The Bruges Vegan

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Yummie food @Vegan music festival Ieperfest

Published by trudi_bruges

Ieperfest is a 3-day hardcore music festival, just outside Ypres (Ieper, 75km from Bruges, Belgium). Since day one, more than 20 years ago, all the food at Ieperfest is vegan!

So we went to check it out on day1! To listen to some bands (a trip down memory lane for one of us!), hang out, relax, and get a general impression of the atmosphere. But especially to taste the vegan food! It’s pretty rare to find vegan food at a music festical, so to have all catering fully vegan (and most of it organic too) is really extraordinary! Not having to ask whether the fries are baked in vegetable oil, being able to order food without worrying about hidden ingredients! What a relief! And plenty of choice too!
Vegan food catering at Ieperfest:

Ieperfest catering

De Frietketel

Ieperfest catering

Dolce Sophia

Viva Vega Loving Hut Express

Just like your mom

Koek & Zopie (thanks for the photo K&Z:-)

This is what we ate at Ieperfest:

kebab & Chili burger, 6€ each, Just like your mom

pizza with mushrooms and blue ‘cheese’, 3€
Ieperfest catering

Fries with tartare 3€ (+1€ plate) De Frietketel

fries with torture 3€ (+1€ plate)
De Frietketel

blueberry Vanilla cake, 3€ (+1€ plate)
Dolce Sophia

Tiramisu, 4€ Viva Vega Loving Hut Express

tiramisu with speculoos and soy whip, 4€
Viva Vega Loving Hut Express

For refreshments, there’s of course plenty of beer available, but it’s nice you can also drink organic apple or orange juice (2€). And Koek & Zopie offers a variety of organic coffees.

Unfortunately, the rain came pooring down several times, turning the festival grounds into mud bads. Be prepared for some slipping and sliding!

slippery slopes …

despite the mud, we managed to stay pretty clean!

Fortunately, there are enough places to shelter from the rain: two large music tents next to the main stage, the Bar and the More than Music Hall where you can watch documentaries, listen to and particpate in debates, meet several NGO’s and buy merchandise (T-shirts, pins, stickers).

Bought this T-shirt (15€), from this shop: Freeandwild.
Which I will be wearing to spread the vegan message, on the back of our tandem, cycling through Flanders Fields 😉 Wave, honk, or say hi! if you spot us!

Oat raisin banana waffles

Published by trudi_bruges

These are rather savoury waffles, but sweet nonetheless. These vegan waffles are without normal sugar, but made with maple syrup.

Oat banana raisin waffles

Ingredients

(makes 5 double waffles – like the one in the photo)

130g regular flour
2 ts baking powder
1 ts baking soda
1 1/4 ts ground cinnamon
1/4 ts ground nutmeg
1/2 ts salt
90g small rolled oats
1 ripe banana
350ml soy milk
3tbs maple syrup
3 tbs canola oil
115g raisins

Ingredients oat raisin banana waffles

Making oat raisin banana waffles

Grease the waffle iron with a little bit of canola oil. Preheat the waffle iron.
In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and oats.
In another large bowl, mash the banana well with a fork. Mix the banana with the wet ingredients: soy milk, maple syrup and vegetable oil, till only very small lumps of banana left.
Mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients. Fold in the raisins.
Bake the waffles according to the instructions of your waffle iron (in our case, being 6 minutes on the nearest highest heating level)

The dry ingredients

wet ingredients

oat raisin banana waffles batter

The recipe for these vegan waffles is based on one in Vegan with a Vengeance, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz
In this cookbook, it says this recipe makes 12 regular waffles (or 4-6 Belgian waffles). We could make 10 regular waffles with these ingredients (= 5 double ones, meaning 10 singles ones of 7×4).
I wouldn’t make Belgian sized waffles with this recipe, since Belgian waffles (which are actually called Brussels waffles in Belgium) normally have a very light texture, which these oat raisin waffles don’t have.
In the first baked waffles, the oats were very distinct and hard to chew. After having soaked in the batter for a while, the oats in the baked waffles became softer and easier to chew.

