, fruit salad with soy yoghurt and mango banana smoothie
Pancake menu page
Vegan and GF baked goods @Blue Diamond
All the vegan and GF options are clearly labelled. I got a vegan and GF avocado and ginger cupcake to try. I’d never heard of avocado in baked goods before so wasn’t sure what to expect but one bite and I was hooked, deliciously avocadoey and perfectly moist with a slight hint of ginger, it was totally worth every cent of the $2. I also got a small tub of the coconut milk yoghurt to try which was also quite tasty, the next day I went back and got a tub of vegan avocado frozen yoghurt, some mango ice cream and a GF blueberry muffin, the coconut cream pies (they’re in the display cabinet) are also highly recommended.
Avocado and ginger cupcake (GF) and coconut milk yoghurt
Blueberry muffin (GF), raw cake (GF) and avocado frozen yoghurt
My favourite thing at Blue Diamond the coconut cream pie
35/1 Moon Muang soi 9
WAT PHRA SINGH TEMPLE RESTUARANT (NAME UNKNOWN)
A random find whilst walking through the Sunday street market, the food may not be the most amazing vegan food you’ll find in Chiang Mai but for only 25baht ($1) for a rice and 2 curries it’s probably the best value, there’s a large choice of dishes to choose from, little English is spoken but it’s all vegan so you can just point to the dishes you want.
My $1 lunch
Rachadanoen rd near the corner of Singharat rd (look for the red and yellow sign with vegetarian written on it).
DADA KAFE
Not all vegetarian but lots of options, huge range of fresh smoothies and juices, the mango, avocado, cocoa and coconut is one of my favourites. It’s a very popular breakfast spot for expats and tourists.
One of the best smoothies ever
Raspberry and mint coconut milk smoothie and fruit salad @Dada Kafe
Ratmakka Phra Sing (near the corner of Moon Muaeng rd)
JUICY 4 U
Similar to Dada Kafe and also right across the rd, Juicy 4 U is all vegetarian and as the name suggests they have lots of fresh juices on the menu. They also make pretty good sandwiches.
Create your own club sandwich @Juicy4U
Ratchamanka 5
BROWN RICE CAFE CLOSED
I discovered this place as it was right next to my hostel and only went to eat here because it was raining too heavily to go further afield. It’s 100% vegetarian and organic and they had a few interesting options not typically seen on menus in Chiang Mai.
Lemongrass, chilli and lime iced tea
I couldn’t decide what to get when I went there so ended up ordering 2 mains. The minced tofu and spicy mango salad was excellent although it was very spicy.
The minced tofu and spicy green mango salad
I also got the pad si ew which I expected to be quite plain but turned out to have a very yummy black bean sauce. Aside from my 2 mains I also ordered a lemongrass, lime and chilli drink, which was very unusual tasting but very delicious. My whole meal only came to 200 baht ($7) which I thought was excellent value as the portion sizes were huge and it was one of the best meals I’ve had in Chiang Mai.
Pad si ew
85/5 Samlan rd
FREE BIRD
It’s 100% vegetarian and organic (99% vegan) and all profits go to helping Burmese refugees. They do some pretty special and unusual combinations of smoothies that are worth going there just for them let alone the wonderful atmosphere and the reasonably priced and super tasty food.
Tea leaf rice salad and pumpkin curry @Free Bird
116 Maneenopparat rd (northern wall near Sanam kila rd)
TASTE FROM HEAVEN
A vegetarian restaurant with all profits going to the very worthy cause of Elephant Nature Park. I did a cooking class here a couple of years ago which was very enjoyable. They have since moved location and are now conveniently located just a few minutes walk away from Elephant Nature Park’s head office. The food is fresh, tasty and has a standard Thai menu featuring all the usual dishes, the deep fried basil leaves were a particular favourite as was the vegan cinnamon and caramel cake if they still have it. Please let me know if you go to or find this restaurant and what it’d like now.
Delicious pumpkin curry with red rice and a green smoothie from Taste from Heaven
34/1 Ratmakka
THE OLIVE TREE (FORMERLY JERUSELUM FELAFEL)
If for any reason you feel like a break from Thai food this is a great restaurant. As the name suggests it’s Israeli/ Mediterranean (not 100% vegetarian) but there’s plenty of vegan options. I’ve only ever tried the hummus and felafel which were both very nice, fresh and reasonably priced, 140 baht for 4 felafels, a plate of hummus and a pita bread.
Felafel from The Olive Tree (formerly Jerusalem felafel)
27/9 Moon Mueong rd
SUNDAY WALKING STREET MARKETS
If Chiang Mai is famous for anything it’s got to be it’s street markets. Every night of the week somewhere in the town the streets are shut off to traffic and the crowds descend upon 100’s of tiny stalls selling everything from household goods, local handy crafts and of course street food. Whilst there are way too many vegan friendly food stalls to list here (and I’m constantly finding new ones), here is a quick guide to help get you started on gastronomic journey. My favourite market for vegan food has to be the Sunday walking street. Starting just before sunset this market starts at Moon Mueong and continues all the way to Wat Phra Sing, spilling out down numerous side streets. Right at the very start of market (moon Mueong end) are several stalls selling sweets made from sticky rice, all of which are vegan. Mango sticky rice is of course everywhere making it one of the most common vegan treats around and most of the other sweets made from sticky rice often in the shape balls with red bean etc stuffings or thin pancakes are vegan. If you spot any stall that says “vegetarian” 99.9% of the time the food is vegan, if you’re not sure ask if the food is “jay” or “kin-jay” to say “I am vegan. English is quite widely spoken in Chiang Mai so if you’re Thai isn’t up to scratch just ask if there is egg or milk. Some of my favourite treats I’ve found at this night market include grilled banana kebabs dipped in coconut milk, red bean, taro and pumpkin stuffed pastries, grilled black sticky rice kebabs dipped in spicy sauce, black sesame pancakes, herbal jelly (also known as grass jelly), red date juice, taro stuffed pancakes and cendal pronounced chendal which is pandan flavoured tapioca worms (think gummy worms) in a coconut milk soup, often with shaved ice and red beans (sometimes the add condensed milk, so just ask for it without). The vegan food is usually fairly obvious, the only animal product you it is likely to contain if it’s meat free will be egg and since all the food at street markets is made fresh onsite if something contains eggs you will see them somewhere around the stall.
Yummy street food
SALAD CONCEPT
One of the newer vegan friendly places in town. I was in a salady mood so gave it a try. The staff spoke minimal English so figuring out which of the dressing were vegan was a bit tricky. I got a salad and tofu wrap with a tahini sauce which was very tasty and quite cheap for Chiang Mai at around 40-50 baht.
A small local start up company called “Chiang Mai Bread” have srecently started making nut based vegan cheeses which are sold in a few small health food stores around town as well as the local farmers markets.
https://www.facebook.com/cmbread
RIMPING SUPERMARKET
Rimping is a bit of an upmarket supermarket located just outside the old city in Chiang Mai. It predominantly targets the wealthy expat crowd and as such has quite a large selection of western organic, vegan and health foods such as kale and various packaged goods that are often hard to find elsewhere in Thailand.
various locations check website for address details http://www.rimping.com/
49 / 9-10 Soi 13 Nimmanheamin Rd
Salad wrap @ Salad Concept
ELEPHANT NATURE PARK
The aptly named Lucky
Some of the happy free roaming eles @ENP
I was very excited to be going back here for a week of volunteering after my amazing time there several years ago, especially as there were now 3 ele babies that had been born at the park since my last visit so I was eager to meet them.
Yin Dee ENP’s youngest baby with mother Mintra and an aunty
This incredible non profit animal sanctuary was started up by an inspirational local hill tribe women named Lek around 10 or so years ago and since then has grown into a sanctuary and refuge for not just elephants, but dogs, cats, water buffalo, pigs, ponies and any other animal that is in need of love and a safe home. The tranquil valley set in the middle of the Thai jungle also makes it a wonderful refuge for humans wanting to escape the hectic city pace of the rest of Thailand. During the Bangkok floods in 2011 ENP also rescued around 400+ Bangkok street dogs and now also have a dog sanctuary within the park.
Although ENP is surrounded by trekking camps which use elephants to entertain tourists, either by forcing them to perform tricks including painting or giving people rides, ENP is trying to show other camps that elephants need not be abused and exploited in order to run a profitable business. At ENP most of the elephants and other animals have been rescued from horrendous situations and lifelong abuse, many of them are blind and/or severaley disabled as a result and are now allowed to roam free around the 200+ acres of the park. The majority of the elephants have formed surrogate herds/ family groups and have also been encouraged to adopt natural behaviours again such as mud bathing and food foraging.
Fa Mai and Chang Yim happily playing
These conditions give visitors the rare opportunity to observe and learn about natural elephant behaviour while still also getting some close up cuddle time with these incredible animals. The park also has a big emphasis on education people (locals and tourists) on the issues and challenges faced by elephants in Thailand and throughout Asia, especially in relation to their rapidly declining numbers and the horrendous torture of Phajaan training which is the traditional and still to this day only way that elephants in Asia are trained to do tricks, accept riders and follow orders from humans. ENP does not allow any of their elephants to be ridden or their mahouts to carry bull hooks to “control” their elephants.
Bath time with Medo and Mae Lanna at the river
The volunteer week starts early on Monday morning when some of the friendly staff pick you up from your guest house in a minivan and take you to the office to pick up your free volunteer t shirt, finalise money and mingle with all your new volunteer friends. The drive out to the park takes about 1 1/2 hours, on the way we watch a video about the history of the park and of the plight of the Asian elephant.
I’m not going to lie but one of the best things about ENP is the food, especially if you’re veg/vegan. The founder Lek and her husband Darrick are both staunch vegans so finding enough to eat at ENP is definitely not a problem. All the food is vegetarian and most if it is vegan, for lunch and dinner there is an extremely long buffet table (around 30m in length) packed full of delicious smelling (mostly) vegan Thai food, and if that’s not enough at lunchtime there is also a large salad buffet featuring traditional Thai salads such as banana flower and papaya salads as well as fresh fruit.
ENP lunch
Accommodation is nothing flash but it’s still very comfortable and has everything a volunteer might need including a hoard of friendly cats who are only too happy to snuggle up with you in bed and keep you warm at night (it does get down to 4 or 5 degrees at night at ENP in winter). The rooms also have electricity and the bathrooms even have hot (ish) water. There is also wifi in the meeting areas.
My room
Leozante- one my hot water bottles for the week
Volunteer duties vary depending on the season, both of my visits have been in winter so we had similar chores each time. These include washing and preparing the elephants food, you get to chop up pumpkin with machetes which is rather enjoyable, mashing up bananas to make bran balls for some of the older toothless eles, cleaning the shelters ie picking up ele poo is also a regular task as is the daily ele bath time. Usually each group will spend at least one day cutting corn/grass (also with machetes), cleaning out the mud pit or just doing general property maintenance like building pathways or collecting sand.
While this may sound like hard work, which sometimes it is, most of the time it’s pretty chilled and fun and volunteers still only work for around 4-5 hours a day, broken up into a morning and afternoon shift so there is still plenty of time to relax, make friends and enjoy the beautiful surroundings or even go tubing in the river. Ele volunteers are also encouraged to help out with the dogs by taking them for walks or just playing with them which was something I did on most days. Also if you want to get a souvenir of your time here the lovely Jodi who works there is also a tattoo artist.
While the elephant volunteering is generally a bit more of a holiday with a few hours of token jobs each day, for those people wanting a bit more of a workout the dog volunteering is a great option. On my most recent visit I spent 2 weeks at ENP as a dog volunteer which although it was quite tiring and very busy I found it to be a much more rewarding experience than volunteering with the elephants as the 500 dogs there are in more desperate need of help than the elephants at the park since the dogs often get overlooked.
Dog volunteer tasks include taking dogs for walks, administering lots of cuddles, feeding, cleaning shelters, breaking up fights, assisting with vets, bathing dogs, pulling off ticks to name but a few things. For people on a tighter budget but still wanting to see what ENP is all about dog volunteering is also a great option because it’s about 1/4 the price of elephant volunteering. Many of the dogs are also up for adoption and/or sponsoring in case you fall in love with one (or several) and just have to take them home with you.
Peedee- just one of the 484 loveable ENP dogs.
My ENP ele tattoo
If you’re headed to Thailand and want to get some obligatory elephant snaps but without supporting or contributing to their abuse and suffering this is definitely the best place to go. They now have quite a few different volunteer options available including at other locations across Thailand and SE Asia. They are becoming increasingly popular and volunteer spots often fill up months in advance, especially in peak season (Dec- Feb) so book early, they also have the option of day and over night visits and the pamper the pachyderm program for those wanting to check the place out but are short on time or not up for volunteering.
Singapore- the land of vegan
Singapore: an unassuming little island of the southern coast of the Malaysian penisula. While it has become a popular place for travellers to stop for a few days, usually on the way to somewhere else, many a tourist (including vegan ones) merely pass through, remaining completely oblivious to the extraordinary amounts of vegan goodness crammed into this tiny little patch of land in the middle of south east Asia. Scrolling through various vegan related sights on the internet, Singapore barely ever gets a mention in the lists of most vegan friendly cities or countries, but in this blogger’s/ traveller’s opinion it easily scores a place in the top 10, even beating so called vegan meccas such as New York. A quick glance on websites like happycow will confirm Singapore’s status of vegan heaven, happycow has over 300 listings for Singapore which is by no means comprehensive, not bad for an island that has a total land area of just 660 sq kms, even the airport has more vegan options than many major cities.
Fortunately, I happened to discover this Asian vegan heaven many years ago, when like most other people I was stopping over briefly on the way to somewhere else (Nepal to be exact), and since then I have become a very frequent visitor to these shores.
Knowing where to begin in a place with such a ridiculously high density of vegan/vegan friendly eateries can be a monumental task in itself, although there is barely an inch on the island where vegan options are not readily available (Sentosa probably being the least vegan friendly), I usually prefer to start my vegan eating adventure in the area around the hipsterville of Bugis village.
FORTUNE CENTRE
Vegan paradise
A vegan friend I met through couchsurfing first introduced me to this mindbogling place, having walked past it numerous times assuming it was just your average big ugly, generic shopping centre selling various useless consumer crap. Turns out it’s possibly the only one of its kind in the world, this 4 level almost entirely (about 98%) vegan food court, has everything to satisfy even the fussiest or most gluttonous vegan, with everything from cheap and cheerful local joints, macrobiotic health food restaurants, bakeries, supermarkets, fresh organic juice shops plus a few more upmarket restaurants.
Usually it’s my first port of call when I’m in Singapore, the constantly evolving array of vegan food options in Fortune Centre could easily feed you for a week or more without ever having to eat at the same place twice. It’s not 100% vegan, on my last visit several of the restaurants serving meat upstairs had morphed into vegetarian eateries leaving just 2 places on the ground floor that have animals or their products on their menu.
190 Middle rd, Bugis,
SU SHI PIAO XIANG
Cheap and cheerful local vegan eatery
Located on the ground floor of Fortune centre on the corner of Waterloo st and Middle rd is Su Shi Piao; the cheapest vegan food option and one of the most ppopular in the centre,also by far the least touristy, minimal English is spoken here but as the menu consists entirely of photos of the dishes displayed on the wall ordering is never an issue, and since it’s 100% vegan you don’t have to worry about getting your dietary needs across. Mains start from just SG$4, they also have a tasty ready cooked buffet to choose from in case you’re in a hurry or just want an extremely cheap meal. I usually get the latter, for SG$2.50 you can get rice and your choice of 3 different curries, add ons such as spring rolls or a big slab of fried tofu cost around 50 cents extra. The food is always very fresh and tasty, even the buffet food, which has quite a fast turnover doesn’t sit there for long before a new batch is brought out, and despite the language barrier the staff are always very friendly and helpful.
PINE TREE
One of the more local eateries in the centre, limited English is spoken but everything is vegetarian and I think vegan, English menu is available. I got the tofu veggie claypot which I enjoyed, it was also quite cheap (around $5) especially given how large it was, it also came with a large side of white rice.
Pine Tree
Level 3 Fortune centre
TRACY JUICE CULTURE
Of the 3 fresh juice shops in Fortune centre Tracy’s is the only organic and as you would expect easily the most expensive, Offered on the menu are a large variety of unusual combinations and concoctions such as wheaty black soya and sunflower carrot. They have a few interesting dessert options too, their pumpkin kaya is especially good. FYI some of their menu items contain honey so always remember to check first.
Tracy’s has also recently started doing food at lunchtimes, there are only two options: either the thunder tea rice set or udon noodles, both are priced at around $7. I tried the udon noodles on my last visit and they were spectacular, definitely the tastiest udon noodles I’ve ever had, very filling and great value.
Udon noodles
http://www.tracyjuiceculture.com/index.html
XING HUA VEGETARIAN RESTAURANT
On the corner of Bencoolen rd, Xiing Hua is one of my most frequented in Fortune centre aside from Su Shi Piao and New Green Pasture.
The yummy 3 coloured roll
Food wise it’s pretty similar to Su Shi Piao only with more of a focus on mock meat dishes, they also have a buffet and a build your own noodle soup bar which I quite like. You simply grab a bowl fill it up with your choice of veggies, mock meats or tofu then hand it to the guy at the end who cooks it for you. My favourite dish here however is the 3 coloured roll, filled with a mushy silken tofu centre which is then wrapped in seaweed and spring roll pastry that is then deep fried and served with the most delicious vegan mayo I have ever had.
CREATE HEALTHY LIFESTYLE
On my recent visit I tried to make an effort to visit a few vegan places on my ever growing list Singapore must eats. Create… is one of the two veggie/vegan eateries left in Fortune centre that I was yet to try (Herbivore being the other) so I popped in for lunch one day.
Similar to New Green Pasture, I would describe Create as the poor man’s version as the prices are a lot lower and the food, while it is still nice and healthy, it is considerably less elaborate than New Green Pasture. I ordered the brown rice set at $6 which included brown rice and 1 small serving of a tofu and mushroom curry, 2 vegetable dishes and a coleslaw style salad. I also got the vegetable sushi rolls.
Brown rice set at Create
Veggie sushi rolls
Level 2 Fortune centre
DELCIE’S DESSERTS (UPDATE: The Delcie’s in Fortune centre has now changed its name to Kwan Im and is no longer making GF cakes, only mooncakes and cookies)
Having just recently opened their 2nd outlet, the original being in a far flung suburban area. Delcie’s has a strong following in Singapore and not just in the vegan community. Personally though I’m not a massive fan of their cakes, which I find to be a bit on the undercooked, crumbly and soggy side and when I’m paying $6 or more for a tiny little sliver I at least expect it to be cooked properly. Saying that their cheesecakes are quite nice but not the best in the city, they are however the only bakery in Singapore that offers gluten free options that are vegan.
