All posts tagged: dessert

#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 …

A look inside shop Horeca Totaal (1), Bruges

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Shop review #13 – I have visited Horeca Totaal a couple of times. It’s a very large shop aimed at food professionals at the edge of Bruges (just around the corner from organic supermarket Bioplanet). There’s also a Horeca Totaal shop in Ostend. In one of my previous blogposts you can see the tea box that I have bought at Horeca Totaal. Chefs and other food professionals come to get their supplies at Horeca Totaal, but even if you are not professionally engaged in catering bussiness, you can also shop here. When I go to Horeca Totaal, I am still overwhelmed by the place. It is huge! I have too many photos to put them all in one post, so there will be a sequel to this post, focusing more on interesting products for vegans in Horeca Totaal. My impressions from Horeca Totaal – To be clear, it is NOT a vegan shop, and it also has a large butchery and fish section (photos are at the bottom of this post). These are in a seperate – fridge like chambers – of the shop, so you don’t …

Vegan chocolate cream

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This is a very simple and straightforward recipe for chocolate cream. You can use it as topping for cupcakes, on top of pies, or in smaller portions as a dessert on its own. And it’s without refined sugar, you can choose between maple syrup or agave syrup, whichever you like best! Important though is that it requires advance preparation. That is, it needs some time in the fridge to set. At least half an hour, but better still an hour is best to make it stiff, espcially if you want to use it for cupcake topping. Silken tofu is very smooth tofu. It is much softer and ‘creamy’ than regular tofu. You can easily cut regular tofu into cubes, this doesn’t work with silken tofu. In Belgium, I’ve only seen it available in organic shops. Ingredients vegan chocolate cream 1 package silken tofu (400g), drained of excess liquid 1/4 cup soy milk 2 tbs agave or maple syrup 1 ts vanille extract 12 ounce (370g) vegan black chocolate chips Preparation Crumble the silken tofu in a blender. …

#26 – Restaurant Water en Vuur, Diksmuide ****

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Restaurant review #26 – Water & Vuur is a restaurant at the foot of the IJzertoren (Flemish peace monument) in Diksmuide (48km from Bruges). The restaurant is situated in a renovated cargo boat, on the banks of the IJzer (Yser). During World War I, the front was mainly situated along the banks of the Yser. 2km from the restaurant, you can visit the ‘Dodengang‘ (Trenches of Death), with galleries and trenches in which soldiers fought during WWI (see photos below). Water & Vuur is 23km from Ypres. The restaurant is well know among vegans in the area, because it is one of the few restaurants (or actually maybe the only restaurant) in the area that standardly has vegan options available. The menu also explicitly states that fries are baked in vegetable oil (beware, in Belgian restaurants and fast food stalls, fries are often baked in animal fat, see our page with general tips). It’s nice Water & Vuur offers a variety of fresh juices. On this visit, we ordered a Water & Vuur juice (6,5€), which is with apple, pear, red berrie, orange, elderberry syrup and …

#16 Restaurant De Bron, Bruges ***

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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). 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 …

#12 restaurant ‘t Jong Gerecht, Bruges ***

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Restaurant review #12 – ‘t Jong Gerecht is located in the Langestraat near the Kruispoort. The restaurant is run by staff who are all in their early twenties (hence their name ‘Jong’ = young). The restaurant’s name also refers to the Court House (= Het Gerecht) opposite to the restaurant and ‘gerecht’ also means ‘a dish’. (2019: SEE UPDATE BELOW) I mailed ‘t Jong Gerecht a couple of weeks before, to ask whether we could get a vegan menu (explaining what we do and don’t eat). They swiftly replied that this was not a problem, since they also for example use algae (agar agar) as a binding agent. They do advise to make the reservation two days in advance, so they can take our vegan wishes into account. And so we did. We were there on a Thursday evening. At 7 o’ clock, we were standing with two other parties at the entrance of the restaurant (it was a bit chilly, so not so pleasant). We waited a bit at the closed door, and when I saw the …

#7 Restaurant Komkommertijd, Gent ****

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restaurant review #7 – Restaurant Komkommertijd in Ghent is probably the best know vegan restaurant in Belgium (there are in fact only 3 vegan restos in Belgium). Komkommertijd literally translates as ‘cucumber time‘, a period where there is not much news to report and not much happening. The word possibly originates in 17th century England, referring to the period when there was hardly any business for tailors, because when the cucumbers were in season the gentry left town for the countryside and business was slow for them. Business is definitely not slow at Komkommertijd in Ghent. It is highly recommended to make a reservation, because every time we’ve been there, the place is packed. The restaurant has an all you can eat vegan buffet, with soup, warm and cold dishes and also a dessert (most often a piece of cake). At lunchtime, you pay 13,50€ for the buffet, in the evening and during the weekend it’s 16€. You can go and fill your plate as many times as you want, so this is definitely the place to go if you …

#6 Restaurant Chang Thong Thai, Bruges **

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Restaurant review #6 – Chang Thong Thai is a Thai restaurant in a small alley next to ‘t Zand. Their online menu card lists several vegetarian/vegan dishes seperately. We’ve already heard some experiences from other vegans and vegetarians about this place, so we decided to go check it out ourselves! It was a good thing we made a reservation for dinner, because shortly after we arrived, the place was packed (on a weeknight). Although it is in the city center, we hardly saw any tourists probably because it’s not in a main street. There’s a small area upstairs with some tables as well, but since the toilets were located there we decided to take place at one of the tables downstairs. Tables are stashed pretty close next to each other, which made us a bit uncomfortable (hearing every word of the conversation of the couple next to you, willingly or not, is not really enjoyable). Comfy arm chairs though. This is dining in a traditional Asian style setting (well, you know, Western Asian style), with buddhas statues …

#4 Restaurant De Graankorrel, Ostend ****

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Restaurant review #4 – De Graankorrel is a vegan/macrobiotic restaurant, in the city center of Ostend (29km from Bruges). It’s located behind the town hall, just a 10 minute walk from the sailing ship/museum ‘Mercator‘. Vegan Strangly, this place is not so well known among Belgian vegans. When asked about vegan restaurants in Belgium, most vegans will probably mention The Loving Hut in Louvain and Komkommertijd in Ghent. Most seem never to have heard of De Graankorrel, although it is very well known among Ostend locals since decades. I’ve also never encountered any tourists here.There also seems to be some confusion whether this restaurant is vegan – or even vegetarian – or not, some people saying the restaurant serves fish. I’ve visited this restaurant in Ostend several times during the last couple of years, and every time lunch was all vegan. I’ve enquired again on my last visit (January 2014), explicitly asking whether they sometimes serve fish or not and whether everything is vegan? The waitress (also the chef) assured me that everything is vegan and …

#3 Restaurant Patrick Devos, Bruges ***

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Restaurant review #3 – restaurant Patrick Devos always offers a vegetarian menu. We asked them whether it was possible to get a vegan menu (explaining what this means – what we do eat and don’t eat), and they affirmed! The vegan menu would be the same as the vegetarian menu, but without the dairy and eggs. A vegan 3- or 4-course menu is respectively 35€ and 45€  (with accompanying wines resp. 53€ and 69€). Shortly after, we called to make a reservation and mentioned ‘vegan’ again, and it was no problem. We could dine there the same evening. We hadn’t heard any other experiences from others about restaurant Patrick Devos, so we were pretty curious! The restaurant is in the center of Bruges, in the Zilverstraat.