#22 Restaurant Bali, Wommelgem ****

Published by trudi_bruges

Restaurant review #22 – Bali is an Indonesian restaurant (obviously) in Wommelgem (about 7 km east of Antwerp). It had been on our ‘to visit list’ for many years (we love Indonesian food!), but for many reasons we never managed to get there before. One of those reasons being the restaurant not being open for lunch (usually the time we are in the area). There are plenty of Indonesian restaurants in The Netherlands (given the historical link with the country), but they are a rarity in Belgium. So we were glad we finally managed to get to restaurant Bali in Wommelgem.

Interior, Bali Wommelgem

Besides other vegan items on the menu, there’s also a vegetarian rice table for 25€ per person (minimum of 2 persons), which can be veganised. We asked to leave the item with egg out of the rice table, which was no problem. We also checked whether the ‘fried banana’ (often included in Indonesian rice tables) didn’t contain any egg. The waiter was very friendly and made no problem to go check in the kitchen.

Vegetarian items (possibly vegan) on the menu

Some vegan items among the vegetarian dishes on the menu

Dishes of the rice table

As a starter, we got a homemade vegetable loempia, with tofu and finely sliced pieces of mushroom. Very nice.

homemade vegetable loempia, with tofu and finely sliced pieces of mushroom

The rice table followed shortly, and we even got another dish replacing the egg dish. See the list of all items on the photo above. A little warning: the sambal they serve is the real thing! It’s very hot, so be carefull!

Rice table

rice table

We loved it!

Overall: Very friendly and helpfull staff, clean, light decor, although with some kitschy decorations.
Very nice rice table.
The restaurant is located along a very busy road and doesn’t look very attractive from the outside. But don’t be deterred by the front facade. The food is great!

Bali, location
Autolei 217
2160 Wommelgem (near Antwerp)
03/321 11 11

restaurant Bali Wommelgem

interior (with unfortunately also some stuffed frogs …)

See our lists of restaurants where vegans are welcome in the menu section of The Bruges vegan! List restaurants in Bruges and around Bruges

#21 Le Pain Quotidien, Bruges **

Published by trudi_bruges

Restaurant review #21 – Chances are you’ve probably been in one of the many establishments worldwide of Le Pain Quotidien. Or at least you’ve seen one of them! There is also one in the heart of Bruges, near the central market place and the Burg. Pain Quotidien is French for Daily Bread. They sell a wide variety of bread over the counter, and you can also sit down for breakfast, lunch or just a coffee with some baked goodies. The restaurant always has one large communal table (for 10 people or more), but also other tables for 2 if you want to have a more private conversation. There’s always something vegan available and vegan items are clearly marked on the menu card. Le Pain Quotidien confirmed to us that the bread served at the table is always vegan. Most of the breads sold over the counter are also vegan, but the raisin bread (kramiek), sugar bread and brioche are non-vegan.

UPDATE – see below We were at Le Pain Quotidien in Bruges for lunch on a Friday, and the place was packed. It was a beautifull sunny day though, and there was still room at the terrace in the back of the restaurant. I was happy to be able to sit outside, as the indoor place was very loud and crowded. The terrace has one large communal table and a couple of tables for 2.

We ordered these:

small bowl of soup of the day (always vegan; 4,50€)
a quinoa salad, with grilled zucchini and eggplant, hummus, with a caviar of red beets and lentils (14,90€)
and the Oriental dish: tahini, hummus of red beet and lentils with lemon zest, with salad and sundried tomatoes (14,10 €).

small bowl of soup of the day, 4,50€

quinoa salad, with grilled zucchini and eggplant, hummus, with a caviar of red beets and lentils, 14,90€

quinoa salad, with grilled zucchini and eggplant, hummus, with caviar of red beets and lentils, 14,90€

Oriental dish: tahini, hummus of red beet and lentils with lemon zest, with salad and sundried tomatoes, 14,10 €