- Strawberry cheesecake
Ground floor of Fortune centre
NEW GREEN PASTURE
L top: charcoal noodle salad, R: brown rice set with steamed veggies
Charcoal noodle salad
My favourite place in Fortune centre and one of my faves in the whole of Singapore, New Green Pasture is always AT the top of my list of vegan must eats.Their menu which is constantly changing and evolving, focusses predominantly on fresh healthy ingredients and features some unusual combinations and imaginative creations. Everything is made fresh to order so wait times can sometimes be a little longer than most other restaurants but it’s worth the wait. The Taiwan noodles, Sri Lankan rolls and the Lo mee are my current favourites. The charcoal noodle salad is also highly recommended, as are the delicious tofu pockets with salad which have become one of my favourite menu items. They are big squares of deep fried puffed tofu filled with incredibly fresh salad and drizzled with home made vegan tahini mayo (if there’s one thing Sinngapore and SE Asia in general excel at it’s got to be vegan mayonnaise), my advice for this restaurant is don’t be afraid to try something weird sounding, chances are it will probably become your new favourite dish.
Level 4, Fortune centre
HOTCAKES
One of the newer vegetarian cafes to open up in Fortune centre serving a mixture of eggless cakes as well as an assortment of vegan (mostly) western foods with pizzas and pasta being the specialites. Since relocating to the ground floor recently they have really upped the stakes when it comes to vegan options. All of the savoury foods are vegan and they are now offering a growing range of pretty impressive vegan cakes. I tried the black pepper chicken burger on my last visit which was particularly tasty.
Black pepper chicken burger @ Hotcakes
Although it’s not really big enough for a meal it was fairly filling and for just $4 it’s definitely the best value vegan burger in Singapore. I also had a slce of the vegan chocolate cake which is definietly one of the best quality vegan cakes I’ve had in Singapore. Unlike all the other vegan cakes available in Singapore which tend to be overly dry and very fluffy more akin to what would find in the Chinese bakeries, Hotcakes cakes are more what you’d expect from European bakeries. The chocolate cake was perfectly moist and very chocolatey, I also really liked the ganache icing which was very creamy without being too sugary. They are also quite good value at $5 for quite a generously sized slice.
Vegan chocolate and peanut butter cake @ Hotcakes
Crappy photo, delicious cake @ Hotcakes
HOTCAKES
Fortune Centre, ground floor #01-33
VEGAN GROCERY STORE (NAME UNKNOWN)
on the ground floor of Fortune centre (next to Kwan Im) there is a small vegetarian supermarket (everything is actually vegan), they mostly stock a variety of mock meats and cooking sauces etc. Recently, they have started selling a range of vegan baked goods on a small table at the front of the shop. My favourite are the soy cream filled swiss rolls that come in vanilla, chocolate, coffee and pandan flavours. They also have soy cream puffs, pineapple tarts and a variety of cookies and Chinese sweets at very cheap prices.
TENG BESPOKE VEGETARIAN JAPANESE
This 100% vegetarian Japanese restaurant is tucked away in the back corner of a shopping centre and can be a little difficult to find as there is no sign and several other Japanese restaurants located nearby but it’s definitely worth the effort. Some dishes contain dairy (watch out especially for mayo in the sushi), so make sure to inform the staff when you order that you are dairy free.
I ordered the chicken kebabs on my visit which were very tasty and had a nice texture.
Grilled Japanese asparagas
Bland sushi roll
Chicken kebab at Teng Bespoke
I also ordered a sushi roll (sorry can’t remember the name), which turned out to be quite disappointing and incredibly bland. The texture of the seaweed was also very dry making it quite difficult to actually eat. It was very nicely presented though. My friend tried the grilled Japanese asparagas which was quite good.
They have a large range of set meals too, most of which look very good and are priced around the $20 ish mark. A nice restaurant definitely worth checking out if you like Japanese food, just pick your sushi choice carefully as it’s a bit hit and miss.
TENG BESPOKE
Sunshine Plaza #01-50
91 Bencoolen st (Sunshine Plaza is diagnally opposite Fortune centre)
KWAN IM
Located next to the Buddhist temple on Waterloo rd, being so close to Fortune centre and Albert centre I still haven’t got round to actually trying anything from their menu. Usually I have just been enticed in to the front of the shop where there is a rather sizeable display cabinet packed full of yummy and very reasonably priced Chinese style vegan cookies and short cakes, I for one can never go past the stuffed red bean cookies.
Kwan Im
190 Waterloo rd (next to temple of the same name)
ALBERT CENTRE
Vegan desserts a plenty
Yet another vegan filled food court in Bugis, and located just a mere few hundred metres from Fortune centre, the only problem you will have as a vegan in Bugis is trying to narrow down where to eat from the seemingly endless options. While Albert centre may be a little short on main meal options for vegans is sure as hell doesn’t skimp out on desserts or snacks.
My favourite stall in here (sorry I’ve forgotten the name), is one that makes and sells freshly made mochi, the pandan coconut ones are my personal fave. The stall is located in the 2nd isle from the left if you enter from the main entrance and is the 3rd or 4th last on the right furthest away from the entrance.
Two other stalls that i tend to frequent quite regularly are right next to each other a few isle across to the right from the above. Rochor Soy Bean is a stall selling flavoured fresh soy milk, grass jelly (nicer than it sounds), and a variety of bean curd puddings.Next door is House of Desserts, selling similar fair to Rochor Soy, they have a slightly larger selection of bean curd puddings, some vegetable based sweet broths and steamed buns. The sweet potato pudding is always a tasty treat, and I also like the black sesame pudding.
Albert centre
Bugis st, near Bugis market
LIVING GREENS
UPDATE
Living Greens have finally re-opened at a new address with a delicious new menu. Find them at: 89 Rangoon Rd (near Farrer Park MRT)
On my most recent visit I ordered the brown rice set which on this day was a very tasty tofu, dahl and pumpkin curry with a side of greens. The curried tempeh burger is also super tasty but a little on the small side.
Living Greens brown rice set
For dessert I decided to splash out and treat myself to a slice of the pumpkin kaya pie, it was very good and being free of sugar it wasn’t too sweet, but at $8 a slice it was quite small.
Pumpkin kaya pie
Green tea noodle salad from Living Greens
One of my favourite vegan restaurants in SG was unfortunately closed temporarily on my last visit while they relocate and renovate, at the time of writing they were unsure exactly when or where they will be moving to so be sure to keep an eye on their website. Serving healthy whole foods with a focus on raw, gluten free and sugar free. Living Greens serve up some delicious salads, sushi, burgers and cakes just to name a few things, every time I’ve eaten here the food has been tremendously fresh and arrived very speedily.
http://www.livingreens.com.sg/
7 SENSATIONS
I finally got around to ticking off another of the many veg restaurants on my list. I have a habbit of going back to the same old favourites, but I had heard many good things about this restaurant so decded to splash out and go there for lunch. Unfortunately since their move from Clarke Quay to the Little India area standards as well as vegan options see to have gone downhill. Vegan options were not marked on the menu which seemed strange for a restaurant that makes a big fuss about having lots of options for vegans as well as a focus on healthy food. Many items on the menu that sounded vegan and are usually vegan eslewhere such as the tofu roll had egg and/or milk in them so my only really options were the more boring items such as salad. I ordered the mango and avocado salad, curried pumpkin soup and a lemongrass and mint iced tea.
The staff were quite accommodating and helpful in suggesting tomato free and vegan options. I had originally ordered the tofu roll assuming that it was vegan like everywhere else, but 20 minutes later the waiter cam back out and told me that it has egg in it and suggested the oatmeal tofu instead which didn’t seem to be on the menu.
Mango and avocado salad, pumpkin soup and lemongrass and mint iced tea.
The salad was tiny but relatively tasty, althoughit really could have used a bit more dressing as it was quite dry. The soup was also fairly nice. Suprisingly the tofu was the standout dish, with a crispy skin on the outside and a soft mushy centre. The sauce was really yummy too (some kind of vegan mayo or similar).
Oatmeal tofu
My whole meal came to a total of around SG$25 which was rather expensive considering it really wasn’t anything special.
279 Jalan Besar
REAL FOODS
Another of the slightly upmarket organic healthy vegetarian restaurants in Singapore Real Foods, I went here at the suggestion of my couch surfing host who was also a vegan. It’s a little on the pricey side, most mains being around $12-13 but it is worth it as an occasional treat. The majority of the menu is vegan (clearly labelled) and there are also plenty of GF options too.
I got the sweet potato and chickpea patties which came with a grilled vegetable salad consisting of asparagus and green beans and also some lettuce, avocado and a very delicious sesame vegannaise. The actual patties had a very nice cumin flavour but were a little on the dry side.
Sweet potato and chickpea patties with salad
My friend ordered the steamed dumplings which were also quite good.
They have quite a few different outlets so please check their website for an up to date listing http://www.realfoodgrocer.com/outlets.html
GENESIS
Finally I made it to this well known and highly regarded 100% vegan eatery. I had lunch here with a few other vegan friends, we ordered quite a number of different dishes so I had the chance to try a large chunk of the menu and was quite impressed with the high quality.
The dumplings were a stand out of the 3 entrees we tried, they were super tasty and fresh. We also tried the yuba rolls which I found to be a little too chewy and tasteless and we also got the Penang Popiah rolls which turned out to be just your average vegetable sushi rolls minus the vegannaise so they were a little boring.
Genesis dumplings
For a main it was a very hard decision, tossing up between the mango salad, one of the rice dishes or a noodle dish, but I eventually opted for the dry dumpling noodles. None surprisingly the dumplings themselves were the highlight of this dish, they were lightly pan fried which gave them a slightly crispy skin whilst still remaining perfectly moist in the centre.
Dry dumpling noodles @Genesis
For dessert we got a bowl of Chendal and a slice of tofu cheesecake to share between us. The Chendal was a healthier version of the traditional one, using almond milk instead of the usual coconut milk which gave it a rather odd taste and texture that did not go at all with the flavour of the pandan tapioca worms. The cheescake fared a little better, however I felt that the raw flour after taste of the base really let it down.
Raw tofu cheesecake @ Genesis
1 Lorong Telok near Clarke Quay
VEGGIE COTTAGE
I finally got around to going to this cute little vegan cafe tucked away down a small lane behind the Verge shopping centre. The menu changes daily so it can be a little hit and miss. I sat down at a table and waited for a good 10 minutes for the waitress to bring a menu over as she was a little busy talking to her friends. I went on a Sunday so the Nonya curry that I was really craving wasn’t available. After some deliberation I decided to order the avocado dip with tortilla chips which was quite tasty but didn’t come with anywhere near enough dip for the amount of chips.
I also ordered the spicy fried dumplings which were a little dissapointing as they were tiny and barely had enough filling to be able to taste it let alone be spicy. I’m pretty sure they came out of pre frozen supermarket bought pack too. The tofu hotpot served much better and was really tasty although there were only three tiny pieces of tofu in the whole dish.
Tofu hotpot @Veggie Cottage
I did also order a lemongrass and mint tea but that never arrived for some reason.
Nice little place although the customer service could do with some improvements but if you’re in the area and want a vegan meal with risking accidental ghee consumption at any of Indian restaurants then this place is definitely worth a visit.
13 Dalhousie Lane
GOKUL
Whilst there are countless veg Indian restaurants in the Little India district there are very few options for vegans as almost all of them cook with ghee and are either unwilling to accommodate vegans or simply are unable to comprehend why on earth anyone would not want to have dairy. Thankfully however, there is Gokul who not only understand the concept of veganism but are also more than happy to cater to it. Although there is no meat or eggs on the menu here, approximately 1/4 of the dishes have milk or cream in them (these are fairly obvious when looking at the menu), the rest are 100% vegan including all of the naan breads which makes a nice change.
The menu at Gokul is incredibly extensive and a little overwhelming to say the least, with around 500 different items on the menu. Featuring all the standard north and south Indian dishes, they also have quite a few unique options such as tofu sambal dosa as well as a huge range of vegetarianised traditional Malay and Chinese dishes such as nasi goreng and a vaiety of noodles.
I really wanted to try the chicken seekh kebabs but unfortunately they weren’t available on the day that I went so I ordered the Palak (spinach) dahl and the kashmiri naan bread as well as the mee basah instead.
Lunch @Gokul
I definitely over ordered as the dahl was about double the size that I expected it to be. It was very good though, with lots of fresh spinach mixed throughout. My only complaint wa that it wasn’t really spicy enough for me. The naan bread was also good, but a little on the dry side.
Mee basah
By the time my noodle dish arrrive at the table I was already feeling quite full and really struggled to get through it. It was quite tasty and very substantial.
Although it’s quite a large restaurant, it is a very popular one. I arrived for lunch around 1pm and it was about half full, by the time I left an hour or so later the was a very sizeable line going out the door of people queing for a table so my advice would be to get there early.
Click to access gokul_food_menu.pdf
GOKUL
19 Upper Dickson Rd
Little India district
2nd location (smaller restaurant with much smaller menu)
Fortune centre ground floor #01-07
FRUNATIC
Fantastic Frunatic
Fruit salad menu @ Frunatic
A fairly new contender on the vegan scene and one of the most interesting and original concepts to come out of Singapore’s continually expending array of cuisines is Frunatic. If the name hasn’t already given it away this is Singapore’s first ever frutarian restaurant, serving up some very unique combinations of organic and extremely fresh fruits and nut based dishes as well as fresh juices and some particularly delicious treats at a surprisingly reasonable price.
Forest salad
Green salad
Tropical salad
I really enjoyed all the dishes I tried but if I had to pick a favourite it was probably the Tropical salad, the perfectly soft, ripe mango, in combination with the crunchiness of apples and crushed brazil nuts all drizzled with a sweet mango sauce was divine.
Of course they don’t just serve salad at Frunatic, they also offer some delectable no bake sweet treats as well. I had gone to a vegan pot luck a few days before and some one had brought along a sizeable slab of Frunatics chocolate and raspberry cake which was possibly the nicest raw cake I have ever had. So after I polished off my main course I had no problem at all deciding that it was dessert time,
Sweet treats @Frunatic
I ended up with 3 things because I couldn’t decide and they were all quite small and not very expensive. I got a piece of the chocolate raspberry cake that I tried at the pot luck, a mango cake and a cinnamon ball to try. I probably don’t need to say but they were all exceptionally tasty and creamy.
491 River Valley Rd (ground floor of shopping centre)
JOLLIBEAN
Jollibean
One of the countless chains selling soy bean related drinks and snacks that seem to be absolutely everywhere in Singapore is Jollibean. In Singapore’s heat and humidity a nice cold icy soy milk is just the thing to cool you down, I usually get the J special which is the icy adzuki red beans with matcha flavoured soy milk, but some of the other flavours such as the rose soy milk are pretty good too. Quality and flavours do vary substantially from one outlet to another, I find the one located on the ground floor of the Verge shopping centre to be the best.
Jollibean
Everywhere in Singapore
http://www.jollibean.com/aboutus.htm
MR BEAN
Similar thing to the above only Mr Bean has one thing that Jollibean does not, well actually 2, they have an icy mango soy drink and they also have cendal flavoured soy milk. FYI the soy soft serve ice cream is NOT vegan as it contains egg, as do all of their cakes and pies etc, the staff may tell you otherwise but only all the drinks are vegan. Same goes for Jollibean.
UPDATE The Mr Bean on the ground level of The Star Vista shopping mall near Bouna Vista MRT now has several flavours of confirmed vegan ice cream. All of the “Snowy soy” flavours have been confirmed as vegan by the company. Currently they are the only Mr Bean selling this range.
Everywhere in Singapore
VEGANBURG
The name says it all
Meal deal: cracked pepper mayo burger with seaweed fries and beetroot juice
One of the things I really love about Singapore is the inventive and diverse range of vegan businesses and restaurants that all seem to flourish in this vegan paradise, one of these is the rapidly expanding Veganburg. The last 3 times I have visited Singapore I have discovered that they have opened yet another outlet or 2 with further plans to continue growing, it’s nice to see something as simple as a vegan burger joint doing so well. They make all their own patties onsite and whilst it may be no comparison to places like Lord of the Fries in Melbourne Veganburg burgers are still pretty darn tasty and well worth a visit if you’re craving something other than curries and stir-fries.
Various locations in Singapore
GREENZILLA (UDPATE Greenzilla has now closed)
The most recent vegetarian burger joint in SG, Greenzilla is quite similar to VeganBurg, the main difference being that they are vegan friendly but not 100% vegan as some of the burgers and sauces contain dairy so be sure to mention that to staff when ordering.
The first burger I ordered here was the “Shrooms and herbs” burger which although wasn’t exactly amazing it was passable although I was a little annoyed that the staff had ignored my tomato free request despite repeating it back to me when I ordered. I also got the pumpkin pops to try, which are similar to tata tots only made from pumpkin instead of potato. Initially I thought they were really good but the second time I ordered them along with the sweet potato pops they were actually rather disgusting.
Shrroms and herbs burger and pumpkin pops
1 The Star Vista near Bouna Vista MRT
WELL DRESSED SALAD BAR
My most recent vegan discovery, this place is all vegetarian and about 90% vegan, the staff seem to have a good understanding of veganism and were quite happy to make suggestions or inform me of which of the salad dressing a were vegan (all except two of them). They also have quite a diverse menu including wraps, burgers, soup and pasta so they are not just a salad bar.
Some of the vegan menu options
I opted for the create your own salad where you choose your green (I got the romaine), you can then pick up to 6 different toppings from a lengthy list that includes several different kinds of beans, tofu, nuts and seeds and the usual salad type vegetables. For an extra $1.50 I also added avocado to mine and as I couldn’t decide between the mango basil or the creamy sesame dressings I just got both.
Yummy and huge salad from Well dressed salad bar
282 South Bridge rd
EASTERN HIGHLAND HEALTHY VEGETARIAN CAKE HOUSE
Almost all vegan bakery
The same friend who introduced me to Fortune centre also brought me to this place when they were located in Rochor centre and it has become one of my favourite and most frequented places in all of Singapore and also probably one of my favourite vegan bakeries in the world (Back to Eden in Portland, OR and Veganerie in Bangkok still holds a firm #1 and #2 places in my heart and stomach). There are quite a few Chinese style eggless bakeries in Singapore and while most of them do have a few vegan goodies this is the only one that is entirely vegan although they don’t actually advertise it, this is why I never would have discovered it on my own, assuming it was the same dairy laden breads as all the rest of them. The owner Mr Chang is a follower of Loving Hut’s supreme master Ching Hai and thus makes all his cakes, breads and pastries using soy instead of dairy ingredients and so if you didn’t ask you’d never know that the delicious, unnaturally light and fluffy sponge cake you chowing down on was vegan.
UPDATE Mr Chang has finally listened to my advise and has started to label things as “vegan” FYI he is only labelling some items so there are still quite a few vegan things (especially cakes) that ARE vegan but not labelled as such so be sure to check.
