St. Petersburg, Russia: So Much Better Than What "Anastasia" Taught Meby Randi / June 19, 2017
I knew St. Petersburg would be the easiest place of the summer for me to find vegan food, but I didn’t know it would be so good too! I made a HappyCow list a mile long before we left, but I barely scratched the surface of it because most regular restaurants had something I could eat. Being so close to western Europe means the vegan thing is starting to catch on, and there are a few restaurants that have gone all in with menus labelled with vegan options! For the most part though, you have to just figure out with your brain what dishes could be vegan, but there are lots of options. When all else fails, there’s Teremok, and there’s pickles, and there’s hleb (bread, the most important word to learn).
Right after leaving the hostel, we ran across the tiniest hole in the wall bakery with huge Georgian-style lavash breads in the window, the kind that’s a big floofy circle with two handles coming straight out the sides. I want bread handles! I went in and found an old babushka cooking her breads. That’s all it was, a tiny place with an old grandmama and her oven and her bread. The bread looked amazing and I asked for one. Well, first I tried to ask if it was just bread or if it was stuffed with cheese like that sort of thing sometimes is. Problem is, I didn’t know how to say “stuffed” and babushka didn’t know a lick of English. I knew how to say “with cheese” and “with milk”, so I said those phrases in question form, but she thought I was asking to get the bread with cheese on it, and she doesn’t do that, and so there was much confusion. I somehow got it across that ‘no cheese/milk is good’, then I THINK she said ‘just flour and water!’ or something to that effect, and we finally established that the magic looking fluffy as all get out bread was safe for me. Unfortunately, it being a tiny little hole in the wall, babushka couldn’t break the 1000 ruble bill we had – we had JUST gotten money and hadn’t been able to break anything and SHE wasn’t going to break it! Her breads cost 40 rubles! The change would wipe her out! So husband ran back to the hostel to make change (there was nothing in between, really) while I…tried to make conversation. It did not work but it was hilarious and fun. Another woman came out and I THINK she said she was from Georgia (the country), and after a few moments of me saying nonsense I realized she was asking where I was from, and like always I didn’t know whether to say USA or London so I said both. It was a lot of confusion on all fronts. Luckily, Husband got back soon and we bought THE BEST BREAD EVER. Of course I don’t have a picture of it or the babushka because I’m pretty sure it was all just a hallucination, but I will always remember this amazing bread and this ridiculously fun first encounter with Russian people.
pickles!
For dinner on that first night, we were around the popular (and well populated) Nevsky Prospekt, with all the side streets shooting off of it full of hopping restaurants. We looked at a few menus before choosing the very adorably titled Masha i Medved, or Masha and the Bear. They had a long menu, which yes means it is probably a tourist trap, but also means lots of options and higher chance of veg items. That’s the tradeoff, I think, with going to maybe more expensive touristy places – they usually have more vegetables. Of course we started with a pickle plate, and while I’ve never been a huge pickle fan, I am ready and willing to eat them all across Russia, especially because I couldn’t fit my bottle of probiotics in my overstuffed pack. The pickled mushrooms were kind of weird, but the pickled green beans were surprisingly yummy. Luckily the boys ate the hot peppers; I was in no mood.
Yummy eggplant and mushrooms (okay and red pepper) |
apparently I forgot to take a picture of my salad but you know what cucumber and tomato looks like! So here’s a pic of my glass of mors (cranberry ish juice) instead enjoy |
For my mains, I had lots of small veggie dishes to choose from. Most focused on potatoes and mushrooms, and I figure I’m going to be eating a lot of those two things (and not just because I know the words for them!) as we go more east in Russia. So I chose the cucumber, tomato, and red pepper salad, and the grilled eggplant & mushroom dish. Both contained red pepper, so it was a lot of red pepper, and you know I’m not the biggest fan of red pepper, but I need to not get scurvy so I did my best. Both were very basic, standard versions of their respective dishes, but that’s fine, especially when travelling. I just want vegetables. The stir-fry actually tasted really good. I liked it. Hooray for Masha. Hooray for the bear.
just realizing now that the box even says vegan and ‘no dairy’ oops forest for the trees
Back on the Nevsky Prospekt, we went into the Singers headquarters, which is now a huge bookstore, and I zeroed in on their snack section. And lo and behold, a box of bars! I spent decades reading the ingredients, or trying to, before realizing that they actually said the word ‘vegan’ on the front. Oh us vegans and our immediate flipping to the underside of the flap to get to the ingredients, never assuming that our work would be done for us! I bought three. They are amazing, some brand called ‘Take a Bite’, and I did, and I need to find more in Moscow because they are just like Larabars – raw mixes of nuts and dates and other dried fruit, and some with cocoa. Obsessed.
