All posts tagged: Gent

Vegan brownie at Cat Café Dreamcathers, Ghent

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Dreamcathers is a cat cafe in between the city hall and the Vrijdagmarkt, in a small alley. It is not far from vegan lunch bar Mie Vie. There are a couple of resident cats who are up for adoption. Dreamcathers work together with the organisations Dierenasiel Gent (shelter Ghent) and Kat Zoekt thuis (Cat looking for a home). Dreamcathers has vegan cakes and brownies and also offers drinks to enjoy while being among the cats (I think all the cakes are vegan, but not quite sure). Cats and vegan cake: a great combination! 🙂 I was here a couple of weeks ago with a friend, after our lunch at vegan cafe Mie Vie. Dreamcatchers works with timeslots. It is advised to make a reservation, but you can always try to inquire on the day itself to check availability. So I did (telephoned beforehand) and it was no problem to come over. The entrance fee is 3 euro per person (if you become a member, which is 10 euro, the entrance fee is reduced to 1,5€). …

#170 Paninis at vegan lunch bar Mie Vie, Ghent

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restaurant review #170 – Mie Vie is a vegan lunch and coffee bar in the city center of Ghent. It is located just next to the Vrijdagsmarkt, on the north side of town. I was here for lunch a couple of weeks ago with a friend. Afterwards we visited Cat Café Dreamcathers which is just 2 minutes away, where we had vegan brownie (review will follow). The website mentions MieVie is a place for “brunch, lunch and sweet hunge”. The menu mentions several sandwiches, paninis, salads, and muffins. One orders at the counter, the food is brough to the table, and when one leaves, pays at the counter. We both had a juice with apple & mango  (2,40€). And for lunch we had paninis: one with mushrooms and tofu, the other with ‘mozarella’ (each 8€). I didn’t visit the toilets at Mie Vie, so have no photo to include here, and don’t know whether it’s accessible (Why do I otherwise include a pic of the toilet? Read about it HERE ). The restaurant itself is with …

#159 Lunch at vegan branch of LPQ: Le Botaniste, Ghent (2)

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restaurant review #159 – Le Botaniste is a vegan restaurant in the city center of Ghent. I visited shortly after it opened and wrote a review here. I was in Ghent a couple of weeks ago to buy some items at nearby shop Moor & Moor (see review here) and a couple of  little springform pans to make my own vegan cheeses at next door shop Dille and Kamille. All in the same neighboorhood, so I decided to combine it with lunch at Le Botaniste. Le Botaniste is founded by Alain Coumont, the same founder of world wide chain Le Pain Quotidien. The first room one enters at Le Botaniste (where one orders and the food is prepared) is very nice and refers to an old pharmacist shop, with old bottles and jars lined up, and ‘prescriptions’ written on the menu. Behind that, are two smaller rooms to take a seat, one with mainly high barstools, and in the veranda at the back a long communal table with benches, and a handful of tables for two.  …

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 …

#129 Nice gastronomic dinner at Foodstorms, Ghent

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restaurant review #129 – Foodstorms is the catering business of chef Kevin Storms. He hosts a popup restaurant on various locations throughout the year (for example also during the Gentse Feesten, festivities all over the city of Ghent in the Summer). In the Spring of 2017, Foodstorms held a popup restaurant in the city center of Ghent for a couple of weeks, where they also organised gastronomical dinners on selected dates. We went to one of the last gastronomical events on that location, in the St Jacobsnieuwstraat. The popup restaurant was in a place where there used to be cooking workshops. It was now set up with a large communal table in the middle, with barstools, and also a handful of tables for 2 or 4 people on the side. The gastronomic dinner was 50€ for a 5 course menu, prepaid when making the online reservation. This was the menu (see photo) beech muchrooms, avocado, tomato salad ravioli of portobello mushrooms, asparagus, cashews kohlrabi, roasted garlic, garden herbs carrots, blond lentils, fregola, spinach and burnt …