Vegan breads from Eastern Highland
Vegan cakes
My hoard: L bamboo charcoal bread, front centre: layered pandan sponge cake, R: chocolate sponge cake, top: mini vanilla fruit tartes
At Eastern Highland there are a few staples that are baked fresh daily including various buns, breads and refrigerated cakes, they are particularly well known for their bamboo charcoal bread which is a very effective detoxifier, as I discovered on my Sydney bound flight later that evening as I vomited up every last trace of the dodgy tempeh I’d eaten in Indonesia several days prior that had been making me feel rather ill ever since. The charcoal bread was just the trick! Another of my favourites is the layered pandan cakes (front in pics of my hoard). Besides the daily staples Mr Chang is never short on ideas for other things to bake, occasionally you may also find a chocolate mousse cake, durian and apple flavoured cream puffs, charcoal sponge cake, the list goes on, my last visit I tried the durian swiss roll, which was actually pretty damn tasty (if you like the durian flavour that is). You can also buy whole cakes to order.
I’ve become such a regular customer at this bakery (if you call once or twice a year regular) that owner Mr Chang always insists on giving me a ridiculously huge bag of goodies for free which is very nice of him but my waist line could probably do without them. So if you go here and should definitely be near the top of your Singaporean to do list please tell him I said hello.
Eastern Highland Healthy Vegetarian Cake House (5 minute walk from Aljunied MRT)
Blk134 Geylang East Avenue 1
#01-227
Singapore
YES NATURAL
Actually 3 shops in 1, Yes Natural is mostly known as an eggless vegetarian bakery, bu on either side of that is also a restaurant and a health food store. The bakery is a bit larger in size than Eastern Highland and sells more or less the same kind of stuff, the only difference being that none of their cakes are vegan and only a few of their breads are ok for vegans (vegan options are all clearly labelled). The vegan breads are pretty good but when there’s a place literally a 5 minute walk away selling vegan versions of all the same stuff there’s not really much point in coming here as well. The health food store have some good stuff though so worth checking them out.
Yes Natural
55 Lor 27 Geylang
Singapore
BROWNICE
UPDATE Some good news and some not so good news. Bad news first Brownice have unfortunately closed their second outlet in Zhongshan mall (not sure why) but the good news is that they have expanded their menu at the other outlet so you can now not only enjoy all the delicious vegan ice cream still but also choose from the vegan pizza, the cheesy hummus grilled sandwich amongst others, they are now also doing very delicious and chocolatey sundaes which are now my new favourite thing there.
Since the sad demise of my beloved Maggie Mudd in San Francisco several years ago I have longed for another vegan/vegan friendly ice creamery to over indulge at and eat exorbitant amounts of fudgy brownies and waffles smothered in piles of creamy and delicious vegan ice cream, thankfully Singapore answered my prayers when this fine establishment came into fruition a couple of years ago. Originally just a tiny little cart inside of another vegan restaurant, they eventually got a home of their own just as the other vegan ice creamery in SG (Soyato) decided to pull the plug on their retail shop in favour of supplying other stores and catering for special events.
UPDATE: Brownice have recently expanded their menu and are now also offering a large range of vegan pizzas. They have also started experimenting with raw cakes. I recently tried the raw red velvet cake which was delicious, there is also several different flavours of raw cheese cake and also some ice cream cakes.
Waffles with cendal, hazelnut and mango ice cream and chocolate fudge sauce
Sundae with pumpkin coconut and black sesame ice cream
The cheesy hummus grilled sandwich
Brownie with pistachio and macadamia nut ice cream.
L: pumpkin and coconut ice cream with caramelised sea salt almonds, R: mud pie
Delicious raw red velvet cake with black sesame and hazelnut ice cream.
I must admit I think I’ve tried just about all of the ice cream flavours here except for the newer ones that they keep coming coming up with and I must say I was rather impressed with all of it. The waffles with 3 scoops of ice cream was a bit too much for 1 person,. I really struggled to get through it. The pumpkin coconut ice cream is my favourite flavour of all of Brownice’s that I have tried, and while the recipes for the brownies has been changed since the 1st time I tried them, they still beat most others. The mudpie is highly recommended for any chocolate lover and is also gluten free. I also really like how the staff will let you try as many flavours as you want before ordering and they are also very generous with the scoop sizes.
#1: 8 Sim Ming centre
Sim Ming rd (near Bukit Timah Nature Reserve)
NATURE VEGETARIAN RESTAURANT
One of the few proper vegetarian restaurants located in the west, most of the other being hawker centre stalls. I though it was about time that I checked out a place out if the city centre. It has a very pleasant and relaxed atmosphere. e were a reasonable number of other diners considering it was around 3pm, there also seemed to be twice the number of staff than customers so the service was very quick, friendly and efficient.
This restaurant serves the standard Asian vegetarian cuisine, but it is done quite nicely and the prices were quite reasonable in comparison to the large portion sizes.
I ordered two dishes, the fried tofu skins in black bean sauce and the green curry noodles. I also got a fresh green apple and mint drink that was particularly nice.
Tofu skins in black bean sauce
Green curry noodles and green apple and mint juice
Both dishes were nice, the noodles were way bigger than I had expected and weren’t quite spicy enough for my taste but the were still good.
My whole meal came to a total of $18
Nature Vegetarian Restaurant
Back of Tradehub 21
Blk 11 #03-4462 Jalan Bukit Merah
http://www.natureveg.com/index.html
ROTI @ ALKA’S KITCHEN
100% vegetarian Indian fusion restaurant located near Clementi MRT. Specialising in wraps but also has a menu featuring creative versions of Indian standards such as kofta balls and dahl puri. The chef/owner has a good understanding of vegan and is more than happy to accommodate vegans or customers with allergies.
Roti wrap from Alka’s kitchen
#B1-22/23, West Coast Plaza, West Coast Road
SUPERMARKET SHOPPING
Vegan ice cream is everywhere in SG
Just some of the vegan delights of Singapore
It may be no surprise after reading this blog so far but Singapore isn’t just a great place for vegans to eat out, there are also plenty of vegan delights to be found in the supermarkets as well should you feel like eating in or like me just want to stock up in bulk on stuff to take home.
While the name Cold Storage may not sound that exciting, Singapore’s largest chain supermarket has just about everything a vegan might need from vegannaise, So Delicious and Coconut bliss ice cream, Tofurkey (slices and pizzas), and a large amount of more local vegan options. Stores tend to vary from one to the next stocking foods according to that particular area, the best ones for vegan food tend to be in the western expat type areas such as Holland village, Bukit Timah rd and Great World City shopping mall near Orchard rd, and the one above Bugis MRT is also pretty good.
Other chain supermarkets sucj as Giant and Fair Price also have their fair share of vegan goodies as do many of the local markets that are usually held around the many hawker centres near large housing complexes.
Vegan cheese lovers rejoice because Singapore has DAIYA, the object of obsession for vegans around the world excluding North America and Canada, Daiya has been available for purchase in Singapore pretty much since it first went on shelves in Canada and the USA around 4ish years ago and somehow managed to remain under the radar of the usually proactive vegan communities the world over. I stumbled upon this incredible discovery purely by accident a few years ago when after finding Tofurky pizza (with Daiya) in a Cold Storage I did some research online to see if any of their other products were sold in SG when all of a sudden I came across a site listing all the stockists of Daiya in the city. I spent the next few days going to every single one of them to purchase every last bag of it in the entire country. Some of those shops have now moved and/or closed so here is an up to date list of all the places you can get it, they all get a shipment of it every month.
FOUR SEASONS ORGANIC
1 Kim Seng Promenade
Great World City shopping mall (near Orchard rd)
level #B2
80 Marine Parade rd
Parkway Parade
level #B1
EAT ORGANIC
this health food store is almost like hopping in a tardis and suddenly being transported to California, they have it all (almost) from Clif bars to Earth balance margarine and packaged waffles. They also have Daiya.
619H Bukit Timah rd
(nearish the botanic gardens, also just a few doors down from the German shop that has many delicious vegan biscuits and Speculoos spread).
Other SG restaurants worth checking out:
Chi Yan
Loving Heart
Loving Hut
Loveinbread
Yes Natural restaurant
Greendot
The restaurants, stalls and shops I have mentioned above are merely some of my faves and are by no means a exhaustive guide to all the vegan food found in Singapore, far from in fact, so for a more comprehensive guide to eating and shopping vegan style these blogs are a good start:
Indonesia
JAKARTA/ BANDUNG
My flight to Jakarta was delayed 3 hours due to the worsening smoke and haze, so it turned out to be a very long day sitting around inside KL airport. The airline I was travelling on (Lion air) gave everyone meal vouchers because of the delay which I thought was pretty generous of them until I realised that they were only valid at Burger King :(, just as well I’d brought my own food. By the time I landed in Jakarta it was already dark and I was feeling pretty unwell, mainly from inhaling so much pollution over the last week, so the bus ride into town seemed to take forever. Eventually I managed to find someone on the bus with good enough English who was able to tell me when we arrived at the bus stop that I was supposed to get off at to meet my couchsurfing host.
LOVING HUT
Lunch at Loving Hut
The next morning I was feeling a little better after catching up on some rest but still not well enough to go out exploring too far a field from where I was staying. As Loving Hut was the only vegan restaurant within walking distance I headed over there for lunch even though I wasn’t particularly hungry. I ordered the plainest most boring looking thing on the menu, noodles with stir-fried veg and tofu and a watermelon juice. It was ok, a little oily but I think that only bothered me because I already felt like crap, I did feel a lot better after the watermelon juice. I spent the rest of the day wandering around in the very unpleasant heat trying to find internet that actually worked, 4 hours later I finally gave in and found myself in a Starbucks ordering and extremely overpriced iced tea just so I could use their slower that slow wifi. Loving Hut Jakarta Plaza Semanggi Lanti 3A, Jalan Sudirman Kav BANDUNG My couchsurfing host Adel had the next few days off work and offered to drive me around to see a bit of Java so we headed to Bandung, a 5 hour drive (2 if the traffic is good). Bandung is a slightly smaller version of the uber ugly concrete jungle of Jakarta. My host Adel isn’t vegan or vegetarian and didn’t know where any of the good restaurants were (there are 2 vegan ones in Bandung) and since she and some of her friends were driving me around I had to just eat where they ate which meant a diet of rice and cucumber for the 2 days we were travelling, thank god I had bought a large tub of almonds spur of the moment just before we left Jakarta.
Sulphur lake
Tea plantations near Bandung
The area around Bandung is very scenic and much cooler thanks to the higher altitude, we passed through many rice and tea plantations and was surprised to find out that it is also strawberry and blackberry growing country. We visited a beautiful but very smelly sulphur lake (sorry don’t know the name) and then travelled on to another lake, this one much bigger and more touristy (with Indonesian tourists). It was very misty and reminiscent of Lord of the Rings but very stunning and quite fun to walk around, we also went on a boat trip to a little island in the middle of the lake and ate some corn on the cob. Before driving back to Jakarta (and being stuck in one of its famous traffic jams for several hours). Next morning I was up at 5am 😦 for the marathon bus ride to the airport to catch my flight to Medan in northern Sumatra.
MEDAN
Most guide books will tell you that Medan is one of the most horrible cities in the entire world, I had also been told by a number of people that Medan locals are some of the rudest and angriest in Indonesia, so I wasn’t too sure what to expect when I got off the plane. I was couchsurfing in Medan as well and since I was in a hurry to get to my hosts house, as it was already 3pm and I was starving so I splashed out on a taxi (rp70 000 $7). On arrival I was happy to find that my host Juli had already made lunch and she and my fellow couchsurfers (3 vegetarians from Argentina) were all sitting around the table waiting for me. No picture as I was way too hungry. Everything was vegan (YAY), and it was the 1st proper meal I had had since leaving KL 4 days earlier so of course everything tasted like the best thing I had ever eaten. Juli had prepared a number of traditional Indonesian dishes (veganised) including gado gado, a dish with a tofu/ tempeh base then covered with lettuce and green beans with a spicy satay sauce poured over the top. There was also some deep fried tempeh, stir-fried noodles with vegetables and some battered/ deep-fried banana and vegetables. After a much needed afternoon nap, at the suggestion of a couchsurfing host who is a devout Buddhist, we walked to the largest Buddhist temple in Medan and one of the largest in Sumatra. Juli later explained that Medan has one of the largest Chinese Buddhist populations in Indonesia (that explains why there are so many veg/vegan restaurants). After a guided tour by Juli’s vegan friend Rainbow (her real name) we went to the temple’s vegetarian restaurant for dinner. Rainbow was kind enough to point out all of the vegan dishes for me (most of them). I piled up my plate with a very spicy but delicious dry tempeh curry, some more gado gado, strir-fried vegies and some rice which still only cost rp17 000 ($1.70).
Temple garden
Yummy dinner from Buddhist temple
Day 2: was spent exploring the city of Medan with my fellow couchsurfers, we walked around a photography exhibition but were soon accosted by some friendly local uni students that wanted to interview us for an assignment and get their photos taken with us. Afterwards we went to a large shopping mall (Sun Plaza), partly to escape the unbearable heat, but also to stock up on supplies at the supermarket. I’d promised to bake a vegan cake for dessert because host Juli was trying to become vegan but having a hard time giving up eggs and wanted to learn how to bake with out them.
Vegan mango cake
The cake turned out better than expected given that I couldn’t measure out any of the ingredients because there was no measuring jug so had to just guess and it was cooked in a portable camping oven. I made a mango and chocolate cake. Day 3: My new Argentinean couchsurfer friends left 1st thing in the morning as they planned to hitch hike to Bukit Lawang, so since it was just Juli and I she offered to show me around a little bit more of Medan and then go to a vegan restaurant for lunch, so we jumped on her motorbike and hit the streets. The 1st stop was Rainbow’s house to drop off a few slices of the vegan cake I’d bake the day before, then we cruised around the back streets around the Buddhist temple, which looks and feels like a completely different city to the rest of Medan. The houses are much bigger, the streets very clean and it was much greener, there are about 2 or 3 other veg/vegan restaurants nearby as well, and there were even mango trees on virtually every corner. We then stopped for a brief stroll around a local market and ended up trying some local vegan dessert at Juli’s suggestion. It was a rice pudding with burnt sugar, and various other things I don’t know topped with coconut milk, it was very sweet but very good.
Yummy vegan dessert from markets
SOCRATES
Being one of the more classy vegan establishments in Medan, Socrates is a tranquil haven away from the hustle and bustle of the city and a heaven for any vegan in the area. Juli and Rainbow both told me it was the best vegan restaurant in Medan so of course I had to see for myself. After my pre lunch dessert at the markets I wasn’t super hungry but I knew I had a long day of travelling ahead so thought it best to cram as much in while I had the chance. Juli and I ordered a few things to share, rice, steamed broccoli, some satay kebabs (vegan version of the ones you find at street stall everywhere in Indonesia, and an unusual but very tasty papaya flower salad that is a specialty of the area (very different to the ones in Thailand). We both got fresh juices too, all the food was as fresh as can be and super tasty, I was certainly impressed with the food and would go back there for a meal anytime.
Lunch at Socrates
Vegan ice cream
They also had small single serve tubs of vegan ice cream, I got the raspberry flavour for dessert, wasn’t exactly the nicest vegan ice cream but figured it was the only one available in Sumatra. Everything including drinks cam to about rm115 ($11.50), another reason why Indonesia is a great place to come, it’s ridiculously cheap.
Socrates
Jalan Airlangga 14C,
Medan
I went back to Juli’s to get my bags and say my goodbyes, then got a ride in a becak (like a tuk tuk) to the bus station, however when I arrived I was told that all the tourist buses to Berastagi were full so they sent me a few km down the road to get the public bus. I eventually found the right bus stop and made it just as the bus was about to pull out so I quickly jumped on board and with the sound of Indonesian reggae blasting out of the stereo at an eardrum shattering volume I was finally on my way to Berastagi. The public bus was far from comfortable ( anyone over about 4 1/2 ft should expect to have their knees up around their ears for the duration of the journey), but they are a great way to mix with the locals and experience the culture 1st hand. By the time we drove through the outskirts of Medan the bus was so rammed with people that they couldn’t get the door closed so someone had the job of standing next to the door with one hand wrapped around a seat and the other holding onto the door to prevent it from flying open, I was very thankful I had a seat at the back.
BERASTAGI
The 3 hour bus ride thankfully went fairly quickly and before I knew it I was hailing the driver to stop and was trying not to be bulldozed over by my very large and heavy bag as it was passed down to me by a boy on the roof. I hadn’t booked accommodation yet so I just walked up the street until I found a guesthouse. Berastagi is quite a nice and very non touristy market town in the highlands about 70km from Medan. It’s at an altitude of around 1300m so it has a much more pleasant climate and is also one of the main fruit and veg growing regions in northern Sumatra. I quickly settled into my rm 60 000 ($6) a night room and then went for a walk to check out the town and find somewhere to get dinner, it didn’t take long. Just a few doors down from my guesthouse I found a Chinese restaurant called Terang so popped in to check out the menu, one of the staff spoke pretty good English so I was able to explain my dietary needs to him. I ordered stir-fried veg with tofu and some rice. It wasn’t the most exciting meal ever but it was cheap, vegan and filled a hole so can’t complain. Afterwards, I walked up the hill towards the town monument and discovered a large fruit and vegetable market so decided to stock up on some local (and dirt cheap) produce. The mangos cost around 20 cents each, I also got some bananas, carrots and an avocado and spent a total of $3. Day 2: I was up early mainly thanks to the next door mosque blasting out the call to prayer at the glorious time of 4am, after a quick breakfast of fruit I got a map from reception and headed for the nearby volcanic mountain Sibayak. The walk to the start of the trail was quite pleasant, weaving through farmland and a few small villages. The trail to get to the top of the volcano looked pretty straight forward on the map (don’t they always?) and there was a road for the 1st 2 1/2 hours, so strolled along admiring the scenery.
Trail up Gunung Sibayak
The 1st part goes through a bamboo forest which then gives way to more dense jungle, finally I reached the end of the road and was surprised to find that there were multiple paths all with no signs. I spent a few minutes looking around trying to decide which one to take when I heard a noise and turned around just in time to see a very large (unidentified) primate running away up a hill. At 1st I thought it was a person because it was so big but soon saw its brown fur and shorter legs. Just then 2 more hikers turned up so we all carried on together choosing to take what looked like the most well trodden path. A bit further down the trail we came to the conclusion that this wasn’t the path we were supposed to take to the volcano but a different path leading up to the next door peak. It got narrower and narrower, and became very steep, and rugged, it had rained quite heavily the night before and the clay ground was very slippery.
By this stage we were having to crawl along on our hands and knees, using the vines to pull ourselves up the slope under all the dense vegetation, but decided to carry on towards the top. Eventually the vegetation gave way to a rocky outcrop and we were greeted by a tremendous view across miles of farm land around the town of Berastagi, just as we felt a few raindrops falling from the sky. Quickly we turned around and made our retreat back down the “path”, guided by a few tissues we’d tied around trees along the way just to be sure we didn’t take a wrong turn. Thankfully the sky cleared again and we made it back down to safety and caught a bus back into town. Disappointed I didn’t get to see any of the volcanic part I decided to come back the next day and go on the correct path which an old local man had pointed out to us on our way to the road.