After dinner and before clubbing (just kidding) (well we did go to a bar really late) (so tired), we went into a cute little fruit shoppe to stock up for breakfast. I bought the most beautiful looking apples, a bunch of good looking bananas, and a box of cherries. I was obsessed with the bucket of cherries, and if I was allowed I would have jumped in. I love cherries, and I live on bananas, and giant apples, as big as you could find, are probably my favorite food in the world. So, even though I labelled everything and put them in the hostel fridge in a bag with my name on it, of course someone stole my bananas and my magical apple. Of course. They left the box of cherries. They were sort of sour. Like my view of humanity.
love this cherry bucket! I also adore cutting into whole watermelons but we saw a lot of watermelon in our Kazakhstan researching so, saving for that
DO YOU SEE THESE INCREDIBLE PEANUT BUTTER FLAVORS THE CHERRY BUCKET STORE HAD??!! I can’t even get over it. I wasn’t allowed to buy them. No fun purchases! (No room, really)
cute little space!
Before our visit to the Hermitage, we went to the first of my HappyCow finds because the top review said it was right across from it. It’s a small cafe called Kafe Troitsky Most, because it is on Troitsky Most, the bridge over the nearest canal. It really is the best place to go when you visit the Hermitage because I didn’t notice much else nearby. So there’s a hot menu on the wall, but there’s a display case of several great looking salads. I asked if I could do a mix of salads and set about picking the best looking ones that I could clearly see were just veggies. I pointed to one in the back that had strips of brown and I asked if it was meat and the super nice lady said “nyet, soya!” They were soy meat strips and everything in the case was vegetarian! Everything in the cafe! Yippee! That soy meat salad was SOO good. I really liked everything, actually. I would totally return if we were here longer. My kind of place, just simple salads that you get to mix together and throw a piece of bread on top.
For a nicer dinner one night, we went to Cafe Botanika, another all-vegetarian place that we walked by at least 1400 times because it was between our hostel and all the things. I was so excited to go to a real sit-down restaurant that was all vegetarian. The menu spans many pages and includes sections of various cuisines, like an Indian section, a Chinese section, an Italian section, which is kind of odd but hey if you can do it, do it. While the food was fine, it was much better for vegetarians that it was for vegans. There weren’t many mains that were vegan, and in fact there were zero vegan mains under the Russian food section! Which is kind of ludicrous! Even it’s famous house burger was not vegan. I could have had pasta or an Asian tofu and veg stirfry, which is like hey I also could have stayed home and cooked for myself. Luckily, they had Russian vegan food for starters, so I got a bowl (more like cup) of borscht for my main and an avocado-filled salad to start. We also shared crudite and hummus, because if you have hummus I’m going to eat it. It was all fine, but I’m just kind of mad that there wasn’t more available. I am really glad I had borscht though, as unremarkable as it was, because here traditional borscht has meat in it. Botanika was a perfectly nice place and if you are vegetarian it would be incredible for you, but for a vegan looking for Russian food or even just stuff that’s interesting, there’s better.
we’re gonna need more hummus
the borscht had 4 kidney beans in it |
i like salad though |
We had great luck with Cafe Ukrop, a small chain of veggie cafes all over the center of the city. We went to two of them! The menu has vegan stuff clearly labeled, and is the complete opposite of Botanika in that stuff you would assume wouldn’t be vegan (like the ravioli and the vegetable cream soup) was indeed vegan. Fun! The food wasn’t anything special, but it was decent and healthy, and the place had a nice vibe and adorable decor, so it was just all good. It’s a sweet place where you can sit for hours because the seating includes sofas, comfy chairs, and even a few porch swings! There are also signs advocating cleaning up the environment and eating organic food. At least I think that’s what it said. It could have been anything.
We tried a lot of dishes over our two meals at two different locations. My favorite was the Caesar salad, not because the dressing even remotely resembled Caesar dressing, but because it came with fried tofu croutons. There were only 4-5 of them in the whole salad though, so they really need to add more to it. I was surprised by the Olivier Salad, it’s like a traditional Russian salad of tiny chopped potatoes, peas, and carrots formed into a circle and covered in mayo, but the vegan version was 1000x better than that nonsense (I’m guessing, because mayo blechh).
