On a night out with friends, Eric tries a new restaurant. The waiter welcomes them and says ‘we take the dining experience full circle‘. ‘Set in a not-so-distant, dark future, three friends must slaughter the animals they order for dinner at a high-end restaurant’
Restaurant review #140 – La Maison du Vert is a vegetarian bed and breakfast in Normandy, France. In the evening, La Maison du Vert also opens as a restaurant to outside guests, so it could also be considered a hotel (although there are only 3 rooms for overnight stay). We spent a couple of days here at the beginning of Summer, after a short stay in Paris (La Maison du Vert is about a 2 and a half hour drive from Paris). We had made our reservation many months before going to Normandy, to be sure to have a room at La Maison du Vert. Vegan options are really scarce in Normandy, so it was comforting to know that we did not have to worry about breakfast or vegan dinner during our holiday. We were warmly welcomed by the hosts, Debbie and Daniel, a British couple who settled here 20 years ago and renovated what became la Maison du Vert and shaped the garden. After settling in in the room, we relaxed in the lovely …
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 …
As you can tell by the number of restaurant reviews on our blog, we have visited quite a lot of restaurants over the years. Yes, even as vegans (I stress this because some people think that is impossible) and even in restaurants where at first glance this may not be so obvious. Yes, we have had some bad experiences. I’m not referring to the the rabbitfood that we’ve sometimes been served, but to dishes that are not vegan. For example a dish containg oystersauce, although explicitly labelled on the menu as vegetarian (and yes, also having checked whether it didn’t contain any eggs or dairy). But on most occasions, we have enjoyed a vegan menu. At least that is what we think (and hope)! Dining out always involves a risk. One can try to minimise that risk, for example by clearly informing the restaurant beforehand on what vegan means, explaining what you do and do not eat. But nevertheless, the risk that some dishes may contain animal ingredients cannot be taken away completely. Although we realise that dining out always involves some …
Restaurant review #40 – Nectar is a organic vegetarian restaurant in Kortrijk / Courtrai, a city in the south of Flanders (60km from Bruges). Restaurant Nectar is only open for lunch, during weekdays, a common feature among vegetarian restaurants with a typical ‘plat du jour’ offer (similar vegetarian plat du jour restaurants, which are also only open for lunch are for example De Bron in Bruges, Grenoble in Sint-Niklaas, De Graankorrel in Ostend and Avalon in Ghent). We sometimes jokingly refer to these types of restaurants as ‘toefjesrestaurants‘, because they typically serve a variety of little heaps (=toefjes) of several vegetables and grains on one plate (macrobiotic inspired). As stated above, it is a vegetarian restaurant, and not a vegan restaurant. I had read conflicting posts on social media about whether or not you should ask for vegan in advance (some stating you have to make a reservation and specifically ask for vegan, other saying you can just drop in). We were in Kortrijk some weeks ago and had no set plans for lunch yet, so we decided to …
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. …
Here are some new entries in the list of restaurants, which we’ve added recently (2015/01). Where vegans are welcome: Bites and Wines (Antwerp) De Fobie (Gent) La Trattoria (Bruges) Lemon Grass (Tielt) Lokaal (Ghent) (review to follow) Parazzar (Bruges) Sanseveria (Bruges) Tanuki (Bruges) Vegan not available, or no reply: Bistro Bruut (Bruges) Bistro De Schilder (Bruges) Brasserie Venice (Bruges) Ellis Gourmet Burger (Bruges and other cities) Gingerbread (Bruges) The Olive Tree (Bruges) For more info about these restaurants: see our lists of restaurants where vegans are welcome in the menu section of The Bruges vegan! List restaurants in Bruges and around Bruges. And we also added some shops to our list of interesting shops: Biovita in Roeselare (see our review) Flourpower in Poeke (see our review) Horeca Total in Bruges (review to follow) and in Ostend and V|edge in Ghent (review to follow).
Restaurant review #31 – Buddhasia is a new Vietnamese restaurant in the city center of Bruges (opened Fall 2014). It is located at the back of the Sint-Salvator Cathedral and near the main shopping street (a 5 min walk from ‘t Zand). NOTE: see update below. Thai or Vietnamese restaurants often have a selection of vegetarian dishes that seem to be vegan (sometimes seperately listed as vegetarian or vegetable dishes on the menu), But restaurant Buddhasia takes it up to the next level and has a seperate vegan category on their menu card! Yeah! The vegan section lists five main dishes, ranging from 9€ to 14€. Upon ordering, we got an appetizer with noodles and bean sprouts (taugé). Our drinks followed quickly: a mango juice (4€) and a freshly squeezed orange juice (4,5€). We asked whether they also could suggest us some vegan entrees, and were suggested the Pho – noodlesoup (9€) (unfortunately no other vegan entrees possible). As a main dish, I asked the tofu with morning glory (water spinach) and garlic 14€) and my partner went for the noodles with vegetables …
Restaurant review #30 – Di Coylde is a more upstyle restaurant in Beernem, with a traditional cuisine (meat and fish menus). Beernem is about 13km from Bruges. In 2013, we asked whether a vegan menu is possible for two persons, but got a negative reply. Hence, restaurant Di Coylde is not included in our list of restos outside Bruges where vegans are welcome. A couple of weeks ago, we had a brainstorm day at work, with lunch for all of us planned at restaurant Di Coylde. The organisers listed everyone’s preferences for lunch (fish, meat, vegetarian or vegan – that’s for me, since I’m the only vegan at work 😉 ) and forwarded this list to the restaurant. This is the vegan menu that I got at Di Coylde: tomato and courgette crisp green herb soup (unspecified) butternut soup with fennel and mushrooms couscous with grilled vegetables lemon sorbet with mandarines, nuts, raisins and apricots The food was nice, but it was no gastronomical masterpiece. It started promising, with the appetizer and the soup, although these were very small portions. The waitress …
Restaurant review #29 – A bad restaurant experience. Every vegan has had one or will encounter one at one point. At least if you go out for dinner every once in a while (I know there are vegans who don’t, precisely because they have had such bad experiences, or they just want to avoid any risk of eating non vegan items). So before you read on, just know that we are not recommending this place. Fanny Thai is – obviously – a Thai restaurant in the city center of Brussels. It is located near the Stock Market (Beurs/Bourse) and the concert Hall Ancienne Belgique. There are several Eastern style restaurants in this area (Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai). We had been at Fanny Thai a couple of years ago, before going to a show at the Ancienne Belgique. I remember it stood out because they had a large variety of vegetarian dishes with tofu and with seitan (the latter not being so commonly served in Asian restaurants in Belgium). We didn’t remember the name of the restaurant anymore, but …
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