All posts tagged: seitan

#110 Wok with vegs and seitan at De Twijfelaar, Bruges

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restaurant review #110 – De Twijfelaar is a bistro in the city center of Bruges, near the Dyver. It is a family run bistro: the lady of the house serves the restaurant and her partner operates the kitchen. De Twijfelaar literally means ‘a person who is always in doubt’. It can also refer to a type of bed that is a bit larger than a one person bed, but too small for two persons. Maybe that refers to the size of the restaurant, as it is (as is the case with so many old buildings in Bruges) a bit of a peculiar shape, wider in front and more narrow in the back (not really a small dining room, but not really a big space too). We went here for dinner a couple of weeks ago. I had e-mailed them some months ago and had gotten confirmation that they have a dish with vegetables that can be made vegan. I asked again for vegan when making the reservation and it was said to be no problem. De …

#91 Nice lunch on the terrace of vegetarian resto Hollerei, Vienna

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Restaurant review #91 – Hollerei is a vegetarian restaurant outside of the city center of Vienna (Austria). It’s a 10 minute walk from the famous Schönbrunn palace. It was a hot Summer day and we sat on the shady front terrace of Hollerei. (see other reviews from our trip to Vienna) Vegan options are clearly indicated on the menu (and also the allergenes lettres as we saw everywhere in shops, bakeries and restaurants in Vienna, very handy!). I wasn’t very hungry and just ordered an appetizer for lunch: a quinoa dish with some vegetables (6,90€). More than enough for me. For drinks I had a ‘vitamine cocktail’, a nice fresh juice (4,90€). Jim had soup (Melone gazpachio, 6,90€, two breads were 0,90€) and as a main dish the seitan roulade (14,90€). Food was nice. The quinoa dish was a bit blend, even only being an appetizer. We shared a Chocolate mousse for dessert (6,90€). The dessert tasted nice, but it could hardly be descibed as a chocolate ‘mousse’ 🙂 It was more a thick chocolate paste. Very heavy stuff. We could hardly finish it, …

Finding vegan goodies at Asian Supermarket Chow Chun, Ostend

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Shop review #24 – Chow Chun is an Asian supermarket in the city center of Ostend. It is located in between the Casino Kursaal and the Kapellestraat (Ostend’s main shopping street). It is not a vegan shop, but we did see a selection of vegan goodies that are not so commonly found in regular shops in Belgium. And also some rather rare fresh vegetables. These photos give you an impression of the size of the store and what’s for sale. Note that not all items on the photos are necessarily vegan, since it’s not a vegan shop.   Here are some items that caught our eye (I didn’t have time to check all of them for ingredients, but at first glance they looked vegan): This is what we bought: mock duck and mock chicken, soybean pudding, crackers and fried gluted with peanuts (seitan). (11,30€). Chow Chun, location Van Iseghemlaan 50 8400 Oostende +32 (0)59 80 13 68 website: https://www.hetwinkelweb.be/handelaar/detail/chow-chun-supermarkt

#77 – Lovely 3 course vegan menu at Mykene, Louvain (2) ****

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Restaurant review #77 – Mykene is a classic restaurant in the city center of Louvain (about 15 minutes from Brussels). We already posted a review of Mykene in 2014. You can see that review here. There are several vegan dishes and also some vegan appetizers standardly available à la carte. Since our last visit, the menu has changed so we tried some new things. This is what we ordered: mushroom carpaccio, pecan cheese, merlot vinegar gel (11,50€) toast with wild mushrooms (15€) And these were our main dishes: jacked potato, stir fried vegetables, sundried tomatoes and almond parmezan (16€) seitan in coconut curry, lentils and basmatic rice (17,50€) The carpaccio of mushrooms was very nice and original. The toast with champignons was also very nice, but way too much as an appetizer. I could easily have this as a main dish. We were already quite stuffed with these starters, before the main dishes came. And these were also very large portions, way too much for us. We tried to eat as much as we could, but even with some …

Looking for gluten powder to make seitan. Visit to Gents Bakkershuis

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Shop review #22 – My search for gluten powder (for homemade seitan) led me to “Het Gents Bakkershuis“, a shop with baking equipment and supplies in Ghent. (NOTE see edit below) The shop is more aimed at wholesale trade and opening hours for retail is limited. Gluten powder or vital wheat gluten is not so easy to find in Belgian shops.  I had previously bought organic vital wheat gluten in organic shop Biovita in Bruges (only available on special demand), but that was very expensive (+/- 50€ for 5kg, being organic). Last year, I paid a visit to Flourpower in Pouke, a small shop inside the Artemeersmill at Poeke to buy gluten powder (13,70€ for 5 kg). I inquired beforehand to Het Gents Bakkershuis to be sure they had gluten powder in stock.  And they did. So I paid them a visit at the end of 2015. I found the wheat gluten powder, 21,62 for 5 kg. Het Gents Bakkershuis is packed with baking supplies, from pie decorations to rolling pins, packages for chocolates, cakes and other baking or pastry things. I arrived …

Carbonade flamande or Flemish stew à la vegan

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Carbonade flamande or Flemish stew (Vlaamse stoverij) is a traditional Flemish dish. It is commonly sold at ‘frietkoten’ (fast food places selling fries, hamburgers, ..) and is often served as a ‘plat du jour’ at bistros or traditional restaurants. In 2015, Flemish stew with fries was chosen as the most traditional Flemish dish by viewers of the popular TV-cooking show ‘Dagelijkse Kost‘ (roughly translates as ‘Everyday Meals‘) and March 1, was proclaimed as ‘Flemish stew day‘. Not surprisingly of course, the dish is not vegan, as it traditionally made with cow (beef) or sometimes with pig. See also our post about Belgium’s culinary tradition here. This is our vegan version of Vlaamse Stoverij, with seitan. We’ve given it our own touch, as most often it does not come with mushrooms, nor carrots. What is typical though is the use of (dark) beer, and bread smeared with mustard. This is for 4 persons (we usually make this portion for the two of us and then freeze the remaining for later). Sometimes we use storebought seitan, but most often we use homemade seitan from …

#40 Our vegan lunch at vegetarian resto Nectar, Kortrijk / Courtrai **

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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 …

#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 …

New T-shirt: in seitan we trust!

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In seitan we trust! A T-shirt from the church of seitan 😀 I bought this T-shirt at V|edge, the all vegan shop in Ghent (review of the shop will follow on our blog soon). V|edge also has delivery points in other Belgian cities, among which Bruges (delivery of online command every two weeks). T-shirt, In seitan we trust 100% Organic Cotton bought at V|edge, 36,99€  

A visit to shop Flourpower in de Artemeersmolen (mill), Poeke

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Shop review #10 – In our search for vital wheat gluten (or gluten powder, to make our own seitan, more about that in another blogpost), we found Flourpower, a small shop inside the Artemeersmill at Poeke. Poeke is a rural village between Tielt and Aalter, 39 km from Bruges. The shop has a great selection of flour mixtures, and some other bakery stuff.   This is what we bought: groats of soy, 1kg, 2,35€ chocolate chips, 1kg, 7,30€ vital wheat gluten, 5kg, 13,70€ 10 grain meal, 1kg, 2,10€ Very happy to have found the gluten powder. I bought a 5kg bag, but they also have smaller amounts available. I have no idea yet what I’m going to do with the soy groats, but I was so intrigued by this (and hadn’t seen it before in any shops), I just bought it. I’m sure I will found some good use for it. If you have any suggestions, let me know! The 10 grain meal also mentions vitamine C and enzymes among the ingredients, and the shop owner confirmed they …