We tried a lot of dishes over our two meals at two different locations. My favorite was the Caesar salad, not because the dressing even remotely resembled Caesar dressing, but because it came with fried tofu croutons. There were only 4-5 of them in the whole salad though, so they really need to add more to it. I was surprised by the Olivier Salad, it’s like a traditional Russian salad of tiny chopped potatoes, peas, and carrots formed into a circle and covered in mayo, but the vegan version was 1000x better than that nonsense (I’m guessing, because mayo blechh).
better than it looks |
same for this one |
As for other starters, we had a mushroom soup that was decent, but it came with a little pot of sour cream, and even though the soup was marked as vegan, I just wasn’t sure about the sour cream. Husband wasn’t sure either and he usually can tell what’s vegan or not, so I’m a bit nervous about the whole thing even though this was days ago. We also tried the avocado cucumber rolls, which sounds like boring sushi but was more like roll-ups, with an avocado cream mixed with herbs inside strips of cucumber. They were fine, a good refreshing raw food dish when we needed some fresh vegetables, though maybe needed more flavor/salt.
cucumber rolls from the heavens |
mushroom soup with the devious sour cream. or not. we don’t know |
For main courses, we tried three – the ‘famous’ burrito, the ravioli, and the lentil burger. I think the burrito (more like a wrap (they are different) was the best of the three and the one I would order again. They said it was their most popular dish. Filled with smoked tofu, lentils, and various veggies, it was smaller and thus with less filling that western wraps/burritos. but it was pretty good. And I don’t know if the wrap was gluten-free, but they did that thing I love about gluten-free wraps where heating it turns the breading into a cracker. I don’t know why I just like it. Probably because anything resembling a soggy wrap makes me nauseous so if you’re gonna veer in one direction go towards the crackery and not the soggy. The ravioli was fine, a pleasant surprise that it was vegan, but it was because it was filled mostly with just greens, not a tofu ricotta like I expected or any sort of interesting play on the greens. Just sauteed plain greens. The tomato sauce it came with wasn’t great but hey they were still ravioli so still fine. The burger I liked, but it could have used more pickles and tomato – I didn’t even know they were on it until I was halfway through, the pieces were so small. The patty tasted a little like frozen peas, which is a little disappointing. It really needed a strong sauce to go on it and it would have been amazing. Kind of true of everything here. It was all decent and nice tasting but nothing was like wow. Still, it was all very satisfying, especially when traveling.
|
|
We also had great beverages from Ukrop – a very interesting grapefruit-basil juice, a beet-carrot-cucumber-apple kind of regular juice, and best of all a halva milkshake! It wasn’t really a milkshake, more of the UK-style of milkshake meaning flavored milk, but it was pretty great! It was just soy milk mixed with halva so you can’t go wrong. They threw in a handful of slivered almonds, some of which stayed on top for the picture while the rest floated down to the bottom, so we spent a lot a lot of time trying to chopstick them up.
juices yay |
halva milk yummm |
But honestly, probably my favorite place in St. Petersburg, and Husband’s too, is Teremok, a famous fast food chain. Russian fast-food, of course, so although it looks like McDonald’s, the already-made ready-to-be-tossed-down-the-counter dishes are blini and borscht and buckwheat porridges with all kinds of meat and cheese, etc. Blini, if you don’t know, are Russian pancakes but are more like crepes, usually stuffed with all manner of food, from savoury to sweet, meat to apple caramel sauce. When we went into our first of many, many Teremoks that we passed, I assumed it was a) just for a lark and b) not for me, considering blini have eggs and milk in them. Well luckily they gave us an English menu because otherwise I’d never have seen this remarkable menu section on a freaking fast food menu:
LENTEN VEGETARIAN MENU! GUYS, that is the dream! In most countries, the traditional food for Lent is vegan food. So that’s a great way to communicate what you’re looking for when you can’t speak the language. I was so excited and shocked to see this. Of course we went back to Teremok enough so I tried three of the four vegan options at least once, and happily they have more in Moscow. Even happilier, they just opened a branch in NYC! How ridiculous is that! That’s actually how we knew about them. Anyway, the buckwheat porridge is probably my favorite food so far. I love buckwheat, so there’s that, and it’s so simple with pickles and a few green onions and whatever, it’s plain and bland and healthy and that’s kind of what I love. Same with the vinagret (mixed chopped veg salad, usually with beet, in vinaigrette) and the pea soup. Plain, inoffensive, decent, healthy food. I’m obsessed. I can’t believe my fave place was pretty much Russian McDonald’s but if McDonald’s had such healthy and good vegan food I’d probably be there. Well just when traveling; I’m not a monster.
|
|
I knowww it ended up being buckwheat (with pickles) that was my favorite dish, the title of this post is so misleading. Not gonna change it. Oh we also ate at a Georgian restaurant and I had this boiled spinach and walnut pate (with more of my favorite bread) that was really good and it was topped with pomegranate so I’m going to share the picture just randomly right now.