Day 3: I woke up early the next morning adamant on climbing Sibayak again and hopefully seeing the volcano. Still a bit tired and sore from the previous days expedition I decided to get the bus to where the actual path began which saved me about an hours walk. The climb seemed to go quite quickly and before I knew it I was back near the top where the path diverged into numerous ones. By this stage I’d been joined by a fellow trekker who happened to be staying at the same guesthouse as me so we both turned up the narrow slit in the sandstone which led to the volcano path.
Volcanic Sibayak
A few more corners later the vegetation gave way to a rocky landscape that more closely resembled the surface of the moon, and the tell tale smell of the volcano hit our nostrils. We met up with a few other climbers at the bottom of the crater and after a bit of photo taking we all started heading towards the very top of the peak. There wasn’t a path any further up so we had to find our own way up the steep and very loose rocks being careful to avoid the hot spots where steam and sulphur were gushing out. It was quite steep so it took about another hour to get to the top, using my hands to slowly crawl up. 
Views from the top of Sibayak
The view was spectacular, looking down into the crater and in the distance we could see mount Sinabung (the more difficult of the 2 volcanic mountains near Berastagi). We stayed up there for a while taking photos, then had some lunch before carefully making our way back down. We decided to take a different path down, it was a slightly longer way detouring past some hot springs (if you call man made squares of concrete hot springs). At 1st it didn’t seem too bad, but after a while it got very steep and slippery thanks to the rain a few days before so the descent seemed to take forever. Several hours later we eventually found ourselves back on the road and went to check out the rather over-rated (and overpriced) “hot springs”, but decided to give it a miss figuring that we were more likely to end up becoming the attraction. My fellow hiker wanted to walk the 15km back to town, but I was feeling a bit sunburnt and tired, not to mention hungry and after trying to find a bus for around 30 minutes to no avail I decided to hitch-hike, eventually getting a ride with a lady and her son on what ended up being a very terrifying motorbike ride, at high speed, darting in and out of the heavy traffic and almost being taken out by more than a few trucks. I was very relieved when she stopped to let me off outside my guesthouse and ambled my way into the restaurant to order some food.
Dinner from guesthouse
I got the lemon fried tempeh that I’d been eyeing off the day before, and a vegetable curry with rice. It was worth waiting for, the tempeh was super moist and delicious and the veg curry was good too. Although it was quite a large amount of food, I had absolutely no problem eating it all and got through it in no time. Feeling much better (but still extremely sunburnt) I headed back to my room to pack and have an early night before my marathon 7 hour bus ride to Ketambe the next morning.
KETAMBE/ GUNUNG LEUSER
The main reason I had wanted to come to Sumatra was to see Orang-utans, and get away from civilisation for a bit. After countless hours of internet research I’d finally decided that Gunung Leuser national park in the province of Aceh would be the best place to go. Most tourists in Sumatra go to the overly touristy ex rehabilitation centre of Bukit Lawang to see Orang-utans but after lots of research and talking to many people who had been there (tourists and locals) I decided to avoid it all together. I had heard many stories about staff and tourists patting and handling the orang-utans when they are supposed to be trying to help them adjust back into the wild after a life of captivity. Although the centre relies mainly on tourist generated income for its survival, the orang-utan population in that area have been put at considerable risk by the tourists as the close contact with humans significantly increases the chance of transmission of human diseases which is one of the main causes for their declining numbers (deforestation being the other). As Bukit Lawang is also no longer an active rehabilitation centre, the orang-utan population there are instead, from what I heard essentially just kept tame and reliant on humans for food in order to be exploited as a tourist attraction which is something I definitely did not want to support. I wanted to see them where they belong even if that meant the possibility that I may not see any. Since the devastating tsunami that struck Aceh and surrounding areas a number of years ago the area has become essentially a no go zone for many tourists. Despite Gunung Leuser having one of the largest populations of wild orang-utan, not to mention it being one of the most biologically important and diverse places on earth, many visitors to Sumatra barely notice it even exists, let alone go there.
This is exactly what made it so appealing to me, being well off the tourist trail, I had the chance to see orang-utan and many other animals in the remote unspoilt wilderness of a national park away from the crowds, it definitely seemed like it would be a more authentic experience. I left my guesthouse in Berastagi early with the hope of reaching Ketambe before sunset so I would have a bit of time to relax and get organised for my 3 day jungle trek. However, because it was the school holidays I ended up sitting on the side off the road for 3 hours watching all the full beyond capacity buses pass by until I finally found one with an empty seat. By the time I reached Kutacane where I had to change buses (the nearest town to Gunung Leuser) it was already after 5pm and I still had another 2 hours of travelling to reach Friendship guesthouse who I had organised my trek through. I eventually arrived at around 7:30pm, tired and hungry, just as it started to pour with rain. I had picked this guesthouse because they were able and happy to cater for a vegan tomato free trek, the owner Ahmad had also emailed me a copy of the restaurant menu, in which there were plenty of yummy sounding vegan options. That night I ordered the veg fried rice for dinner, it was huge and way better than I had expected with a delicious smoky flavour and lots of fresh vegies.
My jungle cabin
Breakfast
I stayed in a cute little wooden hut with ensuite (toilet and a tap with a large bucket to wash), I had it all to myself for rm 50 000 ($5) a night, it was situated between the restaurant and the river surrounded by fruit trees.
Day 1: Next morning I was up early (thanks to an over-enthusiastic rooster), after one final check of my bag I made my way up to the restaurant for breakfast and to meet my guide Byune. I had a fresh watermelon juice and fruit salad with muesli. It was still raining with no sign of clearing so I borrowed a raincoat, and after making sure my leech socks were done up as tight as possible Byune and I headed up the road in the rain. We walked along the road for around 40 minutes before turning up a very narrow track into some dense and very wet and muddy jungle. For the next 2 hours we weaved our way up and down the steep, slippery and quite rugged trail, stopping every 10-15 minutes to pick off the army of leeches that were intent on making us their next meal. Around lunchtime we reached the bank of a large river where we would be camping for the night. We set up the tent and then started a fire to cook our lunch of curried veg and noodles. The sky was slowly starting to lighten a little, and by the time we finished our lunch it was only drizzling lightly, but thanks to the dense canopy , of the rainforest we didn’t feel it that much. Leaving our bags at the campsite we headed back into the jungle in search of some animals, it didn’t take long, within 10 or so minutes we spotted a family of Thomas leaf monkeys, we stopped for a few minutes to watch them, then we continue on up the trail. A few minutes later knew my guide said he could smell orang-utan (really?) and he swiftly headed off ahead in direction the smell was apparently coming from. I went as fast as I could trying not to slip in the mud and still having to stop constantly to pick of all the leeches. As I was doing so I heard some very loud Jurassic park sounding noises and saw Byune signalling me to come quickly, I quickly followed him up at a small clearing to where Byune had stopped and was pointing upwards, I looked up a saw a large male -utan (apparently the alpha male of the area as I was told later), in the top of a huge and magnificent old tree with a 10m high archway at the bottom.
My 1st Orang-utan sighting
Thomas Leaf monkey
In the trees next door we soon also spotted 2 female orang-utan and a toddler aged baby. We stood watching them feeding on fruit and happily playing and swinging from branch to branch for nearly an hour, the baby spotted us too and spent a good 10 minutes or so staring back at us with an equal amount of curiosity. On the way back to the river we saw more Thomas leaf monkeys, Macaques and a pair of hornbill, which are huge and intriguing looking birds with incredibly loud wings that sound more like a helicopter about to land. Byune made a veg curry with rice and some tapioca chips for dinner. Day 2: Despite the lack of 4am prayer calls and roosters I still woke up quite early to the sounds of the gushing river and sunlight (yay), I went down to the river to quickly splash some water on my face to wake myself up then had a bit of a wander around the immediate area looking for animals while I waited for Byune to wake up, I found lots of leeches (or they found me rather), there were also lots of butterflies and various other insects.
Jungle breakfast
After a very yummy breakfast of veg fried rice with tempeh we packed up all the camping gear and made our way further up the river bank. I as excited to be headed for the hot springs I’d heard so much about from other travellers but in order to get there we had to cross the river which about waste deep and flowing quite rapidly thanks to all the rain. The rocks on the bottoms were very slimy and slippery but we made it over safely, tried off then continued on. Around 30 minutes later we ran into a couple of other hikers who told us they had seen an orang-utan another 5 minutes up the trail so we carried on. 
We quickly spotted a young and very fat male orang-utan having a nap in a tree about 20m above us. Eventually he woke up and started picking off and snacking on the berries from the tree he was in, he also noticed us. Curious, he moved along the branch and into a clear patch only about 15m away from us in order to get a better look at us, which also gave me the perfect opportunity to get a few good photos of him. After 15 minutes or so he disappeared into the trees towards the calls of his nearby friend. The remainder of the trek to the hot springs seemed relatively easy compared to the previous day, the path had dried up a fair bit and there weren’t anywhere near as many leeches (I only got about 20 on me the whole day, compared with 20ish every hour on the 1st day).
Hot springs and camping spot
As we turned the corner I saw the steam from the hot springs and was soon greeted with the stunning sight of a small waterfall where the hot springs flows out the side of a hill, mixing with the cool river water making it the prefect temperature for a dip. We didn’t wait long to go for a swim, heading straight to where Byune said was the best spot in the river, the water was around 30 something degrees and was really enjoyable after several days of hot and sweaty jungle trekking and no shower. Byune and I happily sat in there soaking for the best part of 2 hours before deciding it was lunchtime.
Butterflies gathering near the hot springs
After our curried veg and noodles we set up camp and I spent the rest of the afternoon napping on the heated rocks, watching leaves boil in the hot part of the river and watching the large number of bees and butterflies that were around the river, attracted by the sulphur. After a late and very dark dinner we played a few card games, a large frog also jumped on my knee and hung out for a while, then we headed to bed.
Day 3: I was just settling in to life in the jungle, and by my 3rd and final day I’d stopped worrying about getting attacked by leeches (there were still plenty around) and was now happily running around with no shoes on. Today I had the choice between going a little further up the river to see a waterfall or retracing our steps a bit to try to find more animals, I chose the latter figuring I could see waterfalls anywhere but may not get the chance to see Indonesian wildlife again for a while. We had a breakfast of veg fried rice again (no tempeh as it had gone bad in the heat), then packed up and headed back down river to where we had crossed the day before. After crossing we hid our bags in the bushes (apparently some locals have been known to come and help themselves to anything they find lying around sometimes). We walked around for probably about an hour, the forest was strangely quiet as most animals were in the midst of their afternoon nap, we saw a few orang-utan nests and plenty of birds. It was around 1 or 2pm and we were getting hungry by this stage so were about to go back to the river when we (Byune at least) smelled an orang-utan, so following the smell, we ended up back in the same place near the big tree where we had seen the orang-utan family on the 1st day. 
The big alpha male was high up in the tree eating fruit, he then spotted us and starting playing the game of throw fruit at the humans. We watched him for a little while until he disappeared behind the dense canopy of the forest and then we went back for lunch. We’d eaten most our vegie supplies so our last jungle meal consisted of noodles with chilli, and a bit of stolen rice from some other hikers camping down river. After a couple of hours lazing around in the river and a bit of tree climbing, we grabbed our bags once more and made our way back to the big tree. The male orang-utan was still there eating, and he was also joined by a female and her toddler baby (possibly the same ones we’d seen on day 1) who were in nearby trees.
baby orang-utan
The baby was particularly curious and climbed about 20m or so down the tree to a clear patch so he/she could watch us for a while before deciding it was time for a nap and moving away to build a nest. With only a couple of hours of light left we headed back towards the guesthouse, eventually finding the road. Seeing such large clear spaces and cars again was weird and not very pleasant. Already I was longing to get back into the green tranquillity of the forest but I was also looking forward to eating something other than noodles back at the guesthouse. I had the same room as before so after washing some of my dirty clothes I headed keenly up to the restaurant and ordered a vegetable and tempeh curry and gado gado. Both were good, but the curry was especially good, with lots of fresh vegies, coconut milk and big slices of tempeh, it was easily one of the best curries of my time in Indonesia.
BACK TO BERASTAGI
My plan was to head to Lake Toba for a few days of rest and relaxation before returning to “normal” life of studying in Australia, but getting there from Ketambe is a lengthy (12 hour drive) and tiring ordeal, so decided the best way to get there would be to go back to Berastagi for 1 night and then carry on to Lake Toba the following morning. It was a bit of an ordeal getting a bus from Kotacane, for some reason there either weren’t any buses or they were all full because of the holidays. After about an hour of walking around asking every travel agent I found, no one seemed to know where the right bus station was or couldn’t speak enough English to tell me. I was eventually pointed in the right direction by some guy passing on a motorbike who stopped to ask if I needed a ride. For the first 1 1/2 hours of the journey I had the whole bus to myself, just when I’d gotten comfy and was excited about finally having a smoke free trip a large family taking a very sick old lady to hospital in Medan got on. Since the old lady needed to lie down I ended up in the front of the bus next to the driver which is probably the scariest seat because you can see all the near misses with passing vehicles on every corner. I thankfully made it back to Berastagi in one piece and checked back into Losmen Sibayak, the same guesthouse I had stayed at the week before.
Next morning I fancied the fruit salad with coconut for breakfast which turned out to be an excellent choice, a huge plate piled high with fresh tropical fruit and topped with grated fresh coconut, yum! They were out of tempeh again so I got some coconut rice and deep fried cauliflower to eat on the road. As there was no local bus directly to Lake Toba and still being rather tired from all the travelling I’d already done, I decided to splash out on the tourist bus for the rest of my journey. It turned out to be $$ well spent, there were only 2 others so for once I wasn’t cramped into a corner, it was non smoking and it also stopped at a few touristy attractions on the way including an overly touristy Batok village and a waterfall, but it was nice to have the opportunity to get out and stretch my legs a few times during the 5 hour journey.
Traditional Batak house
LAKE TOBA/ TUK TUK
Lake Toba
I got the ferry over to Samosir island where I was planning to stay, I didn’t have accommodation booked yet as I’d heard it was best to just turn up and check out a few places before deciding. So I went for a stroll around and eventually checked into a place called Bagus Bay on the edge of town over-looking the lake. I’d heard Toba Cottages had pretty good vegan food and since it was only 20m up the road I wet there for dinner. I order a mixed fruit juice, fried tempeh and the rending veg curry. Everything was really nice as usual, a little pricier than other places but still only about $5 for the whole meal.
Fried tempeh from Toba Cottages
Rendung curry from Toba cottages
Nice views at Toba Cottages
Day 2: I’d seen on happycow that there was a vegan restaurant on the other side of the island, it had pretty good reviews so thought it was definitely worth a visit.
Batak stone circle
I also wanted to get out of the over touristy, run down and tacky beach resort feel of Tuk Tuk so I rented a bike and cycled northwards, stopping at a few of the Batok villages and stone chairs where the locals used to torture and behead their enemies before eating them (they’re mainly Christian rather than cannibals these days thanks to some Dutch missionaries).
BUDDHA CAFE
The beautiful Buddha cafe
Roughly 10km up the road I found the vegan restaurant but they were still closed and it was only 10.30am, way to early for lunch so I continued cycling along through numerous tiny villages and some beautiful farmland for another 15km. I’d just decided to turn around and head back to the café for lunch when I ran into a guy I had met and gone hiking with up Sibayak in Berastagi so I stopped to chat to him for a while then cycled on to the restaurant.
Set in a beautiful garden right on the lake filled with flowers, Buddha statues and mango trees, it was a very relaxing and refreshing place to sit after my long bike ride in the sun on what on particularly crappy bike (think pre WW2, no brakes, no gears and no suspension of any kind).
Guacomole with homemade chips
It was a hard decision on what to get but I eventually opted for the guacamole with chips and the tofu nirvana curry with rice. The guacamole was very fresh and tasty, surprisingly the chips were even better and had a wonderful herb flavour.
Tofu nirvana curry
Of course I couldn’t come all this way without sampling some of their homemade coconut milk ice cream, so I ordered the special of the day for dessert which was a banana split. I got mine with 3 scoops of ice cream; chocolate mocha coconut and
Very amazing and delicious banana split
green tea. I had expected just your average banana split so was rather surprised to discover when it arrived that it was in fact in a big bowl with chopped up banana and pineapple and star fruit, chunks of freshly baked cake, chocolate chips the 3 big scoops of ice cream then all drizzled with chocolate sauce, YUM!!
I cycled the 20km back to town feeling very full and contented. By the time I got back to my guesthouse I had gotten fairly sunburnt, my nose was stinging and I had big red patches on both my legs, so decided a dip in the lake to cool down would be the perfect way to spend the afternoon.
Day 3: I woke up feeling sore, tired and still very surnburnt from the previous day so spent the majority of the day chilling out in the shade by the pool and drinking lots of cucumber juice. I also went to another guesthouse up the road for lunch called Horas Shugary.
HORAS SHUGARY
Amazing fruit salads, not so amazing tempeh
Incredible fruit salad
I wasn’t starving so just ordered a fruit salad and a fresh mixed fruit juice. The juice was really good, not as watered down as most of the other ones I’d had and it had lots of mango in it. The real treat and surprise was the sensational fruit salad. Not only was it gigantic and was incredibly fresh and covered in fresh grated coconut and cinnamon. I was very impressed to say the least, not bad for $1.50.
For dinner that evening I got a rendung vegetable curry from my huesthouse, it was alright but no comparison to Buddha cafe.
Day 4: Before my bus trip back to Medan I went back to Horas Shugary for breakfast ordering the same fruit salad again and some fried tempeh and rice to eat on my way back to Medan. The fruit salad again was great, the tempeh however left me feeling very very unwell for almost 2 weeks afterwards with a bacterial stomach infection which also resulted in me spending the majority of my Singapore to Sydney flight several days constantly later running for the bathroom to vomit 😦 .
The bus ride back to Medan was in a nice and fairly new car rather than the usual dilapidated bus I’d been expecting, which was a real treat, especially with my stomach trying to deal with the dodgy tempeh. Miraculously I managed to avoid vomiting for the entire 5 hour drive. After being dropped off at the aptly titled Sultan Homestay (aptly titled because it was literally right next door to Sultan mosque, the largest mosque in town). Resigned to that fact that I had a very early start the next morning to get to the airport and knowing I’d be woken up by the call to prayer well before the crack of dawn, I went straight to bed, sad to be leaving Indonesia and also sad because my 7 week round the world adventure was almost at an end, all that was left was 1 day in Singapore.
Kuala Lumpur
UPDATE
I had a brief stopover in KL on route from Singapore to Chiang Mai so thought it a good opportunity to hit up a few more of the city’s many fine vegan establishments.
Dharma Realm
The very top of that list was Dharma Realm a Buddhist monastery in the heart of KLCC. I had herd many good things about their all vegan weekday lunch buffet so after a quick pit stop to Berjaya Times Square for a cucumber soy milkshake from Buddy Soy (see below post for details) and a pack of seriously delicious chocolate coated almonds I found in Cold Storage (NB: Christmas time is an excellent time to find vegan box chocolates in KL it seems).
Dharma Realm took a little while to get to, mainly because I waited 1 hour for a seemingly non existent bus before opting for the monorail instead so luckily I was very hungry when I arrived towards the end of the lunch rush hour.
