All posts tagged: shop

Cosmetics and body and care products at Vegan Mania, Paris

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Shop review #39 – Vegan Mania is small shop in the city center of Paris, in a little alley just around the corner of Centre Pompidou. Vegan Mania also has a webshop and ships worldwide. I often find it challenging to find vegan cosmetics and body and care products. If they do not carry a vegan label, it is often impossible to know whether the product does or does not contain any animal products (with often a long list of obscure sounding ingredients) and whether it has been tested on animals or not. Or one has to do some serious researching online to know the brands and their specific vegan products. So it was a joy to shop at Vegan Mania: all products are vegan and organic. Easy! We visited the shop when we were in Paris for a couple of days earlier this year, and I bought some products.  Would have loved to buy more, but we were with our tandem bike and couldn’t carry a lot with us. Loved the shop! Wish we …

A look inside organic supermarket Bioplanet, Bruges

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Shop review #23 – Bioplanet is a chain of organic supermarkets in Belgium. There is also a Bioplanet in Bruges, and it is located at the edge of the city,  on the northside. There is easy parking in front of the shop. The Bioplanet is not as large as the regular (non-organic) supermarkets, but definitely larger than many other organic shops in Belgium. Bioplanet is not a vegan shop, but sells many vegan products which you won’t find so easily in ‘regular’ shops. To give you and idea: special cereals, sweeteners (agave, maple syrup, rice syrup, etc), nutrionial yeast, vegan cheeses, bread spreads, fresh fruits and vegetables, vegan milks (almond, rice, soy, ..), tofu and seitan, burgers, sausages, soy sauces, raw foods, supplements and herbal oils, body and care products, coffee and tee, pastas, vegan ice cream, nuts, dried berries and fruit, etc. The fridge counter (with many meats and cheeses) also has a selection of vegetarian stuff (like sausages, cordon blue, bread spreads) of which some are vegan (staff have a list available with all ingredients listed, so it’s easy …

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 …

Our visit to vegetarian shop Veggie4U in The Hague (NL)

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Shop review #20 – Veggie4U is a vegetarian shop on the edge of The Hague, founded in 2013. The Hague is one of the larger cities of the Netherlands, and although Amsterdam is the official capital, The Hague is the political capital of the country. We only spent a couple of hours in The Hague, but it seems like a nice, relaxed town. Definitely want to visit again one day. And it is actually very close to Bruges, only about a 2 and a half hours drive away! Following our lunch at the new vegetarian restaurant Hortus (blog will follow soon!), we paid a visit to vegetarian shop Veggie4U. It is labelled a ‘supermarket’, but I would rather call it a reasonably sized store. It is a vegetarian shop and not a vegan shop, so note that not all items on the photos are necessarily vegan. They do have many vegan items though: The shop sells mainly food items, with also some body and care products. There are several freezers with many ‘meat replacers’ items, and also a large selection of vegan icecream from Professor …

A look inside shop Horeca Totaal (1), Bruges

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Shop review #13 – I have visited Horeca Totaal a couple of times. It’s a very large shop aimed at food professionals at the edge of Bruges (just around the corner from organic supermarket Bioplanet). There’s also a Horeca Totaal shop in Ostend. In one of my previous blogposts you can see the tea box that I have bought at Horeca Totaal. Chefs and other food professionals come to get their supplies at Horeca Totaal, but even if you are not professionally engaged in catering bussiness, you can also shop here. When I go to Horeca Totaal, I am still overwhelmed by the place. It is huge! I have too many photos to put them all in one post, so there will be a sequel to this post, focusing more on interesting products for vegans in Horeca Totaal. My impressions from Horeca Totaal – To be clear, it is NOT a vegan shop, and it also has a large butchery and fish section (photos are at the bottom of this post). These are in a seperate – fridge like chambers – of the shop, so you don’t …

My new tea for one pot, bought in Bruges

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I had been looking for a nice (and reasonably priced) tea for one pot for some time now. I heard there was a nice little collection for sale at Bakery Lieven, at the edge of Bruges (Sint-Andries, just outside the Smedengate). I bought this one (21€), with the matching cup (8,15€).   Taking a quick look around in the bakery, I realized how long it had been since I had set foot in a traditional bakery.

Tea in a box

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I had been looking out for a tea box for some time. Wanted to have the different sorts of tea neatly sorted. I found it pretty unhandy, when wanting to choose a kind of tea or offering it to visitors, to take out all the seperate tea boxes. I found this one at Horeca Totaal, a large shop aimed at food professionals, just outside the city center of Bruges (review of the shop will follow). Pretty happy with this tea box! Tea box Horeca Totaal, 25,41€

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 …

Veggieshop, Oostende

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Shop review #7 – Veggieshop is located in the city center of Ostend, near the seaside, a 2 minute walk from the Casino Kursaal. On their website, Veggieshop says it’s a specialist dealer in vegan-eco-organic clothes, shoes and cosmetics. You can also buy their products through their onlineshop. The clothes available at veggieshop are mainly T-shirts and sweaters. I browsed through the T-shirts looking for one with a vegan message, but didn’t find one. Shopping for vegan shoes is not so easy in Belgian shops. There are of course several online shops to buy vegan shoes, but since I find 8 out of 10 shoes not to be really comfortable after trying them out, I like to be able to fit shoes before buying them (and sending them back through postal mail is such a big hassle). So it’s nice to see vegan shoes on offer in Veggieshop in Ostend. But I was hoping to find a larger variety and selection of vegan shoes. I asked whether I could order my size of a certain type/brand through the shop, and then decide to buy it after it …

Selection of soy sauces

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Shop review #3 – There’s a nice selection of soy sauces at the organic shop Origin’O in Bruges. Not only the standard tamari and shoyu, but also different flavoured ones. We normally use standard tamari and shoyu, but decided to give these special ones a go: the teriyaki (sweet soy sauce) and the coriander and wasabi tamari. Nice additions in our kitchen, with a more distinct flavour. The Teriyaki is a new addition in the range of organic LIMA products. Next to the coriander and wasabi, there are many other seasoned soy sauces from LIMA. We use quite a lot of soy sauce: in marinades (e.g. marinating tempeh or tofu or boiling TVP), in making seitan, in stews, as a sauce in woks or on rice, to fry sunflower seeds in, or just as a dip sauce for snacks.