All posts filed under: events

Lots of food, people and sunshine! Vegan Summerfest 3, Ghent

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At the end of August we went to Vegan Summerfest in Ghent, organised by Belgian organisation BE Vegan. We were also at the previous editions in 2015 and 2016. The location was the same as last year, in the Artcube, at the edge of Ghent. The day started a bit cloudy, but afterwards there was glorious sunshine in the afternoon (even left me a bit sunburnt!). It was a lovely Summer day. I made a short clip for IG from inside and outside. This was when it was still very calm, around midday. In the afternoon, the outside square was filled with people and huge lines queuing at most stalls. Again, as previous years, a huge turn out! View this post on Instagram Vegan Summerfest #ghent #bevegan #vegansofbelgium #vsf #vsf2017 #vegansummerfest A post shared by trudi_brugesvegan (@trudi_brugesvegan) on Aug 20, 2017 at 7:15am PDT A lot of familiar brands and products at the stalls, but also some new discoveries. Upon entering the hall, we immediately queued at Bakkerij Frimout, to buy about a dozen of Danish …

A look inside La Vie est Belle, Oostkamp. Organic vegetarian company.

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La Vie est Belle is a Belgian company that produces organic vegetarian and vegan burgers. They are located in Oostkamp, which is just outside of Bruges. A couple of months ago, there was a press conference and reception for the launch of the RizRiz burger, a new product of La Vie est Belle. The RizRiz burger was launched to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the company. Unfortunately we could not attend this event, but we were invited to come take a look inside La Vie est Belle in Oostkamp. An invitation which we gladly accepted, as it is not every day one gets a chance to look behind the curtains! La Vie est Belle started as a small family bussiness run from the home kitchen, making rice balls and vegetarian burgers for friends and family. The founders, had experimented with vegetarian cooking and organic farming in Africa, more or less out of necesssity. The company steadily grew, together with the rise and expansion of organic shops in Belgium, and fuelled by the demand for vegetarian products …

A visit to foodtruck festival Barrio Cantina, Bruges

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Barrio Cantina is a Foodtruck festival, taking place in several Belgian cities throughout Spring. After weekends in Ostend, Ghent and Antwerp, Bruges is the final stop. We had never visited Barrio Cantina before (it’s been organised every year since a couple of years), and it is not a vegan festival. But we wanted to discover if any of the foodtrucks offered vegan food at all! It was a glorious sunny weekend, and we decided to bicyle to Bruges with our tandem (a pic at the bottom of this post). The path along the canal Ghent-Bruges is a nice cycling trip (see a clip on my IG here). The foodtrucks are stationned at the Koning Albert I park, which is in between the station and the city center, so a lot of tourists pass through the festival (the same park where two years ago the photo exhibit The Forgotten Animal took place). Admission is free. There were rails provided for bicycles,  and parked our tandem there. We first took a tour of all the foodtrucks, to …

GIVEAWAY! 3 year blog anniversary and 100 resto reviews

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Three years ago, at the end of 2013 between Christmas and New Year, I started The Bruges Vegan Blog. I had already been blogging in Dutch on Graswortels (previously called Veggieleven), but decided to start an English blog to share restaurant reviews and other things vegan related with people from around the world. 3 YEAR BLOG OVERVIEW In those three years, I have published 231 posts on The Bruges Vegan. A lot of those posts are restaurant reviews. But there are also other posts about our garden, homemade meals in our kitchen, reviews from events like vegan festivals or lectures, and some posts about animal rights. The posts about Remembrance day (Armistice day, but not for the animals and The animal do not want our medals and statues) were shared more than thousands of times. I also posted some shop review (30 posts) and posts about vegan products like vegan caviar or Danish pastry. It is rather a coincidence that the 3 year blog-anniversary coincides with the milestone of 100 restaurant reviews (number 100 is published after this post). That …

