All posts tagged: salad

#265 Nice lunch at vegetarian restaurant Ooogst, Kortrijk

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restaurant review #265 – This review is from a restaurant visit to vegetarian Ooogst a couple of months ago at the beginning of 2020, just before the lockdown measures due to the COVID19 pandemic started. On August 17, just two days ago, the restaurant announced its closure, due to the consequences of the lockdown on the business. I’m posting this review anyway, not only for archival reasons for myself, but as a nice memory from a visit to a lovely place. Ooogst was situated at the edge of Kortrijk, in a renovated industrial hangar. It opened in June 2019. It was a spacious place, mixed with rooms for people to come work there, or have a work meeting.

Vegan? So what do you eat? xx Photogallery xx

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So what do you eat? We do not get the question that often anymore, but still, some people have a hard time grasping what vegans eat. So what’s left after you take away the animal parts in a traditional dish, nothing right? Unfortunately, some people still seem to think that. Could not be further from the truth of course! It is about making new combinations and discovering new products. And several years after going vegan, we are still on a fascinating journey of discovery! In our minds, veganism is not about leaving things out, because we simply don’t regard animal products as ‘edible things’ anymore. In this post, I let the photos speak for themselves. It is a collection of photos of our homemade meals that I posted on Instagram (I will make a seperate blogpost with desserts soon). Most of the dishes are inspiration of the moment. Some are based on recipes from vegan cookbooks. We never considered ourselves as ‘foodies’, and I was actually quite surprised that a friend did refer to us as foodies the …

#82 – Nice light lunch at new bistro Grün, Bruges ***

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Restaurant review #82 – Grün is a new bistro in the city center of Bruges, not far from ‘t Zand and ‘t Zilverpand. On their facebookpage, Grün describes itself as a “healthy food restaurant“, “Take out Deli” and a “green hang out spot“. I had read on social media that they have vegan options, and phoned beforehand to inquire and make a reservation, and yes, they confirmed they have vegan options. Note: see update below We were there for lunch on a weekday and the place soon filled up. There’s also a nice terrace in the back, and some tables in front of the bistro. It’s a spacious, bright place, soberly decorated, not so comfy chairs though. There did not seem to be a lot of vegan dishes available on the menu card, but some dishes could easily be adapted to make them vegan (with either falafel or baked tofu). We had the Lebanese salad (avocadohummus, roasted cauliflower, carrots and instead of haloumi, we choose falafel, 14€) and the plat du jour, which was pearl couscous with salad …

#81 – Light lunch at new veggie resto Funky Jungle, Mechelen ***

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Restaurant review #81 – Funky Jungle is a new vegetarian restaurant (bistro style) in the center of Mechelen (in between Antwerp and Brussels). It is located at the foot of St Rumbold’s cathedral. I visited Funky Jungle a couple of weeks ago for lunch with a friend. On the other side of the road, there’s a nice terrace (with robust chairs with armrests, hurray!) at the foot of the St Rumboldtower . The vegan options are clearly marked on menu, although there was some uncertainty about the burger buns being vegan or not (so we didn’t choose that). We shared a bowl of beet hummus as a starter (4,50€), it came with crackers and sourdough bread. The waitress wasn’t sure about the crackers being vegan, so we didn’t eat those (afterwards she did show us the ingredient list of the crackers, and they are vegan!). For drinks we had virgin mojitos (4,50€). The beet hummus was really nice (my photo failed miserably, I was trying to get the restaurant in the background in the photo, and as such lost focus on …

#78 Light salad lunch at Sanseveria Bagelsalon, Bruges ***

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Restaurant review #78 – Sanseveria Bagelsalon is a cosy little place in the city center of Bruges. It’s just a 5 minute walk from the Burg and City hall, and near the famous Rozenhoedkaai, where many tourists align to take that famous snapshot of Bruges’ canals and the Belfry. I visited Sanseveria Bagelsalon with a friend a couple of weeks ago. There are no vegan options standardly available on the menu, but upon making the reservation, my vegan friend who had been there before requested vegan for two. Sanseveria is the name of a succulent that used to be very popular in Flemish pubs and househoulds. I also read once that is one of the hardiest plants to stand sigarette smoke, so that may also be the reason why it survived the poor oxygen environment in the pubs in the old days. After being considered ‘old fashionned’ for a couple of years, the plants are now making their way onto windowstills around the country and are now hip again! We inquired about the ingredients of the bagels (bread), …