Dharma Realm plate
Situated at the back of the temple down a path is a large shed style canteen with long stainless steel tables mostly filled with office workers on their lunchbreak. There was a huge selection of dishes to choose from, all the usual things you’d expect from a veg Chinese buffet. I got as many different things as I could fit on my plate, the pumpkin curry and the black bean tofu were particular standouts. Nothing is labelled but it’s 100% vegan so I wasn’t too concerned about knowing exactly what each dish was. I also got a cold cincua (drink) and a steamed red bean bun which cam to the grand total of RM8.50 (about $3) for everything.
Dharma Realm
161 Jalan Ampang (near Petronas towers)
buffet is weekday lunchtime only
LOCO GELATO
After lunch I spent an hour or so wandering around KLCC mall, mainly to escape the stifling heat outside and came across a gelato place advertising vegetarian options. Since vegan ice cream is almost non existent in KL and it being perfect ice cream weather I of course went to investigate. After asking the usual questions I learned that they did indeed have a few vegan options, I ordered a cup with a scoop each the very yummy and chocolatey dark chocolate and the mango. It cost RM9 for the 2 scoops which I though was pretty reasonable and it was easily some of the nicest gelato I’ve had in a while.
Loco Gelato KLCC mall near Isetan supermarket lower ground level.
After 5 humid and very smoky days in Singapore thanks to the out of control forest fires in Indonesia that were started to make room for more palm oil plantations. gggrrrhhh!! 😦 , (Singapore blog still to come as I will have some time there at the end of my trip), I jumped on a very quick and rather cheap flight to Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur. My previous visit here about 1 year ago had been jam packed with many exciting vegan discoveries and new friends so I was looking very forward to returning. Unfortunately this post will be a little short on photos because my camera and all the photos I had taken in Singapore and KL that were on it, fell out of my bag while I was in a taxi and was then taken by the taxi driver :(, just as well I mostly ate at all the same places as last time so I have some pics from then to share.
YIN FUTT KUOK VEGETARIAN RESTAURANT
One of my faves
My last trip I had stayed at a very nice hostel near Masjid Jamek and had discovered 2 100% vegan restaurants, both within 100m from the hostel so naturally I decided to stay there again this time. My favourite of the 2, just around the corner on Jalan Tun Perak is Yin Futt Kuok, (the other one is called Lily vegetarian on Jalan Tun HS Lee). From the outside it looks like any shabby run down local food dive and on the inside too really, but the food is superb. On the ground floor there is an insanely cheap buffet at lunch time, for around RM3-5 ($1-2.50) you can get rice and a choice of 3 dishes. Upstairs is a good bargain too, the menu consists mostly of vegan versions of traditional Malay food, mains are about RM6 ($2) and are very generous portions.
Curry mee (noodle)
Fried rice and Mongolian tofu
It was a little too early to check in to the hostel so my mother and I dumped our bags and headed around the corner for lunch as we were pretty hungry. I was craving some curry so I ordered the curry noodle, my mother just got some plain fried rice and we also ordered the Mongolian tofu to share. The curry noodles really hit the spot and settled my craving for Malaysian food that I had had since I was last in KL a year ago. It was just spicy enough for my taste (fairly spicy) with a very rich, creamy coconut flavour and lots of tofu and vegetables mixed in with it. I had tried the Mongolian tofu dish on my previous visit here and had remembered it being particularly tasty and it didn’t disappoint, it was exactly how I had remembered it, with big cubes of fried tofu in a sweet chilli, sweet soy sauce. The rice was very good as well and was quite tasty for plain fried rice.
YIN FUTT KUOK
Open 10:30am- 7pm 7 days
Jalan Tun Perek, (near Masjid Jamek station)
BUDDY SOY SMOOTHIES (Possibly closed or moved to new location)
Yummy vegan soy milk shakes at Buddy soy
After checking in and digesting our huge lunch we headed to Berjaya Times Square for what were probably my two favourite vegan discoveries from last time which just happened to be right next to each other inside the food court of a shopping centre. Now, it’s not very often that I just stumble upon an entirely vegan, or almost all vegan restaurant (especially dessert places) that I hadn’t at least heard of before, but that’s exactly what happened in Berjaya, twice.
Best vegan shake ever
Buddy soy isn’t 100% vegan as 1 or 2 things one the menu contain honey but everything else is soy based and very yummy. There are 3 different options available on the menu, either flavoured soy milk aka bubble tea, ice/soy blended shake of various flavours or hot drinks including cappuccinos, lattes etc. The soy shakes are my favourite, I tried a few different flavours including the cendal (a traditional Malay dessert made from red bean, coconut, brown sugar and green pandan flavoured gummy worms made from tapioca) , I also tried the ABC which is pretty much everything on the menu in one cup. Not sure if I have a favourite as they were all quite interesting and refreshing, the raw bits of corn on top of the ABC seemed kind of a weird thing to put in a smoothie but once I’d off loaded them into the nearby bin it was rather nice.
Lower ground level (LG 18 D2), near Cold Storage
Berjaya Times Square, KL (closest station Imbi )
https://www.facebook.com/buddysmoothies
MEET FRESH (Possibly closed or moved from Berjaya Times Square)
The twist combination special
Grass jelly with barley, red beans and sweet potato
The other of my 2 favourite discoveries in Berjaya is a traditional Taiwanese dessert place called Meet Fresh. It is an international chain (they even have a few stores in Australia, how this place alluded me for so long is a mystery). Their menu is about 95% vegan by default (a few things have cream or ice cream), but the rest consists of tofu, soy milk or grass jelly based puddings with shaved ice, brown sugar syrup and a variety of toppings including taro mocha balls, steamed sweet potato or taro, red beans, mung beans, lotus seed, tapioca balls, and the list goes on. I have to admit I am a little addicted to this place and have eating there almost everyday (sometimes more) both times I’ve been to Malaysia. I’ve tried most things on the menu by now, but my favourite is definitely the Twist combination which is 1/2 grass jelly, 1/2 tofu pudding and taro balls, and is perfect for those that have trouble deciding or just want to eat everything. I will definitely be a very regular customer at their Sydney stores when I get back to Australia in a few weeks time.
Lower Ground (LG 18A) Berjaya Times Square
Open 10am- 10pm daily
http://www.meetfresh.com.my/news.htm
UPDATE
JOLLIBEAN
Singapore’s very own soymilk shake place has made it to KL, same menu. Only downside is it’s right net to two of my other favourite vegan dessert options: buddy Soy and Meet Fresh.
Berjaya Times Square LG floor
Day 2: One of my favourite places near KL that I went to last trip was the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia (FRIM), located about a 30 minute train ride from central KL just on the outskirts of the city, it provides a tranquil oasis (hungry rampaging monkeys aside) from the noise and smog of the city. Forests like at FRIM once covered much of the surrounding areas but due to “development” and urbanisation FRIM is one of the last remaining pockets of virgin rainforest left in the area (Bukit Nanas near the city centre is another). There is a canopy walkway but unfortunately both times I have been there it has been closed, however, it is still very pleasant to walk around on the paths below and there are a few waterfalls and numerous animals if you’re lucky enough to spot some. My mother and I took a packed lunch (left overs from lunch the day before), we had found a nice shady gazebo to sit under while we ate but we were promptly spotted and joined by a large family of monkeys that clearly weren’t going to take no for an answer so we moved across the path slightly further into the forest.
FRIM
After FRIM we visited Batu Caves which is a Hindu temple complex inside a cave on top a steep hill. 272 steps and a few near monkey ambushes later we were at the top. While the caves themselves are quite stunning and definitely worth a visit, it has unfortunately become somewhat of a tacky tourist attraction which really detracts from the whole vibe of the place.
VEGETARIAN CORNER BERJAYA
Vegan fast food
It was quite a warm day and after slogging around FRIM and climbing all those steps we headed back to KL tired and hungry. We both felt like an icy dessert to cool us down so it was back to Berjaya. I had a vague memory of seeing a vegetarian stall in the food court (also on the LG level) so we went in to take a look as we were both too hungry for just dessert. At the very back of the food court on the left hand side there was a big yellow vegetarian sign and an overwhelming amount of mostly vegan dishes to chose from, we both piled up our plates which still only cost about $2-3 each. After we did the rounds of Buddy Soy and Meet Fresh
VEGETARIAN CORNER (inside Taste of Asia food court)
LG Berjaya Times Square
WOODS BIO MARCHE
Day 3: After a morning aerial yoga session my mother and I got the monorail to Bukit Bintang for lunch at Woods Bio Marche, a trendy organic vegan restaurant for lunch. A much more classy establishment than the local places we’d been eating at for the prior few days which is reflected in the price (still cheap by USA/ Australia standards) we ordered about 5 or 6 dishes to share which came to RM68 ($20ish).
Bento box
Warm sesame salad
I got the set meal bento box which came beautifully presented and was very fresh, tasty and healthy. It had a few large slices of fried tofu with a miso dressing, rice sushi rolls, raw vegetable sushi, pickled vegetables and a seaweed salad. We also got the very delicious warm sesame salad with a spicy miso/tahini sauce, millet, agadashi tofu, spicy mushroom dumplings, a beetroot and apple juice and some red bean soup for dessert. All the dishes were very fresh, tasty and nicely presented.
WOODS BIO MARCHE
Lot G-02 ground floor Wisma building,
Jalan Bukit Bintang opposite Federal hotel
That evening we briefly walked around the overly tacky, crowded and touristy Petalling Jaya market before making our way to Central market, where I’d also discovered more vegan food last time. Not sure exactly what they are called but there was a big sign listing the ingredients which were vegan. They are coconut and pandan flavoured steamed sponge cake rolls with swirls of caramelised sugar throughout, YUMMY!!
Yummy vegan treats
Stall located in undercover laneway between market buildings near the Jalan Sultan end. Central Market KL
BLUE BOY FOOD COURT
Although I didn’t eat there this time it’s worth a mention. All vegan food undercover food court comprised of various stalls, each with their own speciality. Can be a little bit hard to find, but if you walk along Jalan Pudu look for Swiss Garden hotel, the laneway is directly opposite, you will see the Blue boy sign.
BE LOHAS
100% organic vegan restaurant that has recently opened in KLIA2 airport. The restaurant also contains a small but well stocked organic market with various packaged organic vegan snack foods in addition to an Italian brand of vegan ice creams such as vegan versions of cornetto, magnums etc. Prices are very reasonable considering everything is organic and freshly made.
I had the soy milk laksa which was one of the tastiest laksas I have ever had. The soy cheese steaks were divine as well. Highly recommended.
Soy cheese steaks @Be Lohas
Soy laksa
L2M-19, Level 2M, Terminal KLIA2, KL International Airport Jalan KLIA 2/1
More Berlin
After a whirlwind 3 days in London, I had an extremely early flight to Berlin. I was definitely looking forward to my weekend there as I had discovered a countless number of vegan/ vegan friendly restaurants on my last visit, and since many of them had been closed for the Christmas holidays I had a sizeable list of places to visit this time. I arrived to some beautiful sunny weather, and after dropping off my bags I swiftly made my way to my favourite falafel shop from last time, Mo’s Kliener imbiss. Unfortunately it was closed despite the sign on the door saying they were open 7 days from 12-2300, the little old lay I remembered from last time was inside but the doors were all locked and the shutter most of the way down so figured I must have been a bit too early. I was rather hungry so decided to head back to Friedrichshain where I knew there were countless vegan options to choose from.
I’d barely left Warschauer strasse train station when a big green sign caught my eye VEGANZ, much to my surprise the vegan supermarket had opened a second location in March, yay!!
Obviously I ended up inside and after doing a quick lap of the shop I ordered some soft serve ice cream. The girl working there wasn’t sure of the English translation of the flavour and I didn’t know either even after tasting it but it was damn nice, they also had some rather divine looking cakes and when I saw the chocolate raspberry mousse cake I just couldn’t leave without trying it so I got a slice of that too, it tasted as good as it looked.
Yummy goodies from Veganz
VEGANZ 2
Warschauerstrasse 33
I wanted to eat something healthier for lunch too and since I was all psyched up for a falafel and disappointed at not being able to have one at Mo’s I walked down Grunburger strasse to Nil the vegan friendly Sudanese falafel place (see previous Berlin post for more details) and ordered a 3 euro tofu Madagascar falafel.
Afterwards, I was feeling very tired, probably a combination of eating so much and having to get up at 2:30am to get to the airport so I headed back for a brief nap with the plan of going back for a falafel dinner at Mo’s Kliener, however I only woke up 15 hours later at 7am the next morning.
OH LA LA VEGAN TARTE SHOP
Vegan heaven Oh la la
Day 2: Feeling rather refreshed after my extended nap, I was well and truly ready to hit up the number 1 thing on my vegan list, Oh La La and their heavenly sounding Saturday vegan brunch.
Now, there are countless places in Berlin that offer vegan brunch’s particularly on the weekends, but after walking past his place last time and reading a few reviews I was convinced that this was not going to be just another vegan brunch, Oh La La is after all a 100% vegan French patisserie and a pretty top quality one at that. I was a little over excited about finally getting to eat here after a 6 month wait ( they were closed for holidays last visit), so I arrived about 1/2 an hour before they were even open. Since there was no sign of anyone around I decided to take a quick walk around the block to kill some time, but barely got 200m up the road before I ran into yet another vegan sign in a shop window, I stopped to check it out further to find it was the curiously named smoothie shop “Funkyou natural food”.
Banana hibiscus smoothie
They serve numerous kinds of smoothies, fresh juices, shakes etc as well as some sandwiches and wraps, they had many vegan options in all those categories as well as many gluten free options and a few very nice looking desserts in a cabinet which were all labelled vegan. I decided to order a banana and hibiscus smoothie, which turned out to be one of the nicest and most interesting tasting smoothies I’ve ever had, a perfect breakfast for a warm sunny day.
FUNK YOU NATURAL FOOD
Gärtnerstr. 21
I drank it as I headed back to Oh La La, still with 20 minutes to go before they opened, 5 minutes later there was a line of people long enough to fill every seat inside, so definitely get there early if you want to sit down, some people even sat on the sidewalk outside just so they could have brunch here, it’s that good.
Plate no. 1
Too many amazing vegan desserts
There were so many different things to choose from and the plates were quite small so I couldn’t try everything in one go. Of course they had croissants which were by far better than the ones I had in Paris, perfectly moist in the centre and crunchy on the outside. There were mini brownies (also very good), waffle bites with chocolate sauce, cucumbers stuffed with mint yoghurt, raw pesto pasta, not to forget the little cups of caramel crème as well as a few different salads and some hot savoury dishes, the spinach curry in particular was a stand out. I’m probably forgetting a few things too, but the point is that EVERYTHING WAS SUPERB!
I also ordered a white hot chocolate drink, usually when I order a hot chocolate it’s a bit of powdery cocoa mixed with soy milk but not here. When it arrived at my table on a cute silver tray (very French) it consisted of a mug 1/4 filled with a dollop of melted white chocolate and a jug of hot soy milk on the side, yum!
I had planned to take some close up pics of some of the dishes but not surprisingly by the time I’d finished my first plate the table was pretty much decimated and the two staff were frantically trying to make more to keep up with the demand.
By the time I finished my second plate of food I was definitely feeling very full to say the least but I was adamant that I needed to try some desserts. As you cam imagine I had a very difficult time deciding which one, they all looked amazing, eventually I opted for a slice of the GF vanilla mango meringue cake, the chocolate speculoos mousse cake was a very close runner up.
GF Vanilla mango meringue cake
It came drizzled with warm mango syrup and a big dollop of vegan cream on the side. No need to say it was rather phenomenal although the outer crust was a tiny bit on the overdone side which was my only complaint, but I’d quite happily eat it again.
They also had a range of tartes and quiches in the case, including GF ones that looked very tasty and huge but I was way to full to even contemplate tying them (next time).
Saturday brunch starts at 11am, costs 9.90 euros once a month they apparently do a GF brunch s keep an eye on their FB page for updates.
OH LA LA TARTE SHOP
Mainzer strasse 18, Friedrichshain
https://www.facebook.com/OhlalaTartesShop?rf=116515681789145
After my extravagant meal I was feeling the need to do a bit of exercise and I also wanted to explore a bit more of Berlin so I decided to rent a bike. Berlin is a great city for biking, with few hills and plenty of bike lanes you can easily get from one side of the city to the other in 30 minutes. It’s also pretty hard to get lost, everyone told me no matter where you want to go just go straight in vaguely that direction and you will end up there, I took their adviit again ce and it worked.
After a few hours riding around in the heat I was starting to get a little hungry again. I was considering trying my luck with the falafel place again but since I was around Eberswalder strasse (one of my favourite areas) I stopped to have a stroll around. I was walking up Kastienallee where my mother and I had discovered a very nice vegetarian Vietnamese retausrant on my first visit to Berlin a number of years ago. I’d looked for it again 6 months ago but after not being able to find it had come to the conclusion that it had gone the same way as my two other favourite vegans discoveries from that trip (Maya’s vegan deli and Hans Wurst). But what do you know, there it was right it used to be, so I took that as a sign that I was meant to have dinner there.
The menu appeared to be exactly the same as last time so I promptly ordered the mango tofu curry which I remembered being rather splendid.
Delicious mango curry
And it certainly was, although the restaurant was quite busy my food only took 10 minutes to arrive and I was quickly joined on the table by a very cute little bird who eagerly took some rice off my hand being flying away.
ASIA STUBCHEN
Kastienallee 89
DER EIS BARLINER
Banana split from Der Eis Barliner
Afterwards I carried on cycling towards Friedrichshain and decided to stop into Der Eis Barliner for dessert, after some contemplating I ordered a vegan banana split with vanilla, mango and choc chip ice cream, and the only vegan sauce they had which was strawberry. It was good but not the most amazing banana split I’ve ever had, they also have waffles, sundaes and various other yummy things.
DER EIS BARLINER
Gartner strasse 11
Day 3: Sigh my last day in Berlin already, I was still kind of full from all the food yesterday, but I still had a few more must eats on my list so I heaved myself out of bed and headed for Café Vux for yet another all you can eat vegan brunch.
Brunch table at Vux
This one is a tiny bit healthier than the previous days (only just), the table was packed with a delectable range of salads and vegetable dishes and some very unique breads and dips including some coconut bread, macadamia nut and cranberry bread which were both delicious and my favourite, lavender hummus which I didn’t even know existed until today. They also had some pastry rolls stuffed with spinach and smoked tofu, coconut rice pudding with cinnamon and marinated seitan. I could not fault anything at all. After downing two plates I decided it was time for dessert, again it was another difficult choice. It was a tie between the black forrest cake and the peach, lemon and chocolate cake, the black forrest eventually won that battle. All the others looked good too.
It was a very light, moist and spongy cake, with what seemed like more icing than cake and had a layer of cherries on the bottom, very nice.
