All posts tagged: 3stars

#55 Nice vegan dinner at De Zakkendrager in Utrecht, NL ***

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Restaurant review #55 – De Zakkendrager is a traditional style restaurant in the city center of Utrecht (The Netherlands). It is just around the corner of the music temple Tivoli/Vredenburg. We were in Utrecht a couple of weeks ago, to visit VegfestNL, a vegan festival (see our review about that here). When we looked into the possibilities for dining out in Utrecht, Dutch friends mentionned De zakkendrager, as there are several vegetarian dishes available – veganisable, and they have had a vegan dinner there before. So I inquired beforehand by e-mail whether a vegan menu was possible, and it was no problem. But, we could not make a reservation, as they only accept reservations for parties bigger than five persons. Taking our chances, we went on a Sunday evening, and arrived about 6pm. We were lucky there were still some tables available, and the restaurant soon filled up! The restaurant is located in a small alley in between the canal and the market, and was a meeting point and café for “zakkendragers” for many centuries. “Zakkendrager” means bag carrier or …

#52 Our lunch at Little Asia in Brussels ***

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Restaurant review #52 – Little Asia is well known Asian restaurant in the center of Brussels. Owner and chef is Quyên Truong Thi, who is reportedly famous for participating in several TV-cooking programs (I say reportedly, because I never watch these shows myself! – the day they become vegan, I just might 😉  ). The restaurant is just a 5 minutes walk from the stock market (La Bourse) and the concert hall Ancienne Belgique. Brussels is 100km from Bruges, and is the capital of Belgium. Little Asia has a vegetarian menu standardly available, so I mailed them with the question whether we could get a vegan menu (explaining what we do and don’t eat), and if conformed, we would like to make a reservation. The reply was that this was no problem and that we should mention it again to the staff when ordering. We were there one a Friday for lunch, with two friends (non-vegans) and the place was soon packed (full house). We asked the waitress about the use of eggs, dairy and oyster sauce or fish sauce and she …

#48 Spicy dinner at vegetarian restaurant Planet India in Brighton (UK) ***

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Restaurant review #48 – Planet India is a vegetarian restaurant in the center of Brighton. As the name leads to suggest, it’s an Indian style restaurant, with curries and dahls and such. The restaurant is a 10-15 minute walk from the central station. The restaurant also offers take-away. Brighton is a vibrant but also quite touristic place, with lots of opportunities for vegans (that is also the main reason why we choose to go there this Summer). I will put a more general post about our visit to Brighton up later. And there are several restaurant reviews coming up, as we defintely ate a lot! 🙂 We phoned to make a reservation before we went up there, and it’s a good thing we did, as the time we had planned on going there was already fully booked (and this was on a weekday!). But we could come earlier, so we quickly packed and went to the restaurant. There’s a large terrace outside, and we already noticed the friendly atmosphere. If the friendly guy waving at us in this pic …

#47 Our dinner at ‘t Gulden Vlies, Bruges, ***

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Restaurant review #47 – ‘t Gulden Vlies in Bruges is one of the few restaurants in town which has vegan dishes standardly available on the menu. It is located just 2 minutes from de Burg (where the City Hall is), so it’s smack in the city center. It is not a vegan restaurant, but there are two main courses which are vegan. To be sure, we checked again when we made the reservation, and got confirmation that these dishes were indeed vegan and being served that day. We were there on a weekday evening, and the restaurant was full, with -as far as we could tell – mainly tourists. It’s not a big place, and tables are closely placed together, but the seatings are cleverly rearranged with interchangeable boards depending on whether you are a party of 2, 4 or more. So you don’t feel that you are invading other’s privacy. It’s run by a couple, with the husband the chef, and the lady of the house serving the restaurant. When we entered, the lady of the house spontanously …

#45 Vegan menu at Indonesian restaurant Lemon Grass, Tielt ***

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Restaurant review #45 – A couple of weeks ago, we went to Indonesian restaurant Lemon Grass in Tielt. Tielt is a small provincial town in Western Flanders, about 35 km from Bruges. We love Indonesian food, and there are plenty of Indonesian restaurants in the Netherlands. Mostly it’s no problem to get a full vegan ricetable. So whenever we are in the Netherlands, we try to visit one. Unfortunately there are not that many Indonesian restaurants in Belgium, so we were pretty happy to see Lemon Grass open in Tielt recently! Looking at the menu, I saw a couple of dishes that I guessed were vegan. I called in advance to check, and indeed there are vegan options on the menu, so we made a reservation. Upon arriving, it seemed not really necessary to make a reservation (it was a midweek evening, we were alone at first, then another couple came in). It was quiet and relaxed. Upon checking with the waiter for ingredients (who was very knowledgeable about it!), we ordered the following: Springrolls with vegetables as a starter (6€). This is …