Inspired by the Intersectionality Conference at VegFest, London

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A couple of weeks ago, at the end of October 2016, we went to VegFest in London. This was a two day event at the Olympia Conference center, on Hammersmith Road (east London). It is not a free festival: we bought tickets in advance which were only £9 per person (buy one, get one half price). Tickets at the door were £15. We were especially interested in the Intersectionality Conference on Sunday. Arriving at the opening time of 11AM on Saturday, it became immediately clear that this is huge event! We found a long queue going round the block to get to the entrance at the west side of Olympia. We made good progress though, and after about only 10 minutes of queuing, scanning of our tickets and a security check, we could enter the venue. There were two large halls on the first floor, with dozens of stalls. The lectures were in the auditorium and conference rooms on the second floor, where there were also stalls from several NGO’s. The Olympia is a really well known venue, where …

Impressions from Vegan Summerfest 2016, Ghent

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A couple of weeks ago, Belgian organisation BE Vegan organised the second edition of Vegan Summerfest. We went to the first edition in 2015 (see our post here) and surely did not want to miss it! This year, the festival was in the Artcube in Ghent, where BE Vegan had also hosted a talk by Jo-An McArthur last Winter (see blogpost here). A more spacious venue than last year, with more room inside and outside. We went early to avoid the big crowd as much as possible and to secure a parking spot nearby (by the time we left early afternoon, people were already parked several blocks away from the venue). The foodtrucks were outside and inside were two halls with stalls of organisations like Bite Back, Animal Rights, and also several shops selling shoes, books, food and cosmetics. With benches to sit down and relax a while. During the afternoon, there were some talks in yet another hall. Would have loved to hear Ruby Roth‘s ‘Vegan is Love‘ talk (via Skype), but that was scheduled for the late …

Vegan food at hardcore festival IEPERFEST, Ypres

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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! It was two years ago that we went to Ieperfest (see our blogpost here), and it was a wet edition in 2014. This time, it was a beautiful Summer weekend, and we went again one afternoon to try out the vegan goodies and enjoy the atmosphere. We tried to taste something from each foodstall, but by the end of the afternoon were too stuffed to accomplish that plan 😉 Payment for food and drinks was with tokens: we paid 66 euros for 30 tokens in total. Our plan was to start our food trip with the Flemish stew with seitan and potatoes from the Ieperfest Hardcore Foodstall, but it was announced it was only available from 5PM onwards. Bummer! So we started with a Dutch weedburger and some ‘Wish ‘n Chips’, that latter being a new ‘algae’ based dish from TDW. Nice! Here’s an overview of the food and drinks we had:   …

I won the lottery! Dinner with Sea Shepherd crew and Tom Waes on board Sam Simon, Antwerp

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Sea Shepherd is international marine wildlife conservation organization. They use direct action tactics to protect marine life, for example disturbing whale vessels and seizure and destruction of drift nets. One of their ships, the Sam Simon, embarked in Antwerp for a couple of days and was open for public visits. I visited the ship with a Dutch friend earlier in the week (review with many more pics of the Sam Simon will follow here). On that visit, I gave a donation to Sea Shepherd, and as such entered the lottery to win a dinner for two on Saturday evening on board the ship, with the crew and Tom Waes. As it is with lotteries, one never expects to win … But this time, I did! 🙂 I got a call on Saturday afternoon and of course I gladly accepted the dinner invitation for two. We had the opportunity to talk to the crew and some volunteers from Sea Shepherd Belgium. And we also met Tom Waes (Belgian actor, director and TV-presentor), who is an ambassador for Sea Shepherd and Captain Alex Cornelissen (CEO …

Our visit to VegfestNL in Utrecht

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Last weekend, we went to a vegan festival in the Netherlands. This was the second edition of VegfestNL, this time in Utrecht. Utrecht is only about 2 and a half hours drive from Bruges. The festival was not coincidentally on November 1, which is World Vegan Day. It was located in the Jaarbeurs of Utrecht, a big conference and event hall at the edge of the city. There is supposedly parking nearby, but when we arrived, all nearby parkings were announced as full and the surroundings seemed like a big construction site. Very confusing to get there. Luckily, we found a parking space in one of the streets not too far away, but then it was still quite a walk to the festival venue! It was not a free festival like Vegan Summer Fest a couple of weeks ago in Belgium (see our review here), but with an admission fee of 10€ (which still seems reasonably fair, although it does increase the treshold for a lot of people). There were seperate halls with dozens of stalls, selling food, …