The food was good, fresh, and came with a variety of breads, with lost of prepacked dairybutter on the side though (although we had explicitly asked for vegan, and these dishes are marked on the menu as being vegan). We returned them and asked whether there wasn’t any vegan butter, but that wasn’t available. Service was rather slow (very friendly though), and seemed a bit chaotic (we could overhear mixed up orders on other tables).
All in all, nice food, but a bit overpriced for being a rather ‘light snack’ lunch.
Being a nice summer day, we were happy to sit outside! Pity about the (near) dead plants on the terrace. Ouch!

next to our table …

There is a “Le Pain Quotidien” in Antwerp, Bruges, Brussels, Charleroi, Ghent, Hasselt, Knokke-Heist, Leuven, Luik, Mechelen, Mons, Namen, Nijvel, Waterloo, Waver and Wemmel. Le Pain Quotidien is open from 7AM, so you can also get breakfast. No late dinners though as it closes around 7 in the evening.

Le Pain Quotidien, location
Philip Stockstraat 21
8000 Brugge / Bruges
+32 50 33 60 50

UPDATE 2017: CLOSED

See our lists of restaurants where vegans are welcome in the menu section of The Bruges vegan! List restaurants in Bruges and around Bruges

On birds, CD’s and windmills in our vegetable garden

Published by trudi_bruges

I love birds in the garden! I don’t mind sharing our produce from the vegetable garden with them, but I don’t want them to eat of all of the peas, lettuce, bean shoots, and other crops!

Because of the risk of birds getting entangled, we’re no fans of bird netting. But I’ve found other ways to keep our vegetables safe. Put some windmills here and there (they sell these windmills in toy shops and shops at the beach, and also in some garden centers). Save your defect CD’s and DVD’s and hang plenty to dangle in the vegetable garden. The flickering lights apparently deter the birds. And when there’s a slight breeze, the somewhat 30 discs tickering away against the chesnut fence produce a relaxing and meditating atmosphere.

Not 100%proof, but works good enough for us. And for the birds 🙂

windmills where we seeded the peas

windmills near the peas

CD’s all around the vegetable garden

#20 Restaurant Lan Na Thai, Mechelen **

Published by trudi_bruges

Restaurant review #20 – Lan Na Thai is a Thai restaurant in the center of Mechelen (Malines). It’s about a big 5 minute walk from the market place. (** See NOTE at bottom of post)
We made a reservation for a Saturday evening, at 7PM. Good thing we made a reservation, because the restaurant soon filled, and the owner had to refuse several patrons. It’s not a big restaurant (I’m guessing about 20 to 25 seats) and tables are placed pretty close to each other.
Update – see below –

The menu on their website mentions several vegetarian dishes separately, of which most seem to be vegan. We asked whether the vegetarian dishes we ordered did not contain any dairy or egg, and the waitress confirmed – although seemingly a bit confused by our question at first – that they didn’t. Nonetheless we did get a bowl of prawn crackers as a free appetizer, not really reassuring. Let’s hope the staff in the kitchen was more knowledgeable (one is of course never 100% sure when dining out that everything served is vegan).

We had these dishes at Lan Na Thai:

Tom Yam Hed (soup with mushrooms, lemonjuice and chili), 6,50€
Phaenaeng Had, Tao-Hoe (sauce from red curry paste and peanuts, with mushrooms and tofu), 14,20€ with fried rice, 1€
Gaeng Phed Sapparod, Tao-Hoe (Red chilli curry paste with coconutmilk, pineapple, tofu and mushrooms), 15€ with rice noodles, 1,50€

soup with mushrooms, lemonjuice and chili, 6,50€

Sauce from red curry paste and peanuts, with mushrooms and tofu, 14,20€ with fried rice, 1€

Red chilli curry paste with coconutmilk, pineapple, tofu and mushrooms, 15€ with rice noodles, 1,50€

Our overall impressions: Service rather clumsy (dropping things, unattentfull and for longer times not present in the restaurant room). Bit outdated interior and when the resto is full, it’s really crowded.
Food was good. The dishes were not nearly as spicy as indicated on the menu, but we liked it nonetheless. A bit more expensive compared to other Thai restaurants which we have visited over the years.

Lan Na Thai, location
Frederik de Merodestraat 58
2800 Mechelen
015/211.826

** NOTE Update – Jan 2015: we have recently been told by someone who visited this restaurant that Lan Na Thai apparently uses fish sauce in most vegetarian dishes. So be warned!