CAFE VUX
Wipperstrasse 14 (near Neukolln station)
Saturday brunch starts at 12 midday (get there 10 minutes early if you want to get a table or you’ll miss out on food). Brunch costs 9.50 euro
Worlds best falafel
After my somewhat over indulgent lunch I walked around the over touristy Alexander platz for a while then went to Veganz to stock up on a few things. That evening I was still very full from lunch but I just couldn’t leave Berlin without sampling another vegan haloumi falafel so I jumped on a train to Mo’s Kleiner Imbiss and ordered one to go so I could have it for breakfast on my flight back to London the next day. Even when it was cold, soggy and 10 hours old it still beat every other falafel I’ve ever had hands down.
MO’S KLEINER IMBISS
Graefester 9, near Schoneleiner strasse
On the way back to my hostel I also stopped in at Goodies for a drink (an iced matcha in fact), on the way out I spied two slices of a mango coconut torte in the case, so one of them became my not so healthy dinner.
Mango coconut torte from Goodies
Next a few days detoxing (hopefully) in London before I return to the vegan extravaganza paradise of Singapore, home to my favourite vegan ice cream parlour and 2nd favourite bakery in the world.
Vegan London- must eats
Quite a lot has been written about the London vegan scene already, so this is just a brief list of recommendations. During my 2 years as a resident in this beautiful and awesome city I made it my mission to try to eat at as many of the vegan/ vegetarian restaurants as I possibly could. Whilst I didn’t make it to all of them I certainly managed to cross the majority off my list. Of course though, quite a few new places have appeared on the scene since my departure so I made sure I went to check some of them out on this trip as well as revisiting all of my old favourites. Below is a list of my top recommendations, for a more extensive one visit www.happycow.net where you’ll find a fairly accurate and up to date list.
222 VEGGIE VEGAN
222 North End Road, West Kensington
http://www.222veggievegan.com/
I’ve only ever gone to this restaurant for their all you can eat lunch buffet, but their dinner menu looks absolutely amazing too. Their lunch buffet is 100% vegan and consists off a selection of around 10 or so hot and cold dishes that change each day. While 7.50 pounds may sound like a lot of money it is well worth every penny, everything is organic and very fresh, the salads are far beyond just a pile of lettuce leaves and some dressing, they are creative and delicious as are all the hot dishes which range from curries to savoury tofu and carrot tarts.
Buffet lunch @222
Crepe from 222
222 is a great place to take non vegans/ vegetarians or for a special occasion, it’s a little more classy than most of the vegan restaurants in London but not as snobby and pretentious as the others in that price range.
POGO CAFE
76 Clarence Rd, Hackney E5
Pogo may not be everyone’s cup of tea but I for one am a big fan, in fact I’d say this is my favourite vegan hang out spot in London. Pogo is 100% volunteer run and not for profit , not only is it a vegan cafe, but it’s also a community centre and social network at the heart of the vegan squatting community in Hackney, they hold a lot of social events such as movie nights and pizza parties and is a great place to chill out and make some new vegan friends.
It doesn’t look like much from the outside, the first time I went there I actually mistook it for an abandoned warehouse, (they’ve done it up a little since then) once inside though it looks and feels just like the living room of your cool arty friends share house. The basic menu consists of burgers, salads and various hot and cold drinks including shakes, lassis and tea and coffee. There are usually a few specials on the board of which vary depending on what food is in season and what that days volunteers feel like making.
punk cheese burger
The punk cheese burger tends to be my staple if none of the specials take my fancy. Like everything here it various a lot depending on who makes it, sometimes there’s a side salad and sometimes you get steamed veggies instead. The burger patties are made from scratch so sometimes they are plain and sometimes they are spicy.
Carrot and ginger soup
The only real consistent things at Pogo are the extremely generous portion sizes and the tiny prices, a burger with sides costs just 5 pounds and is more than enough food to fill you up for the day. If you’ve still got some room left afterwards and feel like something sweet the Knickerbocker glory is my personal favourite dessert. An important thing to keep in mind if you go to Pogo is that because it is entirely staffed by volunteers, and they are often under staffed meaning it can sometimes take a while to get your food. New volunteers are always welcome, and if you feel inclined you can sign up for a shift while you’re there.
PEKING PALACE (LOVING HUT)
669 Holloway Road, Archway, London, N19
http://www.thepekingpalace.com/
It was just Peking Palace when I lived in London, but they have since officially become a Loving Hut. Aside from the sign the inside and the menu are still pretty much the same. I’ve only ever ordered off the menu once, preferring usually to have the lunchtime buffet instead. For 6 pounds eat in or around 4.50 to take away, there are about 10-15 different dishes ranging from several different kinds of rice, noodles, vegetable curries and some battered and deep-fried fruits and vegetables. They also have a large range of drinks including shakes, fresh juices, smoothies, tea etc. I used to eat here regularly as I lived a 10 minute bike ride away so it was a cheap and convenient place to eat if I didn’t feel like cooking.
JAI KRISHNA
161 Stroud Green Road London N4
Jai Krishna is a pure vegetarian north Indian restaurant just around the corner from Finsbury Park. Being north Indian the curries here are fairly mild, but you can request to make yours spicier if you prefer. The way you order is a bit weird, you get a pen and piece of paper and you need to write what you want on it then take it up to the counter. This restaurant is one of the most vegan friendly Indian restaurants in London as they don’t cook with ghee, except for the naan which they are happy to make with oil instead upon request.
Jai Krishna curries
I’ve really enjoyed everything I’ve eaten here, the pumpkin curry being particularly nice, they are always fresh and not too oily like a lot of Indian food can be.
INSPRILLED LOUNGE AND CAFE
250 Camden High Street, Camden Lock, London – NW1
Situated right next to Camden Lock in the midst of the market, Inspiralled is a very picturesque and atmospheric spot for a bite to eat while wandering around the markets. There are often bands or DJ’s providing some background noise in the evenings. It’s all vegetarian but there are plenty of vegan options, including a large selection of homemade raw chocolates and vegan cheese cakes.
Spanakopita from Inspiralled
Inspiralled has changed drastically several times in the years I’ve been going there. Originally it had been a cheap, grungy hippyish joint, then it started to get a little more up market resulting in prices going up and portion sizes going down, but they seem to have levelled out a little more now with a good balance of all of the above. In the summer months they have a big range of ice vegan and sugar-free ice creams too.
Vegan breakfast
COOKIES AND SCREAM Unit L1, Dingwalls Gallery, Camden Lock Place NW1http://cookiesandscream.com/contact.html
Cookies and Scream is one of the newer places on the London vegan scene, I wish it had been around when I lived in London, but then again maybe it’s better that it wasn’t given how yummy and addictive their cookies and shakes are. Not only are they a 100% bakery located in one of my favourite parts of London, they are also gluten-free friendly. All of their freshly baked cookies are huge and extremely tasty and cheap, I tried a few different ones including the chocolate and macadamia and a nut and raisin one. I would also recommend the chocolate brownie shake which is just as the name suggests, an ice cream shake with crumbled up brownie in it that gets all melted and gooey, leaving a big mouthful of chocolate right at the bottom of the cup.
GREEN NOTE
106 Parkway, Camden Town, NW1
It’s mostly a music venue for blues, folk, jazz and acoustic artists, but they used to have a pretty awesome open mic night every Sunday that was open to all kinds of music which I used to attend and play at quite regularly. The also serve vegetarian and vegan tapas style finger food including humus and other dips, falafel, samosas and spring rolls. It has a very friendly, casual atmosphere and is a nice cosy place to spend an evening chilling out, listening to some good music.
INDIAN VEG BHELPURI HOUSE
92-93 Chapel Market Angel Islington, London N1
If you like classy or quality food then this isn’t the place for you, but they definitely win the contest for cheapest vegan meal in London hands down. For less than 5 pounds you can eat sit in there all day and eat till you vomit, the curries may be watered down to a runny slop and the walls completely covered with random health related facts about vegetarianism and picture of various Indian beauty queens and Bollywood stars that attribute their beauty and success to being vegetarian, but for that price who cares about the decor. They also make some pretty kick arse vegan lassis, which was usually my main reason for going there. For some reason my friends and I and everyone else I’ve spoken to that has eaten there have always felt “unnaturally high” after eating the food there, to the extend where I found it challenging to ride my bike in a straight line, not sure as to the reason for this, I can’t imagine they’d be putting any “extra goodies” in the food for that price so who knows, but hey it’s cheap, vegan and way less likely to give you food poisoning then the super dodgy vegan Asian buffet chain place around the corner.
BRICK LANE SUNDAY MARKET
There are countless places to find a cheap vegan meal all up Brick Lane and the surrounding streets any day of the week, but on Sundays this little cobble stone alleyway really comes alive. Traditionally the heart of London’s immigrant community, these days it’s an eclectic mix of shabby Indian take-outs and trendy hipster vintage clothing boutiques and record stores.
Vegan Ethiopian stall in Brick Lane
One of my favourite places for a bite to eat is the vegan Ethiopian stall in the main food hall next to rough Trade. No to be confused with the other Ethiopian stand in the same building, this one is the only 100% vegan one, you can usually tell it apart from the others by the very long line that at lunchtime, sometimes wraps around the corner.
VX
73 Caledonian Rd, King’s Cross, N1
No London vegan list is complete without mentioning VX, London’s one and only dedicated vegan shop. It may be tiny but it’s certainly packed with everything a vegan could want including cheeses, mock meats, shoes and other accessories and of course cake.
MILDRED’S
45 Lexington Street, London , W1
Lying in the heart of Soho, this popular vegetarian restaurant has always been packed every time I’ve gone there or have walked past, it’s not unusual to have to wait up to an hour for a table in the evenings. Whilst the food at Mildred’s is nice it’s by no means amazing and not really worth the price tag in my opinion, there are quite a few much better value places within a few blocks, but for a special occasion Mildred’s is a good place to go. The menu is pretty standard vegetarian cuisine consisting of pasta, stews, curries, burgers etc.
MAOZ
43 Old Compton Street London, W1
Another place in the heart of Soho right near Mildred’s and Wholefoods, this all vegetarian falafel chain was one of my most regularly visited for a quick and cheap vegan meal after a long shift at work. I always like how I could decide on which salads I wanted and the deep-fried cauliflower was always a favourite. It used to be all you can eat salads but they’ve since changed it to one visit per order. The meal deal is still good value though, for 7 pounds you get a falafel with aubergine (eggplant) and humus, chips and a drink.
STOKE NEWINGTON FARMERS MARKET
Every Saturday 10am-2pm
St Pauls Church
Stoke Newington High Street
Mainly just your average small farmer’s market,but there was one stall in particular that I always went there for called Global Fusion. They sell a wide range of freshly baked vegan breads and other baked goods such as tarts, cakes and some savoury items like quiche and mini pizzas.
Vegan Paris
Although I lived just a few hours from Paris for the 2 years I lived in London, I never had much interest in going there, every vegan Parisian I’d ever met had warned me against going there and told me how un-vegan friendly it was. So when I was planning my European trip this time Paris wasn’t exactly on the top of my list, but since I had a few days to spare in between Prague and London Paris seemed like an obvious stop, I was further convinced by a very cheap airfare I found.
So at around midnight I found myself lugging my increasingly heavy bag down the very long corridor of the airport that leads to the train station and then trying to navigate the metro system to where I was staying.
GENTLE GOURMET CAFE
Located near Bastille, Gentle Gourmet was a convenient brunch stop on my first day out exploring Paris. I was a little surprised when I arrived there as I had expected it to more of a cafe, instead it had the appearance of a rather posh restaurant. As I was handed a menu, the prices came as a bit of a shock too, especially after just being in dirt cheap Prague, but as I would discover over the next couple of days, they where fairly standard prices for Paris.
I wasn’t super hungry, nor did I want to completely empty out my wallet on the first day so I ordered the bare minimum just so I could try it.
Of course I couldn’t go past trying the vegan croissants, I also got a small portion of Honfleur salad which had apple cider dressing and balls of deep-fried Vegusto cheese. The croissant was pretty good, although I think I prefered the ones in Berlin, the salad was particularly tasty but given that it cost 10 euros and was basically just a pile of lettuce the size of the palm of my hand it should be good.
I had ordered the poached pear sundae for dessert but about 5 minutes after ordering it I was informed that they were out of the praline, due to a bit of miscommunication, I thought I was still getting the poached pear just with caramel sauce instead. However, I ended up with just a scoop of vanilla ice cream with a tiny drip of caramel sauce. It was nice, but I can have vanilla ice cream pretty much anywhere and don’t really need to pay 5 euros for 1 scoop.
I’d definitely eat at Gentle Gourmet again, the food was very very nice and of all the vegan restaurants in Paris it’s probably one of the best in terms of quality it’s not exactly value for money though.
Gentle Gourmet
24 Boulevard de La Bastille
http://www.gentlegourmetcafe.com/
When ever I’m in a place that’s not particularly accommodating to vegans I’m always happy to find a Loving Hut. I was pretty hungry by dinner time after a long day of exploring the city on foot, so I had planned on an early dinner at Loving Hut, but when I arrived there at around 5pm to find they only opened for dinner at 7pm, I wasn’t sure what to do for the next 2 hours. Since there wasn’t enough time to go back to where I was staying I ended up just wondering around the area immediate area. There was a supermarket just up the road so thought I’d have a look, there wasn’t much of interest for a vegan, just the usual stuff you get anywhere, I was just about to leave when I quickly glanced at the tea section as I walked past and something caught my eye. I’d just spotted some caramel tea which, until then hadn’t even known existed. A quick dash around the store to find someone who could translate the ingredients list for me to confirm it was vegan and I was convinced I needed to buy some to try. There were a few different brands of it but I got the Lipton one, I had some the next morning for breakfast with a bit of soy milk in it and it was absolutely delicious, it was just like drinking a cup of hot creamy caramel, yum!
LOVING HUT
Loving Hut Paris
It started to rain just as I reached the doors of Loving Hut which was already packed even though they’d only just opened. The menu was a mix of the usual Asian mock meats and some veganised traditional French dishes, since I’ve eaten a million stir-fries and curries at Loving Huts before I decided to keep it French so I ordered the savoury crepe with creamy mushroom filling, the Vegusto cheese platter some hot chocolate and a slice of the French king cake for dessert.
The crepe was very very nice, the filling was full of a herby flavour and complimented the crunchiness of the crepe perfectly.
The cheese platter was good too, I’d only tried a couple of the Vegusto flavours so this was a good opportunity to try all of them without having to buy 10 blocks of cheese.
I can’t quite remember exactly what the cake was made from, it was basically just pastry with some kind of almond filling. The pastry was a bit tough but it pretty tasty. I also had a scoop each of chocolate and taro ice cream.
I eaten had countless Loving Huts all over the world, but the Paris one is definitely one of the best, as much as I love Asian food it was nice to get to try the cuisine from another part of the world that isn’t normally vegan.
Loving Hut
92, Boulevard de Beaumarchais
SOL SEMILLA
While cruising the list of vegan friendly restaurants on happycow.net I was surprised to discover there was a vegan South American restaurant in Paris and since it was just a 20 minute walk away from where I was staying in Montemartre it quickly moved to the top of my restaurant list.
I arrived right on opening time, it was a little hard to find as it’s tucked away down the very end of a little lane and the signs on the window are still of its old name “Voy Alimento”. The menu was entirely in French and was seemed a bit complicated with countless different sides and mains you can mix and match so I wasn’t really sure what t order. The 2 women working there were quite helpful in explaining what things were and suggested I get the plate of the day so I could try a bit of everything so I took their advice.
I can’t remember exactly what each thing was, the rice was mixed with herbs and buckwheat, there were 2 different kinds of vegetable curry, salad and some Spirulina paste which was surprisingly tasty. It was very fresh and tasty and probably the healthiest meal of my whole trip, the only downside was that it was not very filling at all, I was still hungry when I left Sol Semilla and was 17 euros poorer. I would go back there though, it had a nice atmosphere and the food was very good, just don’t there if you are really starving and wanting a meal that will fill you up for a while.
Sol Semilla
23 rue des Vinaigriers
http://www.sol-semilla.fr/totum-redirect/
UN MONDE VEGAN
Un Monde Vegan a vegan shop in Paris
After diving into my steadily growing supply of vegan junk food to fill me up after Sol Semilla I decided to go and check out the vegan grocery store in order to replenish my supplies. Located just a short walk from Notre Dame I took the scenic route along the river, through some of the picturesque cobble stone lane ways that line its banks. I was slightly disappointed to find many of the shelves empty but the staff were hard at work unpacking boxes and filling the shelves again. I didn’t find anything too exciting or different here, there was a large fridge of mock meats, mostly the same ones I’d seen in Poland previously as well as all the same cheeses and chocolates so didn’t really feel the need to buy much except for a block of smartie chocolate which I’d forgotten to get in Berlin.
Un Monde Vegan
64 Rue Notre Dame de Nazareth
http://www.unmondevegan.com/index.cfm
While France may not have a particularly good reputation amongst vegans, Paris certainly has a fair number of vegan friendly restaurants. It may not be vegan heaven like Berlin or London but with a bit of effort and an open mind you definitely won’t starve.
I came to Paris expecting not to like it very much, going on what other people had told me, not only about vegan food but also of Parisian’s reputation for being rude and arrogant. Instead I found the people in Paris to be anything but, everyone I met were very nice, friendly and only to eager to help, whether it be with directions or just a chat. By the time I left I really wished I had another day or 2 as I felt I’d barely scratched the surface of what there is in Paris, it just goes to show you can never really judge a place until you’ve been there and seen it for yourself.
Prague- Czech out all the vegan food
I arrived in Prague after what seemed like a relatively quick 5 hour bus ride from Berlin, after 10 minutes walking around trying to find a money changing place, I jumped on the metro and headed for my hostel.
Old town square
Although Prague is a very small city, as I discovered, there are a surprising number of vegan and vegetarian restaurants, and also what seems like an endless number of bio (organic) stores, I found on just about every street I walked down.
COUNTRY LIFE
Country Life
Out of all the 100% vegan restaurants in Prague, Country Life is the only one that does not serve Asian cuisine. Instead, they have a huge pay by weight buffet that has different dishes every day, there is also a big salad bar and a very enticing dessert selection.
Country Life salad bar
Country Life was the top of my vegan restaurant list in Prague so of course it was my first stop.
Yummy desserts from Country Life
I had a hard time deciding which desserts to try. I wasn’t sure what many of them were and due to the language barrier all the staff were able to tell me was that most were sugar-free and that they used carob instead of chocolate. In the end I got a cream horn and a slice of carob pudding cake. I was surprised to find vegan cream horns especially in a country that is not known to be particularly accommodating to vegans. The cake was nice but not really what I expected, the base was more like a hard, crumbly biscuit with a layer of what I think was marzipan pudding or almond flavoured silken tofu.
I really enjoyed the food at Country Life, it’s almost a shame that there are so many other vegan / veggie restaurants in Prague, as much as I wanted to try as many of them as I could part of me just wanted to eat here every single day.
Country Life
Melantrichova 463/15 (near Old town square)
COUNTRY LIFE ORGANIC SHOP
After lunch I decided to pop into Country Life’s organic shop which is located directly in front of the restaurant. Not everything in the store is vegan but there was certainly no shortage of vegan things in there including lots of vegan cheeses, fake meats and baked goods including tarts, cookies and croissants.
