All posts tagged: France

#137 Nice lunch in the swamp of Paris: Le Potager du Marais

Restaurant review #137 – Le Potager du Marais is a vegan restaurant in Paris. It is located – as the name says – in the Marais, which is a lively and cosy (but also quite touristic) neighbourhood. There are plenty of restaurants, cafés and trendy shops in the area. Marais is French for swamp, which refers to the region’s original state, and potager stands for vegetable gardener. So that makes Le Potager du marais the vegetable gardener of the swamp 😉 It’s a rather small place, and tables are closely together, but yet there’s still a cosy atmosphere. There’s also a small terrace in front. We were here for lunch during our city trip in Paris in June. We didn’t have a reservation, and were lucky that there was a table available (we were quite late for lunch, so people already started to leave). Service was very friendly, and we immediately felt welcome! There was tap water on the table (and was refilled), which we appreciated immensly, as it was a very hot couple of …

Enter the vegan world of Un Monde Vegan, Paris

Shop review #36 – Un Monde vegan is a vegan shop in the center of Paris, on the north side of Le Marais. We paid them a visit during our city trip in Paris, in June. It is a reasonably sized shop, comparable to the size of organic stores like Biovita and Origin’O in Belgium. Un Monde Vegan is stacked with vegan goodies, from the usual suspects like plant milks and vegan burgers, but also books, icecream, cheezes and cosmetics. It is so exciting but also relaxing to look around in an all vegan shop. Not having to check labels to see whether any goods contain animal products (which seems to have become second nature 😉 ! We had the same feeling when we visisted the vegan shop Veganz in Vienna. We couldn’t do any real shopping, as we were with our tandem bike. But we did buy some drinks, as it was a very hot day in Paris! Here are some more pics of Un Monde Vegan, which give you an idea of what they have …

Vegan Matt & Nat bags and wallet from shop Végissime

Shop review #12 – Matt & Natt is a vegan Canadian company which makes handbags, briefcases, wallets and other accessories. I had my eyes on one particular bag, but didn’t find it in Belgium. Ordering directly from the company in Canada (or other American webshops) would entail paying tens of euros to customs and taxes for import in the EU. I had often encounterd such unpleasant surprises from orders in the US in the past, so did not want to have that happen again. The Belgian branch of webshop Zalando has some products of Matt & Nat available, but not the bag, nor the colour I was looking for. I eventually found the bag I was looking for (Blinkin Citrus) on a French – Paris based vegan webshop, Vegissime. Unfortunately also with high postal costs for shipping to Belgium (15euro as opposed to free delivery within France), which I think is absurd living so close to the French border! Alas, the ‘Union’ of Europe does not extend to the postal services yet 🙁 Ordering online at French webshop Vegissime and …