** Update: reportedly closed Feb 2018.

vegetarian dishes, Lan Na thai, mechelen

See our lists of restaurants where vegans are welcome in the menu section of The Bruges vegan! List restaurants in Bruges and around Bruges

#19 Restaurant Lombardia, Antwerp **

Published by trudi_bruges

Restaurant review #19 – Restaurant Lombardia is a well know place in Antwerp. (Update – SEE NOTE BELOW) Despite the announcement on their website (“Our menu card is more than 80% vegetarian, so we can proudly call ourselves a vegetarian restaurant“), Lombardia is not a vegetarian restaurant, since they also serve fish (tuna) and meat. They do have vegan and gluten free options standardly available. It is only open till 6 PM, so no dinner. There’s also the option of take-away.

Lombardia, Antwerp

We’ve been here a couple of times over the years. Last time was some weeks ago. We actually wanted to try out raw food restaurant Eten Vol Leven, but unfortunately that was closed.

Lombardia, full of colour

The Lombardia experience

Least that can be said is that Lombardia’s interior is very colourful.
The walls are decorated with scraps and clippings from magazines and newspapers, often boasting about the restaurant or its owner, and enlarged printed tweets from (pseudo-) famous people mentioning their visit to wonderful Lombardia. It’s a chaotic patchwork of different bits and pieces glued together.
The place is jammed packed with different types of chairs and small tables, and especially when several tables next to you are also occupied, you can practically eat along from the plate of your neighbour.

To our taste, it’s a bit messy, disorderly and very presumptuous. Together with the fact that the lady of the house can practically bite your nose off (don’t sit there!! you’re sitting in my way! I can’t pass properly!!), a visit to Lombardia in our minds doesn’t really stand for a joyful relaxing experience.

Menu Lombardia

Food

But Lombardia’s asset is: they do have vegan food available in a city that otherwise doesn’t appear to be very vegan friendly. And most of it is supposedly organic.
The plastified menu cards on the tables have had their best times though and are missing bits and pieces around the edges. This also means what’s on offer at Lombardia hasn’t changed much over the years. Vegan items are clearly labelled with double V.

We like the fact that there are freshly pressed juices available. On this visit, I had a pineapple, mango & strawberry juice (4,20€). Very nice, but expensive for a rather small glass.

pineapple, mango strawberry juice, 4,20€

We had the small size soup of the day (said to be always vegan), which was chervill (4,30€). A nice starter.

Soup of the day – Chervil, small (4,30€)

Our main order followed quickly: the Mexican burger (with guacamole and falafel) (12,73€) and the Japanese love burger (with tofu, black sesame seeds and cheese) (not standardly vegan, but veganised upon request, coming with vegan cheese) (10,46€). Not bad, but also not particularly causing any spectaculair sensations on our taste buds. The size of the stuffing also entails that you better eat these with knife and fork, trying to eat them ‘hamburgerwise’ is a bit unhandy.

Mexican burger, 12,73€

Japanese love burger, with vegan cheese, 10,46€

There’s only one vegan dessert on the menu card: vegan banana with chocolate, ice cream and whip. A huge portion for one, but nothing culinairy exciting (a simple sliced banana?) and rather expensive (6,40€).

banana chocolate dessert, 6,40€

Coffee (2,42€) came with a cookie and little cup of milk. When asked which cup of milk it was, it was said to be cow milk. Although we had specifically asked for vegan when ordering the soup and burgers, we were told we should always repeat it with everything we order, also the coffee. I presumed the cookie might not be vegan then too, so left it.

every thorn in the desert looks like a rose

Our overall impression of Lombardia: disorderly and messy, expensive fast food (tasty enough though), often unfriendly and not that much vegan on offer. Nonetheless Lombardia is often mentionened as the place to be for vegans in Antwerp. I guess the saying “every thorn in the desert looks like a rose” applies here very well. Maybe it’s one of those places where there’s no in between: you either love it or you hate it, but we’re not lovin’ it.
I guess my tweet won’t make it to the Lombardia wall.