Vegan goodies from Country Life organic shop
I was particularly surprised to find so much carob, not just in Country Life but also in all of the other bio shops I went into, it seemed to be more common than chocolate.
This was a rather exciting discovery for me since I’m a pretty big carob fan, I’d prefer some good quality carob over chocolate any day, but good quality vegan carob can be pretty hard to find in most countries, so finding so many carob products including cookies, carob coated buckwheat puffs, bars, puddings and soy milk just to name a few was quite unexpected.
I spent the morning of day 2 doing a few of the touristy things and exploring the city.
Charles IV bridge
VEGETKA
I ended up in the castle grounds that are on top of a big hill that over looks the city of Prague, since I knew there was an asian vegan restaurant located near by I decided to go there for lunch.
It was a little hard to find so by the time I arrived just after 2pm the buffet looked like a guaranteed way to get food poisoning, Instead, I opted for something off the menu. Despite it being lunch time, there appeared to be no staff around, it took me 10 minutes just to find someone to ask for a menu, even then they didn’t really seem interested. The menu was only written in Czech but there were lots of pictures, I ended up ordering the vegan sushi roll plate.
Worst vegan food ever at Vegetka
For some strange reason I expected to get a plate of sushi rolls, you know the ones with rice and seaweed with tofu or vegetables in the middle, so I was rather surprised when a plate of raw sliced fake dead fish drowning in a pool of gluggy soy sauce was dumped in front of me. I really have nothing nice to say about this meal, or the restaurant for that matter. The rice was cold and under cooked, the cucumber was dry and the “sushi” was so salty I couldn’t even eat it despite being pretty hungry. I would definitely never eat here again especially given that it cost around the same as Country Life. Easily the worst meal of my trip.
Vegetka
Kafkova 16, Praha 6
I left Vegatka still hungry, no guessing where I decided to go instead.
2nd lunch from Country Life
My last day in Prague was quite chilly and rainy, I didn’t really feel like walking around in the rain as I’d been doing the previous 2 days so decided to check out the Czech museum of music which houses a large selection of musical instruments from all over Europe, many of which date back to medieval times. They also have the very piano that Mozart played on at the first concert he gave in Prague several hundred years ago.
I didn’t want to risk another Vegetka experience so after the museum I decided to play it safe and head back to Country Life for lunch.
They had a very tasty tofu and vegetable curry this time and also some lentil burgers with melted vegan cheese on top and a creamy soy salad dressing.
The cake was similar to the first one I had, it was more of a savoury carob flavoured biscuit with tofu pudding and grated carob on top.
BEAS VEGETARIAN DHABA
During my few days in Prague I’d noticed quite a few of these chain restaurants around, they are 100% pure veg Indian buffet style with vegan options clearly marked with “veganska”, Czech for vegan. I had a late night flight to Paris so wanted to grab a snack for the plane. All their curries, which looked very nice, had tomato in them so I got some samosas to take away.
Beas Vegetarian Dhaba
various locations in Prague
Back in Berlin
After my whirlwind and very hectic visit to Istanbul I arrived back in Berlin pretty tired. I still had a very long list of vegan restaurants I wanted to eat at and only 3 more days to get through them all, but since I was still pretty stuffed from all the food in Turkey I decided to leave the list until the next day. I went for a bit of a walk around and after a while I ended up inside what was fast becoming one of my favourite vegan hangout spots, Goodies. It was the closest of all the vegan friendly cafes to where I was staying and since I had to walk past it to get pretty much anywhere else it seemed an obvious choice. It also opens early in the morning which I found quite useful for a quick bite to eat before the days adventures. I got a green smoothie, same as a few days ago, while I was ordering I also spotted a vegan avocado and lime cheese cake so I ended up with a piece of that too.
Avocado lime cheesecake from Goodies
The cheesecake was really good, not overly sweet and very creamy and avocadoey.
YO YO FOOD WORLD
Next morning after a bit of tourist sightseeing I headed back to Friedrichshain for lunch at Yoyo food world. Like a lot of the 100% vegan places in Berlin, Yo Yo Food World has a bit of a punky, grungy, alternative atmosphere, with posters of various punk bands adorning the walls as well as some colourful modern artwork, the tattooed and pierced hipsters with asymmetrical haircuts hanging out inside look right at home. It’s fairly similar to Foodworld Vego (not sure if there’s a connection), not just in atmosphere and decor but the menu had quite a few things in common too. Burgers are the main thing people come o Yo Yo for, there are also a few salads to choose from and shakes, lassis and the usual soft drinks.
Lunch @Yo Yo food world
I got a cauliflower cheese burger with salad and fries and a mango shake (they were out of avocado shakes). The burger was pretty good, although a little tasteless but that was probably just because I got mine without tomato and ketchup, the fries and shake were a little better than the burger.
Yo Yo food world was pretty good and very reasonably priced but definitely isn’t one of my faves in Berlin, if there weren’t so many other amazing vegan restaurants in this city I’d probably have a higher opinion of it, but after sampled quite a few of the others I’m getting harder to impress.
Yo Yo Food World
Gartnerstrasse 27
NIL IMBISS
Tofu Madagascar and fried plantains.
I tried the tofu Madagascar sandwich and some fried plantain, I also got a hibiscus juice. The sandwich was excellent, it had big chunks of spiced, marinated tofu with salad and a few different sauces I couldn’t identify and at only 3 euro it was definitely good value. The fried plantains and the hibiscus juice were really good too. The vegan plate also looked tempting, I’d eat here again anytime.
Nil Imbiss
Grunberger strasse 52
FRECKLES
My last full day in Berlin had come already :(, this is one city I could happily stay for a while longer, but I was also excited to check out my next destination Prague too. After an hour or 2 of figuring out the logistics of trying to fit the increasingly large vegan food hoard I seemed to be accumulating into my bag, I ventured out to one of the vegan cafes that was top of the list. Freckles bakery and cafe.
I arrived there right on opening time and had to wait a few minutes for someone to appear and unlock the door, but once inside I knew I’d found something special.
Delicious looking cakes from Freckles
It was a rather hard decision on what kind of cake to get, they all looked spectacular, but eventually decided on a slice of the GF apple, carrot and cinnamon cake. I also ordered the unusual and delicious sounding salted caramel cocoa, and a bowl of carrot and ginger soup to balance it out.
The salted caramel cocoa, was really good, quite an unusual flavour, sweet but quite salty and chocolatey at the same time.
I can be a bit of a vegan baking snob, and am not easily impressed by stuff just because it’s vegan. The apple and cinnamon cake from Freckles however, definitely gets my thumbs up. It was perfectly moist but light and fluffy at the same time which can be hard to achieve in GF baking. The icing was also excellent, it was really light and creamy but not overly sugary.
Excellent brunch at Freckles
I had just expected a regular bowl of soup and was a little surprised when it came out looking so pretty. It tasted as good as it looked. In Berlin vegan are very spoiled for choice when it comes to vegan cake and desserts but out of all the ones I tried I think Freckles was one of the best ones. If you only go to a few places to eat in Berlin this should be one of them.
Freckles vegan bakery and cafe
Nostitzstrasse 33 Kruezberg
http://www.frecklesheaven.com/home..html
MAUER PARK SUNDAY FLEA MARKET
After Freckles I went over to Mauer Park near Eberswalder strasse to check out the flea market that is held there every Sunday. Selling everything from used bikes to handmade clothing and antique furniture, not surprisingly I found lots of vegan food too.
Vegan soup
All vegan sun day burger stall
I didn’t try either of them as I was anything but hungry but they both looked and smelled good.
CHAY VIET- VIETNAMESE VEGETARIAN
After another hour or so exploring the markets and the surrounding neighbourhood I decided to go and check out Kommerzpunk, another all vegan place around the corner, but on my way over I remembered that Sunday was the only day that they weren’t open for lunch so turned around and went to the vegetarian Vietnamese place I had just walked past 2 blocks back.It was entirely vegan except the smoothies which all had milk and yoghurt in them which I thought was a little weird considering how common soy is here, they could at least offer a non dairy option.
The pumpkin, taro and lotus seed soup sounded interesting so I decided to give it a try. It was quite tasty with big chunks of steamed taro in it and lots of lightly spiced coconut milk.
I also got a tofu and vegetable curry with rice noodles for the main. It was good too, nothing amazing but pretty run of the mill Vietnamese food.
Chay Viet
Brunnenstr. 164 (at Invalidenstr.)
http://www.happycow.net/reviews.php?id=31988
I only had a few hours in the morning before my bus to Prague so my first stop was to Goodies for breakfast.
Breakfast
I got a slice of the apple, carrot and walnut loaf which was alright, although slightly doughy and undercooked, they did have some much nicer looking vegan cakes but since it was first thing in the morning I didn’t want anything too sugary. I’d been meaning to try the Cream apple pie drink for a while and since this was my last chance I got one. It was so good, and so simple I can’t believe I never thought of mixing apple sauce and cinnamon with hot soy milk before. It’s the perfect drink for a cold rainy morning.
MO’S KLEINER IMBISS
I’d read some great reviews of this falafel shop and so stopped in there with all my bags on the way to the bus terminal, and I’m VERY glad I did. It’s a tiny little hole in the wall shop on a quiet back street near Schonleinstrasse, run by a sweet old Turkish (I think) lady who makes everything by hand fresh to order. All the reviews I’d read claimed it was the best falafel in berlin and after trying it I’d have to agree with them.
I ordered the vegan halloumi falafel (yes vegan halloumi), and sat down to watch it carefully being made, all the veggie were chopped and grilled in front of me and even the falafel balls were made and fried specifically for each order. 15 minutes later I was handed a monster sized falafel wrap in exchange for a measly 4 euros, packed with countless kinds of grilled veggies including roasted brussels sprouts, herbs, halloumi, humus and some very delicious nut and herb paste, it was so full of flavour in every bite. The falafel balls themselves were some of the best I’ve ever had, with an intense herby flavour, they came close to beating the falafel I had in Egypt years ago.The falafel was so good as soon as I had finished it I ordered a second one to go for the bus ride. While I was waiting for my second falafel someone else ordered the vegan teller (vegan plate) which looked seriously impressive and huge, I’ll definitely be trying that next time.
Mo’s Kleiner Imbiss
Graefestrasse 9
Istanbul- plenty of vegan delights in Turkey
NYE Taksim square
After a lifetime of dreaming about a trip to Istanbul, the city where the cultures of Asia and Europe collide it finally came true. On NYE evening 2012 I got off the airport shuttle bus and suddenly, I found myself in the middle of a very crowded and bustling Taksim square, the centre of the NYE celebrations. The man sitting next to me on the bus told me that in Turkey, today was also Christmas day. I made my way through the packed crowd down Istakal, (the main street) towards where I was staying, however, what I thought would be a short walk turned into a much longer one, as I was so busy taking in all the sights and sounds that I completely missed the road I was supposed to turn down and ended up getting a little lost. Thankfully I found a few friendly police men to ask for directions and a random American who showed me the way. I had decided to stay in Beyoglu, rather than the more touristy Sultanahmet as, while doing research on vegan friendly restaurants on happycow.net and http://veganbackpacker.com/blog/turkey-vegan-vegetarian-travel/ it seemed that the majority of good places to eat were in this area, and I also prefer to avoid the cliché tourist places when travelling, preferring to get to know the “real” city instead. After dropping off my bags I was ready for dinner, so after consulting the list I had made of nearby restaurants, I decided on Parsifal near to Taksim square, and I’m very glad I did.
PARSIFAL VEG RESTAURANT
One of my faves
It’s 100% vegetarian, with vegan options clearly marked on the menu, it’s a little classier than the places I usually eat at, but hey, I’m in Istanbul finally and it’s NYE so that’s a good enough excuse to celebrate. Since I was still feeling the effects of all the sugary food I ate in Berlin I opted for a healthy choice and ordered a black-eyed pea and walnut salad and some very tasty and unusual apple fries (yes just like regular potato fries but made from apple instead).
Wonderful food at Parsifal
Both were delicious! The salad was huge and really hit the spot and the apple fries were amazing.
I had spied the baked pumpkin in syrup on the dessert list and just had to try it, unfortunately though they had none left, so I went with the only other vegan dessert option, the brownie. It was very light and fluffy for a brownie and not sickly sweet at all. When I went to pay the waiter told me that the brownie was “one the house” because it was Christmas, how I love those kinds of surprises.
Parsifal
Şht. Muhtar Mh. Kurabiye Sokak No:9,
Istanbul
I made it out of Parsifal just in time to walk down to the river Bosphorus to watch the midnight fireworks then followed the crowds back down Istikal. Whilst walking along I stopped to look through a few shop windows and found more vegan food than I could poke a stick at. There were countless restaurants with self-service buffets, all with large and appealing looking salad bars.
Freshly made Turkish pide and lots and lots of Turkish delight
Of course there was tonnes of colourful displays of the many varieties and flavours of Turkish delight.
Roast chestnuts and corn on the cob
There were also carts selling roast chestnuts and corn on the cob (without butter) absolutely everywhere.
The following morning I walked along the river and over the bridge to the main tourist drag of Sultanahmet. By the time I had walked the unfortunately horribly touristy and tacky Spice market and Grand Bazaar I was a little hungry so I grabbed a small bag of roast chestnuts to munch on.
Simits are everywhere
I got a Simit as well also known as a Turkish bagel. NOTE not all of them are vegan, the ones that are shiny on top are glazed with egg so be sure to get one that is not, the vegan ones are usually coated with sesame seeds.
Of course no visit to Turkey is complete without some Turkish Delight. I popped into one of the many shops selling this delicious vegan treat and walked away with some Baklava, a walnut stuffed fig and some walnut flavoured delight to try. They were some of the best I’ve ever eaten, only the Turkish bakery in London that I used to live near comes close to beating it. I will never be able to eat Turkish delight in a box from the supermarket again.
An exciting find!
A few more hours of window shopping later, I found myself in yet another sweet shop. They had all the usual stuff you’d expect to find here, and at the back of the shop I spotted some candied chestnuts which looked interesting. I picked one up to check the ingredients list, fully expecting to be disappointed when I saw that it wasn’t vegan. But low and behold it was indeed, so of course I had to try it. It was absolutely amazing!! With a smooth chestnut puree centre and a dark chocolate coating it was super creamy and delicious.
FALAFEL HOUSE
After pigging out on all those sweets I wanted a proper meal and was also craving a falafel so after a few wrong turns (yes Istanbul’s narrow and winding alleys have gotten the better of me a few times), I managed to find Falafel House.
I ordered the falafel plate, which arrived very swiftly. The falafel balls were crunchy, yet moist on the inside and full of a delicious herby flavour, definitely the best I’ve had in a while, the humus and ful were all really tasty as well. I would definitely recommend this place. NOTE they do serve meat but the staff speak good English and are knowledgeable about veganism.
Falafel House
Sehit Muhter Ca. 19/A (near park next to Taksim square)
Just a few doors down from Falafel House there is also a very nice shop selling Turkish Delight, their prices were a little cheaper than the super touristy ones on Istikal so I stocked up with a box to take home.
LOVING HUT
Loving Hut restaurants have often been a saviour to many hungry vegans when travelling in not so vegan friendly places. However I was definitely not having that problem, Istanbul’s Loving Hut is one of a kind. It is the only one in the world that does not feature any tofu or mock meats on the menu, instead they serve simple and tasty Turkish and middle eastern staples made vegan. Also since many restaurants in Istanbul only open around midday which can be a little annoying if you’re hungry before lunchtime, thankfully though Loving Hut is not only one of the few 100% vegan restaurants in this city, it also opens at 9am.
Located in the trendy and slightly upmarket suburb of Bekitas, in what seems to be an endless number of narrow, winding, cobble stone alleyways in Istanbul, barely wide enough for vehicles it can sometimes be a little hard to find the right one. The menu is only in Turkish and there was also a language barrier between myself and the very sweet lady who runs it, but since I knew everything was vegan, I wasn’t too concerned so I just pointed to something on the menu at random and waited in anticipation to find out what it was. I also somehow managed to convey with a bit of pointing and some hand gesturing that I couldn’t eat tomato.
I ended up with a vegan burger, with what I think was a lentil and veggie pattie and some very tasty homemade vegan mayo. I also had a falafel wrap, I have no idea what the sauce was, possibly some kind os chilli tahini thing, but it was really nice. For some reason I also ended up with 2 cups of tea after I thought I had ordered some chai. Turkish lesson for the day: the Turkish word for tea is Cay (pronounced chai).
Loving Hut
Ihlamurdere Street Şair Veysi Apartment No. 4/B, Beşiktaş,
İstanbul Turkey
http://suprememastertv.com/loving-hut/?wr_id=130&page=2
I had already planned a ferry ride to the Asian side of the city for the afternoon. As I walked around the corner towards the ferry terminal I saw a large supermarket so I went in to have a quick look. I found myself in the chocolate aisle and discovered some pistachio chocolate which appeared to be vegan, but since the ingredients list was only in Turkish I wasn’t 100% sure, so I asked a few fellow shoppers until I found someone who could speak English, who confirmed it was vegan for me.
It was a little hazy but the ferry ride over to Kadikoy was still very scenic.
Kadikoy is much more of a locals shopping district than Beyoglu, which made a nice change.
Lots of vegan treats in Asian Istanbul too.
Of course there was plenty of vegan goodies to be found here too. Everything from Cig kofta, (a bread filled with a spread made from durum wheat and tomatoes), to piles of freshly made stuffed vine leaves.
As well as table after table of fresh olives.
Since it was starting to get dark I decided to make my way through the market, down the hill back towards the ferry terminal and headed back to Taksim.
I had read about a traditional Turkish dessert called Asure on http://veganbackpacker.com/blog/turkey-vegan-vegetarian-travel/ and had seen it at a few restaurants around Taksim square, so thought I would try it.
The ingredients vary slightly from one restaurant to another, the one I had was full of figs, pomegranate seeds, apricots and a few chickpeas and was really good.
ECOLIFE VEGAN STORE
A vegan grocery store in the heart of Istanbul
Afterwards dessert I made a brief detour to Ecolife a tiny little vegan store selling mostly organic and eco friendly beauty and cleaning products, but they also have a small range of hard to find vegan items in Turkey such as tofu and soy milk.
Ecolife
Siraselviler cad. Sognali sokak 8/A
http://www.ecolifecihangir.com/
I also got some stuffed vine leaves for dinner.
I was a little sad it was my last day in Istanbul already, I felt as though I was just getting to know my way around without having to stop and look at a map every 5 minutes, and there were still quite a few restaurants I wanted to go to. I face a difficult decision as to where I should go for lunch.
I spent the morning wandering around the Grand bazaar and the Blue mosque.
Inside the blue mosque
Cezerye
I stopped into a Turkish delight shop and bought a few pieces of Cezerye to snack on. It’s a type of chewy and moist Turkish delight that is made from boiled carrots, it had a very strong but sweet carrot flavour and the hazelnuts in it went perfectly.