#44 We loved the Dutch weedburger at Paal9, Texel (NL)! ***

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Restaurant review #44 – Yes, there is a place on Texel* where you can get a vegan burger! It’s the famous Dutch weedburger and it’s being served at beachpaviljoen number 9, near Den Hoorn. Obviously, we did not want to miss this! The Beach house is located in the dunes on the south west shore of the island Texel. We were there for lunch on a Saturday, and could easily get a spot outlooking the North Sea. There was a fierce western wind coming straight from the North Sea, and there are gently glowing dunes one each side of the road. So it was quite an effort peddling up there on our tandem! There seems to be only one vegan option on the menu (maybe the vegetable croquets are also vegan, but we didn’t verify). So beware it is not a vegan restaurant, there are many meat options on the menu. This was actually the first restaurant we saw croquettes of geese (ganzenkroketten) on the menu. We ordered the Dutch weedburger with fries, and it was yummie! And …

#41 Indonesian ricetable at hotel/resto Opduin, De Koog (Texel, NL) ***

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Restaurant review #41 – Texel is an island north west of Amsterdam. There are only a handfull of small villages on Texel, but the island is very touristic, so there are quite a lot of hotels and restaurants. Not that much options for vegans though. In another blogpost, I’ll give our vegan view on Texel, and places where you can have a vegan meal (and also some restaurants that replied they can’t fullfill our vegan needs). We were at Texel for the weekend, and on one of those days, we dined at restaurant Opduin in De Koog, a very small town on the west side of the island. Every Saturday evening, restaurant Opduin serves an Indonesian rice table (besides the regular menu). I had inquired in advance if we could get a vegan Indonesian ricetable (explaining what we do and don’t eat) and got confirmation. So we made a reservation. When arriving at the restaurant, the waitress said she was told it would be difficult to get a vegan ricetable. Duh? I told her I had gotten confirmation beforehand and asked …

#39 Our vegan menu at a communion feast in De Baronie, Lovendegem ***

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Restaurant review #39 – A couple of weeks ago, we were invited to a banquet for a communion feast, at de Baronie in Lovendegem. Lovendegem is a small village just outside Ghent. The host had specifically asked for a vegan menu for the both of us and had communicated with me about the menu (thank you!). Still, on such occasions we’re always a bit anxious about what we’ll be served, and whether the kitchen has understood what vegan actually means! Especially in a place where there’s nothing vegan available, and the standard menu is full of fish and meat dishes and lots of dairy. When I arrived at the restaurant, I quickly inquired whether our vegan wishes were noted and the head of the restaurant confirmed it was taken care of. This is what we got. Two appetizers (on the first photo you can only see part of it, I had already eaten half before I remembered to take a photo! 😉 ) The starter was with white asparagus, radish, tomatoes and scallions. Nice and fresh. Main course with dark pasta, …

#38 Our dinner at resto Taj Mahal, De Koog (Texel, NL) ***

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Restaurant review #38 – On one of our evenings in Texel, we went for dinner in Indian restaurant Taj Mahal, in De Koog. De Koog is a small village on the western side of the island. Texel is 370km from Bruges, North west of Amsterdam. I did not inquire beforehand whether we could get anything vegan, since this is usually no problem at Indian restaurants. There are several ‘vegetarian’ labelled dishes on the menu at Taj Mahal in De Koog, of which some appear to be vegan. We inquired which dishes would be suitable for us (no eggs, no dairy, ..), and were advised by the waitress. So we ordered shabji biryani (mixed vegetables with rice and spices, 15,75€) and shabji curry, a curry dish with vegetables (without the cream, 15,25€). And these side dishes: baked vegetables (Shabji Bhajee, 5,25€) and mushrooms with onions, tomatoes and chili (Mushroom Bhajee, 6€). Dinner soon followed, and the waitress suggested herself that we share the dishes as a sort of ‘rice table’, which was what we were planning to anyway. …

#37 Our lunch at Bagels & Beans, Alkmaar (NL) ***

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Restaurant review #37 – Travelling up north towards the island of Texel, we stopped in Alkmaar (in between Amsterdam and Texel). We originally planned to have our lunch at Thai restaurant Chada Thai in Alkmaar, since that restaurant is explicitly mentioned on Happy Cow as being very vegan friendly, to arrive at its frontdoor and find the restaurant … not open. Backup plan: a quick visit to Bagels & Beans, where – as the name suggest – a large variety of bagels is served. Bagels & Beans is a chain with several locations throughout the Netherlands. There’s always something vegan available, and staff was very friendly to check for ingredients (see also the note inside the menu – taking note of food allergies). We had the hummus bagel (standardly vegan) and the avocado bagel (without the cream cheese, but with hummus) with respectively a sesame bun and a tomato bun (asked whether they are vegan and got confirmation). Very nice! And very cheap too (5,40€ for the avocado bagel and 3,95 for the hummus bagel). Small orange juice was only …