Lombardia, location
Lombardenvest 78
2000 Antwerpen
03/233.68.19

UPDATE: Reported Closed July 2018

Our lunch on a previous visit to Lombardia

See our lists of restaurants where vegans are welcome in the menu section of The Bruges vegan! List restaurants in Bruges and around Bruges

#18 – Restaurant Jinso, Amsterdam (Nl) ***

Published by trudi_bruges

Restaurant review #18 – Restaurant and loungebar Jinso is located outside the city center of Amsterdam, in the area around the Amsterdam Arena, The Heineken Music Hall and the Ziggo Dome. The restaurant is only open on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, but whenever there are special events in the area (eg concerts), the restaurant also offers an all you can eat buffet and a restricted ‘event menu‘ to choose from.

Jinso, Arena Boulevard

The special event menulist also mentions a vegetarian dish with tofu. We e-mailed in advance to check whether this dish was baked in vegetable oil and if it didn’t contain any animal ingredients, got an affirmative reply and made a reservation for 5PM. Pretty early for dinner, but we didn’t want to be late for the concert in nextdoor Ziggo Dome!

Jinso is situated in a very big and spacious round-shaped building in the center of the Amsterdam Boulevard, just across Mediamarkt and Decathlon. You cannot miss it.
We were seated in the upstairs area, which gives you a nice overview of the restaurant and the boulevard. Our meal followed quickly, and was a nice dish with rice, vegetables, mushrooms, cashews and tofu, in a jelly-starch like sauce. Nothing too fancy, but freshly prepared and tasty nonetheless. All in all a bit expensive (14,40€), but I guess you also pay for the comfort of being just a footstep away from the eventhalls.

Rice with vegetables, tofu and cashews, 14,40€

We didn’t really look whether there were any vegan desserts on offer. Had a cup of coffee afterwards, which again came with a cup of cow milk, and presumably a non-vegan cookie. Classic lapse, which we’ve encountered in so many restaurants.

the classic milk cup

Jinso
Arena Boulevard 155
1101 Amsterdam Zuidoost
+31 20 697 4178

See our lists of restaurants where vegans are welcome in the menu section of The Bruges vegan! List restaurants in Bruges and around Bruges

#17 Restaurant Grenoble, Sint-Niklaas *

Published by trudi_bruges

Restaurant review #17 – There are some reviews you wish you didn’t have to write. This is one of them.

Grenoble is a vegetarian restaurant in Sint-Niklaas, a city in Eastern Flanders, about 75 km from Bruges. The restaurant is located close to the market place of Sint-Niklaas. Restaurant Grenoble does not have an a la carte menu, just soup of the day (2,50€) a plat du jour (small size 10€ or regular size 11€) and dessert (2,50€). We telephoned beforehand to check whether we could get a vegan menu, and that was said to be no problem. We made a reservation for lunch at 1.30 PM on a Sunday (an earlier time wasn’t possible, they were fully booked for lunch).

vegetarian restaurant Grenoble, Sint-Niklaas

Sunday lunch

We were there at 1.30 PM sharp (by that time quite hungry!) and the restaurant was still nearly full. Most people had finished lunch though. We asked the waiter what the soup of the day was, and it was said to be “vegetable soup”. I wouldn’t expect anything else than vegetable soup in a vegetarian restaurant, would have been nice if he could have specified what soup it was though…
I ordered the small size portion of the plat du jour, my partner the regular version.

Soup of the day, 2,50€

plat du jour, small portion, 10€

plat du jour, large portion, 11€

with salad on the side

Although the restaurant was running empty by that time, it took till after 2PM before we got our main dish. The main dish was a collection of boiled (or steamed) and raw vegetables, some fried cubed tofu and a portion grains. The regular portion came with the salad on the side, instead of on the dish itself.
The dishes excelled in their lack of flavour. Unfortunately nothing available on the table to spice things up a bit: no oil nor soy sauce, no veganaise, no salt nor pepper or other seasoning.