#69 The Dutch Weedburger at Novotel, Bruges **

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Restaurant review #69 – A couple of weeks ago, we went for dinner to the restaurant of the Novotel hotel in Bruges. Since a couple of months, most (or maybe all?) Novotel restaurants in Belgium serves the famous Dutch weedburger (no it has nothing to do with that ‘weed’, it is made from seaweeds ;-). Yeah! We have tasted the Dutch weedburger before on several occasions (see for example here in Texel) and are very happy that this specialty is now also available in Bruges! EDIT (2017): The Dutch Weedburger is no longer available at Novotel! I inquired beforehand with the reception of Novotel to be sure that the Dutch Weedburger is indeed available, and if we could get a vegan menu for two (explaining what we do and don’t eat). No problem. So a couple of weeks ago, we headed out to the Novotel. The restaurant is downstairs in the lobby of the hotel. It’s a very spacious place, with the hotel bar situated in the middle. It looks very modern and stylish, but it didn’t really give us …

#57 Fabulous lunch at #HashtagFood in Bruges *****

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Restaurant review #57 – Hashtag Food opened in 2014. It is in the city center, about 5 minute walk from the main market square, close to the shopping street and just around the corner of Simon Stevinsquare. (Update: see below, new address since end 2017, now at edge of city) It’s a bright and very spacious place (they could have easily cramped in another half a dozen or so tables, but luckily they didn’t. Now you can breathe!). It looks hip and trendy! The table place mats are old records, which immediately gives you something to talk about 🙂 As do the names of the dishes! The menu is more bistro style (note that it also closes at 8PM). There are several vegan items standardly available, and some dishes that can easily be veganised. You can see the menu (in English) here. The chef did tell us that the menu changes every once in a while, and there would be a vegan pasta available soon. Both the waiter and the chef were very friendly and knowledgeable about what vegans means, which gave us …

A sandwich à la vegan

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Last week, I had to go to Leuven for an educational course for work. A whole day training, and lunch was included. I asked in advance whether I could have a vegan lunch, and the organisation replied they’d forwarded my message to the caterer. Situations like these are always a bit exciting, but worrying at the same time. I took two energy bars with me, just in case. The slide with the day’s agenda mentioned we would be served a sandwich lunch. Surely they could manage that? Lunch break. Everyone left the conference room, towards the table with the sandwiches. Above all other sandwiches on the windowstill, and clearly noticeable to everyone, was a plate with a sandwich ‘veganist’ (the Dutch word for ‘a vegan person’*). Two sandwiches actually, with a label with clearly written ‘VEGANIST’ next to it. I couldn’t miss 🙂  That’s mine! Nothing very culinary exciting, but all in all nice they made an effort! One sandwich was with some sort of guacamole, the other one with a salad and dressing. The times, …

Spaghetti squash with pearl couscous and tempeh and chicory salad

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Have you tried spaghetti squash? It’s such a funny vegetable. It looks like a pumpkin, but when prepared, you don’t have ‘chunks’ of pumpkin, but spaghetti like strings. I haven’t seen spaghetti squash much in regular stores in Belgium (they were available at Horeca Totaal when we last visited), but if you have a vegetable garden, you can of course grow them yourself! So we did, and we had a plentifull pumpkin harvest last Summer. The spaghetti pumpkins are the long shaped yellow ones in the middle. We had 8 or 9 spaghetti pumpkins in total! preparing spaghetti squash Preheat oven to 220°. Remove stalk from spaghetti squash. Cut squash in half (either way is ok). Remove the seeds and the middle soft part. Put 2cm water (small 1 inch) in an oven tray. Place the halves in the oven dish, with the open side down. With a fork, pinch some holes in the spaghetti squash. Cover with alu foil. Put in oven for 30 to 40 minutes (the older the pumpkin, the longer it requires. For a pumpkin that was several …

#34 Our lunch at vegan restaurant Vegaverso (2), Leuven *****

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Restaurant review #34 – This was our second visit to vegan restaurant Vegaverso in Leuven, which opened only a couple of months ago. We already blogged about Vegaverso here, and in that blog you can also see photos from Vegaverso’s interior. Vegaverso is the second all vegan restaurant in town (the other one is the Loving Hut), and just around the corner from vegan shop SHAVT. We were there for a quick lunch. We had these juices from isis, bitter lemon and apple sparkle, 2,50€ each. — UPDATE – see below — As we had both eaten sandwiches on our previous visit to Vegaverso, we wanted to try the burgers. We had a de luxe burger soft (8€) and a smokey burger (8,90€) with a bowl of salad on the side (don’t remember the price of that). The ‘bacon’ in the smokey burger tasted creepingly real! Or as real as we both could remember what bacon actually tastes like (being nearly 20 years ago that we both had eaten any). The burgers are huge (for the record, you can also …