GOVINDA’S ISTANBUL
I walked back to Taksim and decided on Govinda’s for lunch. I had discovered it by accident on my first night here as I walked around the back streets trying to find my way home. The menu wasn’t the usual Govinda’s style I’ve seen at the other ones around the world, it featured a lot more Turkish dishes as well as a few things I was yet to find vegan versions of, so thought it was worth a visit.
I got there around 1:30pm and was surprised to see it empty. The menu is available in English but only Turkish is spoken by the staff so it took a bit o pointing and trying to find what I wanted on the Turkish menu to get it across.
Lunch at Govinda’s
I ordered the vegan subji (mild veg curry) and vegan kofta. The subji was very flavourful and it was a nice change to have some broccoli instead of the usual capsicum and potatoes I’ve found elsewhere in Istanbul. The kofta was some of the best I’ve ever had, very fresh and not overly greasy like the often are.
Yummy vegan treats from Govinda’s
I also got a Hibiscus tea and some Tahini cookies. The cookies were exceptionally good, they had a crumbly shortbread texture and tasted like a big mouthful of tahini.
Govinda’s Istanbul
ÇELEBI MAH. IPEK SOKAK NO:15 / 1
http://govindaistanbul.com/en/
I was tossing up between a 2nd visit to Parsifal or trying another veg/vegan friendly restaurant around the corner called Klemuri for my last meal in Istanbul. I was still hanging to try the baked pumpkin dessert from Parsifal so it won out in the end, so I was very disappointed when I learned they still didn’t have it :(, they were playing Tom Waits and Nick Cave up quite loudly so that was some consolation at least.
Second visit to Parsifal
This time I had the vegetable sote (sautéed veggies) with rice and some potato, spinach triangles. There are far more exciting dishes on the menu than these two, but they were both tasty, although the triangles could have done with some more herbs for flavour. Parsifal is still one of the best vegan friendly restaurants in Istanbul in my opinion, my only complaint is that they only have 1 vegan dessert.
Berlin
Berlin has a reputation for being somewhat of a vegan paradise, with its huge range of diverse and imaginative cuisines on offer to vegan it’s a reputation that it definitely deserves. My first visit there several years ago left me salivating for more, so, despite all of my favourite vegan discoveries from last time having disappeared, I was excited to return knowing that I would have no trouble finding some news ones. and did I ever.
VEGANZ
After a 5 hour train ride from Warsaw, Poland, I arrived late at night so decided to go straight to my hostel. First thing the next morning I headed over to Veganz, the vegan mini mall containing a vegan shoe store, clothing boutique and a grocery store/ cafe.
The great wall of vegan cheese
While strolling around the store I came across many old favourites plus quite a few things I’ve never seen before including a few types of locally made vegan cheeses.
After doing a lap of the grocery section I made my way to the very appetizing looking cafe section to order.
I got one of the pre-made soba noodle salads and a chocolate filled croissant. Both were pretty good especially the croissant.
Veganz
Schivelbeiner strasse 34
Berlin
My previous trip to Berlin 3 years ago there was another, much smaller vegan store called Veganladen, around the corner from there on Skalitzer strasse I had by chance discovered a little hole in the wall shop where I had the best falafel I have ever had. I did not know the name of the shop or even exactly where it was but I knew I had to try to find it again, so I headed over to Gorlitzer bahn to look.
Unfortunately that falafel place is long gone, but in it’s place was a not quite as amazing falafel place, they did, however have some date stuffed pistachio and sesame biscuits which I couldn’t resist.
VEG FOODWORLD
After a few hours of sight seeing I was getting a little hungry and since I was near Ebeswalder strasse reminiscing over the sadly no more but absolutely amazing Maja’s vegan deli that I discovered on my last visit. I decided to drown my sorrows at the nearby Veg Foodworld. With graffiti art and metal and punk band posters adorning the walls, I felt pretty a home in this grungy little restaurant with a very laid back vibe.
After the croissant and date biscuits I was craving something a little healthier so I got the tofu salad, fries and a mango lassi.
Veg Foodworld
Lynchener strasse 63
Next morning I moved hostels to the other side of town, one of my favourite areas of Berlin Frederichshain. With one of the highest concentrations of vegan friendly restaurants in all of Berlin I was excited to have time to explore the area.
VONER
I’d heard a bit about this place so wanted to check it out for myself, I’m not usually a big fan of mock meats but a vegan doner kebab was too novel an opportunity to miss.
I didn’t take a photo of the actual thing but it looks just like the real thing.
I had an original Voner with herb sauce minus the tomato, and the so called “side” of special pommes (fries) with cheese sauce and fried onions which turned out to be about the size of a main. Both were delicious.
Voner
Boxhagener strasse 56
That evening I went for a stroll around near Warscheur strasse, quite a hip and lively area particularly at night. With a seemingly endless number of restaurants and bars advertising vegan options, I counted at least 30 within a 15 minute walk from my hostel and started making a list of places to go next time.
A lot of the restaurants at the top of my list were closed for the holidays 😦 Oh la la and Cafe Vux being among them, which in a way was a good thing. Instead of just going to the usual and obvious places a vegan tourist in Berlin would go to, I made a it more of an effort to find some of the hidden gems around Frederichshain, and it certainly didn’t take much to find a few.
GOODIES HEALTHY CAFE
I had walked past this busy little cafe earlier in the day and wandered if they had any vegan options, but it wasn’t till a quick glimpse at happycow.net that this was confirmed.
I was still pretty stuffed from Voner so I only got a green smoothie.
I had a lunch time flight to Istanbul, Turkey the next day so I went back to Goodies the next morning and got some take-out.
I had a teriyaki tofu and roast veggie bagel, an orange and blueberry scone and a very delicious soy mango chai.
Goodies
Warschauer strasse 69
CUPCAKES BERLIN
After Goodies I continued on walking around the streets and by chance I came across this cute little cupcake shop.
Vegan treats a plenty at Cupcakes
Krossener Str. 12
Weganska Poland
48 hours of vegan heaven in Warsaw, Poland
I’ve never been one to turn down the opportunity to travel somewhere new, but when I initially booked my flights for a month-long European winter adventure I never expected it would entail a brief visit to Warsaw, Poland. In fact I never really thought of going there before, given that all I knew about Polish cuisine was meat and more meat, but after a brief visit to the vegan travellers bible happycow.net I was assured that I would not starve, in fact what I found was quite the opposite.
Boxing day (day after Christmas) in a predominantly catholic country is never going to that happening, so after a long day of travelling I dumped my bags at my hostel and set out to find some dinner. I had no idea what I would find since I knew most things would be closed for the holidays, but it was not long before I found a kebab truck and ordered a falafel. I forgot to take my camera so no pics, it was just your average falafel, but at 7zl ($1.50) I wasn’t going to complain. A few more blocks later I found a juice bar and then headed over to the Christmas market where there was a stall selling hand cut hot chips.
TEL AVIV DELI
Day 2: I headed to a cosy little veggie place called Tel Aviv deli for breakfast
They have a very vegan friendly all you can eat buffet for both brunch and lunch, but since I had quite a few other restaurants to visit that day I decided to order off the menu. As the name suggests, Tel Aviv serve mostly Israeli/middle eastern food, My friend and I decided to get a mezze platter to share so we could try a bit of everything, I also got a vegan date and cinnamon shake which was amazing, my friend got the raspberry and vanilla one.
Vegan shakes L date and cinnamon, R raspberry and vanilla
Vegan mezze platter
Tel Aviv deli brunch buffet will have to wait till next time
Tel Aviv deli
Poznanska 11, Varsavia PL.
Warsaw, Poland
SMACZNE GO! GREENWAY
After Tel Aviv it was on to the next vegan friendly restauarant which happened to be just around the corner. Smaczne Go! Green way, whilst I still can’t pronounce it correcttly I can tell you that it definitely deserves a mention. It’s 100% vegetarian, with quite a few vegan options, the menu is all in Polish so we initially had a bit of difficulty figuring out what was what but luckily a fellow diner came to the rescue and translated for us. We got a soy cutlet with a side of buckwheat and salad to share. It was super tastey and the portion size was huge, one plate was easily a meal for 2 it cost around 15zl ($3), total bargain.
Soy cutlet plate
Smaczne Go! Greenway
Wspalna 54 @ Hoza, Warsaw
http://www.happycow.net/reviews.php?id=27721
EVERGREEN VEGAN SHOP
One of the most interesting things I noticed in Warsaw is that unlike most other cities almost all the vegan restaurants are in the CBD, Evergreen, unfortunately was not. What initially seemed like a straight forward train ride to the outskirts of Warsaw where Evergreen is located turned into a bewildering adventure through the residential suburbs of Warsaw. Thankfully it’s a very friendly city and people are only to happy to offer assistance to 2 confused looking tourists standing at a train station staring at a map. So after 2 hours on various buses and trains not knowing exactly where we were or even if Evergreen was open we finally stumbled into the shop in a fit of laughter and sheer relief, much to the amusement of the lady behind the counter.
It was definitely worth the effort to get there, while it’s only a small shop in what is essentially the front room of someone’s house (they’re mostly an on line store), it was packed with all kinds of vegan goodies I’ve never seen before. There was a large case with at least 10 different kinds of vegan cheeses, most of which are made in Czech Republic, lots of different kinds of spreads, pates and European style fake meats, baking supplies and chocolate. I walked away with a large bag of new vegan products to try.
FYI: Evergreen is located near Ursus station, the Polish translation of Ursus is NOT Ursynow, that is in a very different part of town. I’d recommend getting a taxi if your Polish is not up to scratch.
Evergreen vegan shop
2 armii wajska ska polskiego
LOVING HUT
One of the few 100% vegan restaurants in Warsaw, (there’s another 1 or 2 opening soon, yay!) we went here for dinner as it was right around the corner from our hostel. The menu was typical of Loving Hut, lots of tofu, fake meats and the usual TV in the corner pumping out Ching Hai related vegan messages. The menu is mostly in Polish but all the menu items have pictures next to them so ordering was easy. I got the tofu seaweed, my friend got a salad which both arrived less than 5 minutes after ordering, it was nice, not amazing by any means but it was fresh, healthy and like most things in Poland it was cheap.
Loving Hut
Al Jana Pawla II 41A
Warsaw
VEG MIASTO
My final day in Warsaw came way to soon, I had an afternoon train to Berlin to catch so I had to choose where to eat wisely. I went back to Tel Aviv for another date & cinnamon shake then went back to the hostel to grab my things before going to one of the veggie restaurants I was most excited about: Veg Miasto. It had been closed for the holidays so I was glad it reopened just in time for me to make it there.
From the outside Veg Miasto looks like an abandoned, graffitied squat, it rather reminded me of one of my favourite old vegan hang spots in London, Pogo cafe, so I couldn’t wait to get inside and check it out. Unfortunately I had to get my food to go to ensure I made my train and by the time I had a chance to eat it, it didn’t look that crash hot anymore but it was delicious! I had dumplings stuffed with tofu, apple, orange and cardamom with veggie cutlets and rice on the side and a banana, wanut smoothie. Veg Miasto, was definitely a fave of mine in Warsaw, it’s almost entirely vegan, has a great atmosphere and a creative menu, it’s top of the list for next time for sure.
Veg Miasto
Chmielna 9A, Warsaw
https://www.facebook.com/vegemiasto
If Warsaw is anything to go by, Poland is definitely an up and coming place for vegan cuisine, the scene may still be pretty small at the moment but what it lacks in quantity it more than makes up for in quality. Warsaw, Poland has definitely earned its place on my ever growing list of places I want to go back to. Next stop Berlin, Germany.
La Panella bakery
A friend told me about this place several months ago but I only just managed to get out there. Preston is a bit of a trek for me as I live east but it was such nice weather I decided to cycle out there and figured a bit of exercise wouldn’t go astray either.
From the outside La Panella is pretty unassuming looking, if it wasn’t for all the Ching Hai photos and signs adorning the walls would never know it was so vegan friendly.
I was quite surprised at just how many vegan things there were, about 95% vegan. The only things they didn’t have vegan options for were the croissants 😦
I went a little overboard but hey I don’t come here every day. I got quite a few things and it still only came to less than $7.
There was only one of these left in the case so that was a good enough excuse for me. It’s a chocolate covered jam filled “doughnut”. It got a little messed up in the paper bag but it was still ok, not quite what I expected. It was more just spongy white bread with a doughnut filling and topping but it was still tasty and at $1.40 (and it was massive) I’m not going to complain.
I also got a vege pasty, this for me was the pick of everything that I tried. It had lightly spiced mixed vegetables wrapped in light flaky pastry. It only cost $1.80 and was soo good I was tempted to go back for another one.
In my opinion scrolls should be more like pastry than bread which this apple scroll wasn’t. It was a bit plain and boring and lacked much flavour, a bit of cinnamon would have been good with it.
Lastly I got a chocolate walnut slice. It was really nice, very solid with nice crunchy bits of crushed biscuits and walnuts mixed through it.
Whilst La Panella doesn’t quite make it into my list of top vegan bakeries ( Back to Eden Portland, Babycakes New York , Sweetpea Portland and Flying Apron GF bakery in Seattle) it’s still worth a trip out especially since there aren’t any other bakeries this vegan friendly in Melbourne or probably Australia for that matter. GF option are completely non existent so take note. They had vegan cheese rolls too but I have to leave something for my next visit. The pies looked worth a try too.
Rating: 4/5
La Panella 465 High st, Preston
Open 7 days
Gasometer
So I went to vegan drinks last night. Had a great night there, ate way too much as usual but although the crowd was a lot smaller than last time it was a good mix of people. Gasometer always seems to be pretty packed and rightly so, with an interesting mix of hipsters, professionals, the odd hippy and a lot of tattooed punky types, it’s always good for people watching.
I just had chips last time I came here not realizing how awesome the vegan menu is so I definitely didn’t want to make that mistake again.
Unfortunately I wasn’t very hungry despite having had a small lunch in preparation for my visit. After much deliberation I finally decided on the Smoked tofu strips.
The photo doesn’t really do them much justice. The flavour of these is amazing, who would of thought tofu could ever taste like that! The smokey barbecue flavour is pretty intense ans some friends thought they were way to spicy to handle but it didn’t bother me in the slightest. They sauce they come with is really nice too, think it was a vegan aoli. At $12 they aren’t the best value item on the menu but they’re super tasty and quite filling which is all that matters.
I’d been thinking about the pumpkin pie for dessert then someone pointed out the specials board with 3 other amazing sounding vegan dessert options, how can one choose when so unused to that many options? Anyway I ended up sticking to my original plan and ordered the pumpkin pie. Someone else ordered the raspberry lemonade cake so I got to have a taste OMG! it was a monster, 4 layers high totalling about 15cm served with vegan cream.
I’ve eaten plenty of pumpkin pie before but I think this one takes the cake. It was so cinnamony and moist and the gingerbread ice cream that came with it was amazing in it’s own right, if only I could get the recipe.
Gasometer is definitely worth a visit and a good place to take your non vegan friends for drinks and food since there’s something there for everyone.
Rating: 4.5/5
Gasometer 484 Smith st, Collingwood
Open: 7 days usual pub times
Bo De Trai
I decided to do my weekly food shop out at Footscray this week so thought I’d try out Bo De Trai for lunch. It’s all vegan Vietnamese and owned and run by a buddhist temple.
I got rice paper rolls for an entrée. The plate still had cling wrap on it when it was put in front of me. Is it that hard to take it off before you serve it to customers? Anyway they were nice, but not amazing, but quite filling and reasonably priced, at $6.
Bo De Trai have quite a lot f mock meat dishes on their menu, not really my thing so I ordered the stuffed bean curd. It was large chunks of deep fried tofu stuffed with a spicy tofu, mushroom mixture on a bed of chinese cabbage with soy sauce. I got rice as well which was extra. Like the entrée, it was nice but not amazing.
They musn’t get many white people going in there as one of the ladies working came over and asked me quite curiously why I’d chosen a vegetarian restaurant to eat in, she seemed quite amazed when I explained I’d been vegetarian my whole life. They were all friendly although their english is somewhat limited. The very eccentrically dressed guy at the counter where you pay just mumbled and pointed at the price.
If your in the area and wanting a decent feed or sick of Lentil as Anything I’d recommend it but don’t expect anything fancy, it’s tasty and cheap but very simple.
Rating: 3/5
Bo De Trai
94 Hopkins st, Footscray
Open daily 12pm-10pm
Disco Beans
Disco Beans! Just the name alone makes me want to eat here. After many a failed attempt to come here I finally made it. It’s not that exciting looking from the street but once inside, the japanese chic decor is fun and colourful. Although it’s not vegan(they have some seafood on the menu), everything on the menu can be veganized.
In my anticipation I purposefully had a really small lunch so was starving by the time we ate and forgot to take photos of most of the dishes, oops!
I got the fried tempeh with soy mayo for a starter which was pretty nice.
I had quite a hard time deciding what to get for a main, everything sounded so good, but eventually settled on the Disco Don which apparently means “on rice” as the waitress informed us ( the don part not the disco). There was rice mixed with a few other grains like quinoa, amaranth etc on the bottom then a few slices of fried marinated tofu, some lettuce and vegies with seaweed and sunflower seeds on top. I got it with a black sesame sauce instead of the tomato one it came with. The portion sizes aren’t much to get excited about (they’re pretty small) but so so tasty.
We got a plate of the vegan sushi to share too. Not sure exactly what was in it, some kind of mock meat chicken nugget type thing. Was nice and pretty filling.
For dessert I opted for the special, chocolate banana cake with vanilla ice cream and blueberry sauce. Yum yum yum!
I thought the presentation of everything was really well done, the staff were friendly and helpful, the food was was fresh and very tasty, the mains could be a tiny bit bigger, but overall it was worth the wait.
Rating: 4/5
238 High st, Northcote
Open: Tues- Sun 6pm-9:30pm
Trippy Taco
Since winter has pretty well set in now, I’ve had a craving for mexican, so where does a vegan go when so far away from Mexico? There is only one place and that is of course Trippy Taco!
100% vegetarian and everything except for 1 or 2 things can be made vegan upon request, GF options are also plentiful.
I got some of the chilli fries. They reminded me a lot of Macca’s fries, maybe it was just the way they were cut. The seasoning was really nice and wasn’t too over done, just a guess but I think it was just paprika and salt but anyway it was good.
I also got the Tofu asada burrito minus the salsa. It was super tasty, packed with cubes of smokey flavoured, spicy chargrilled tofu, avocado, lettuce and a few other things I’m forgetting. It was really filling and left me wanting to order another one even though I wasn’t hungry.
For Mexican Trippy Taco is about as good as it gets in Australia, the staff are friendly and helpful, they have vegan cheese for and additional 50 cents and the place has a nice atmosphere.
They will be moving around the corner to bigger premises in Gertrude st in the near future which will be good as there isn’t much room for seating.
Rating: 4/5
48 Smith st, Collingwood
Open: Mon, Tues 11am-4pm, Wed- Sun 11am-9pm
Vegan travelling adventures 