We asked what dessert was, but it was non-vegan chocolate cake. They didn’t offer us an alternative (although we had given prior notice that we wanted a vegan menu). So no dessert, but by that time and after the disappointing meal, we wanted to leave anyway.

vegetarian restaurant Grenoble, opening hours

Sad experience

We were thoroughly disappointed. This was one of the saddest restaurant experiences we ever had. Dull. No flavours. ‘Rabbit food’ came to mind. And the whole restaurant was embedded in a kind of ‘goat-wool-sock’ atmosphere (a Dutch seventies term to refer to hippies) in a decor that didn’t seem to have been refreshed much over the years.
In our opinion certainly not good advertising for vegan cuisine. Definitely not the kind of place you would invite meat-eating friends to come along and discover the culinary richness of vegan meals.
We hadn’t seen restaurant Grenoble discussed on vegan facebook groups or other online fora before. Now we know why.

Grenoble, location
Kokkelbeekstraat 34
9100 Sint-Niklaas
03/296.30.10

market and city hall, Sint-Niklaas

See our lists of restaurants where vegans are welcome in the menu section of The Bruges vegan! List restaurants in Bruges and around Bruges

#16 Restaurant De Bron, Bruges ***

Published by trudi_bruges

Restaurant review #16 – De Bron is the only vegetarian restaurant in Bruges. It is located in the south of the city center, near the Beguinage and the Minnewaterpark .
It is only open during weekdays for lunch, and offers a soup of the day and a plat du jour, which can be ordered in different sizes: baby, mini, medium and super size. Main dishes are veganized upon request. Desserts are mainly non-vegan, except for the soy vanilla pudding. There are also fresly pressed juices available. Most of what’s served in De Bron is organic.
They also offer take-away lunch (orders must be placed before 11.30).

vegetarian restaurant De Bron, Bruges

Price list

Pricelist

Lunch

We have been to the Bron several times over the last couple of years. On our last visit in March 2014, we had the soup of the day (2€), which happened to be vegan that day (carrot and chard). I went for the mini-size plat du jour (10,5€), my partner had the medium size dish (11€), which is already a fairly big portion. The plat du jour mostly consists of grains and a selection of different warm vegetables added with raw vegetables (a salad). We explicitly asked for the plat du jour to be veganized, which was said to be no problem. On past visits, we have noticed that the non-vegan items on the plat du jours were sometimes simply replaced by an extra bowl of rice or potatoes.
The vanille soy pudding for dessert (2,5€) was a huge portion, but conspicously seemed to resemble the premade soy-vanille pudding available in shops by Alpro or Provamel.

drinks

soup of the day

dessert: vanilla pudding

Plat du jour, mini size, December 2013

plat du jour, medium size, March 2014

Limited options at De Bron

Both time and culinary wise, De Bron has limited options: it’s not open for dinner, nor in the weekends, and you can only get the plat du jour as a main dish. On a positive note, the variabel size of dish is ideal if you are not too hungry or on the other hand have a huge appetite.

Vegetarian restaurant De Bron offers what we like to consider ‘old-school’ vegetarian dishes: the stereotypical ‘plat du jour’ vegetarian meal, with lots of different preparations on one plate. I tend to believe this helps feed the prejudice among non-vegetarians that cooking vegetarian (or vegan) is very time consuming, given you need to prepare all those different recipes!
The food is fresh, healthy and organic for sure, but it’s no gastronomic experience. And rather blend to our tastebuds, and requires a lot of spicing up (taking full advantage of the veganaise, soy-sause and herbal salt standardly available on the table!).
Nonetheless, De Bron has been a given name in Bruges for years (also being the only vegetarian restaurant in town), and is always full house. It is however not possible to make a reservation for 2 people and as a party of 2 sitting at a table for 4 you may forcibly have to share the table with two strangers (which maybe you don’t mind, but is not quite enjoyable if you want to have a private or romantic conversation).

All in all: limited choices (only plat du jour, restricted opening hours, 1 vegan dessert), no gastronomic experience, but not all that expensive (especially considering other prices in touristic Bruges) and fair value for money.

De Bron, location
Katelijnestraat 82
8000 Brugge / Bruges
050/33.45.26