#118 Take away from Qosy Green, Ghent

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Restaurant Review #118 – Qosy Green is a Vegan Thai take away and catering bussiness at the edge of Ghent. So strictly speaking, this is not really a restaurant review, as we didn’t have our meal onsite. Qosy Green does not have a shop with a counter, where you can choose from a menu, so it is advised to telephone ahead and place your order for take away. A couple of weeks ago, we had friends coming over for lunch. As we both have had a lot on our minds the last couple of months, our friends suggested to bring take away from Qosy Green for lunch. A great idea! This is what we had: springrolls with sweet sour sauce, curry with tofu and rice on the side and an impressive looking marble cake with whip. The only thing we had to do was cook rice, and heat the dishes (the spring rolls in the oven, the curry on the stove). So we had a relaxed lunch! Really great value for money (55€ for 4 …

#104 Vegan fine dining at Lof, Ghent

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restaurant review #104 – Lof is the restaurant in Sandton Grand Hotel Reylof, in the center of Ghent (about 10 min walk from Korenmarkt). We were here a couple of weeks ago with vegan friends. I had seen this place mentioned a couple of times online, and also knew of a vegan friend who had been here before, that restaurant Lof serves a vegan menu. It is also advertised on Lof’s website. I made an online reservation and specified that we all wanted a vegan menu. Before visiting, I telephoned to check whether the reservation was noted (vegan menu?) and it was said to be no problem! The restaurant is situated in a lovely spacious dining room, nicely decorated. It feels trendy and hip, but stylish at the same time. Adjacent is a nice lounge bar. The restaurant is quite big though, and as more and more people came in, the accoustics were a bit ‘loud’. We were seated at a round table, with two of us having comfortable chairs, the other two sitting on a bench, which was …

A look inside organic shop Panda, Ghent

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Shop review #29 – When I was in Ghent a couple of weeks ago, I had some time left before my lunch date with a friend at Mosquito Coast (see blog here). So I decided to go take a look at organic shop Panda in Oudburg, situated near the Vrijdagsmarkt. I had been ages since I been to Panda. The shop – and adjacent restaurant – already exists since a couple of decades. We had been here for lunch during the period that we lived and worked in Ghent (nineties). It was a rather old-school macrobiotic style restaurant, with a vegetarian plat du jour. Last time I had lunch here was a couple of years ago, and then discovered that restaurant Panda hadn’t changed much over the years. I asked for the plat du jour to be veganised, which was no problem. The dish was OK, but it was no gourmet experience. (btw Panda is often called a vegetarian restaurant, but it is not since they also serve fishes). Panda it is not an all-vegan shop, but they do have many vegan products available that you will not find so …

Vegan specialties at shop Moor & Moor, Ghent

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Shop review #28 – Moor & Moor is a little shop in Ghent, with many vegan food specialties. I had seen a facebook post with a photo of vegan caviar for sale at Moor & Moor, so during one of my lasts visits to Ghent, I wanted to go check out this shop. I already blogged about the vegan caviar (see my post here). Moor & Moor is in the city center, close to the main shopping street (Veldstraat) and close to Dille & Kamille. Moor & Moor has a small counter inside and a terrace in front, where you can have your coffee and a piece of raw vegan pie, or even some icecream! Pies are from raw food chef Julie. Although there are many vegan products availabe at Moor & Moor (and some brands that are not readily found in other Belgian shops), it is not an all vegan shop. So do not be surprised to find grilled crickets or ansjovis next to the kale chips. I suspect that the store concept is not so much …

#95 Seitan stew and portobello burger at Mosquito Coast, Ghent

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Restaurant review #95 – Mosquito Coast is a travel restaurant in the city center of Ghent (in between the Korenmarkt and Vrijdagmarkt – close to the city hall). It is actually very close to Japanese restaurant Amatsu, which we also visited recently (see review here). I had seen it mentionned several times in some of the Belgian vegan facebookgroups, as a place where vegans also can have a meal. I wanted to go there with a friend and phoned to inquire. The guy at the telephone said they have one vegan dish standardly available (the seitan stew with croquettes) and several vegetarian dishes (turns out some of them can easlily be veganised). I had the seitan stew (17,75€). My friend had the portobello burger (13,75€) . We checked with the kitchen staff to know whether the bun of the portobello burger was vegan too (whether it didn’t contain dairy or eggs). Staff seemed to be taken by surprise by this question. After a while, one of the kitchen staff returned to say it was, that it ‘didn’t …