I also went to a falafel place called Pita’s and had a very nice cabbage and orange salad and a falafel wrap! There are a few Pita’s across the city. The wrap with hummus is vegan, but apparently the ‘original’ wrap is not! But who would ever order falafel without hummus?!
So St. Petersburg was super vegan friendly and I didn’t even go to all the places on HappyCow! I didn’t even go to like 5 of them! It’s a great city in so many ways, and you will eat pretty well. We will see what happens in the next city!
Related Posts
I am Africa: Ceuta is a Fun Little Spanish But African Quirk
The view of Africa from the ferry
When Husband and I were planning our trip through Andalusia, we were as gung-ho on going to little-known Ceuta as we were on going to our main attractions Seville and Granada, even though there’s nothing to do there, it’s not necessarily beautiful, and it’s not known for any particularly good food or landmarks. Why would we be so determined to visit this lil baby hamlet (#yayhamlet) for barely 24 hours when we had such a tight schedule? Because Ceuta is a Spanish town, but it’s in Africa. So weird right! Located across the Strait of Gibraltar at the northernmost point of Africa, Ceuta is a Spanish autonomous city, which for us means one thing – another addition on the Travelers’ Century Club list. Yes we are nerds but we want to hit that 100 mark!
COMANDANCIA I wish that was my title
Is Senderos like Westeros?
Who would have guessed that Africaspain would have a SEPTA outpost!
But even aside from our silly tallies, it’s so cool to visit a Spanish town that is not part of the Spanish mainland, and instead is mere miles from Tangier and the rest of Morocco. We wanted to witness this geographic anomaly, even though (but also because!) its very existence is the most exciting thing it has going for it. Back in boring, straightforward Europe (jk), we got back on the bus from Granada to Antequera and then got a train (nice Renfe trains!) to the port city Algeciras, where the ferry to Ceuta leaves from. It was lot of modes of transportation early in the morning. They say to get to the ferry terminal an hour before takeoff, and even though we were well on time I got nervous because it took FOREVER to pick up our prepaid ferry tickets at the Balearia kiosk. There were three women standing behind the glass but only one was working and I kept giving them looks that said “Why aren’t you working why are you just standing there what is wrong with you ahhh” but it did NOTHING to speed them along. It took literally 20 minutes for the one working woman to assist the group ahead of us, and then when it was our turn we got our tickets in two seconds flat so you know, timing, man. We booked in advance which wasn’t necessary on our non-full boat but it can’t hurt. We left about 15 minutes late because Spanish time, but it was okay because there were three doggies onboard! And one looked like a baby Tobillo soooo cute. On the ferry, there was a big open area between the seats (facing the other way) and the bar/bathroom area, so I did yoga and stretching there and no one really came near me except to go to the bathroom so only a few people noticed me but then these two mean women laughed at me so I put a curse on their heads. A few hours later, we were in Africa but still Spain! When you get off the ferry, Ceuta looks sketchy, but that’s true of all ports, I think. Walking towards the city centre through roundabouts is a little scary, but the cars generally stop at the zebra crossings. One of the first things I noticed as we walked along the marina to our hotel was a travel agency called Septatravel so I got an immediate positive feeling about this wacky lil guy. Five or so minutes into the walk there is a SuperSol market and a Lidl! Lidl’s line is insanely long because it is like Costco so go get water and snacks at the SuperSol instead. Oh and SuperSol had vegan yogurt and giant apples, my favorite kind of apples!
there ain’t a friggin cloud in the sky
The marina and all the old town buildings that we passed en route to our hotel were really beautiful. It felt so nice to be by water, which I sometimes forget I miss. The charming town centre was full of white buildings with clear Moorish and Spanish influences, and a few statues and tiny parks. The first thing we did was go down to the beach. It was a little cold, definitely more than we expected considering we were in Africa and we had assumed it would be hot, so we only dipped our toes in the ocean and had a nice stroll along the sand.
I don’t really understand sunbathing when there’s no chance of going in the water but hey power to these weirdos.
We stayed at Hotel Ceuta Puerta de Africa, and it was the first standard and modern kind of our trip, so not as charming or pretty or special like in Seville or Granada but it was clean and familiar. Also it had the first good wifi of the whole trip. And it had a bidet! Every bathroom should have one. After we dropped our stuff, we needed to find lunch! We had been traveling to get to Ceuta from 6am to 2pm, so we were hungry and all weird from travel snacking and off meal times. But we had a super hard time finding a place for lunch. We literally went into every. single. restaurant or cafe in the entire town center and checked every menu and found NOTHING even remotely veganizable. It was unbelievably frustrating. They eat a shittonne of fried fish and cheese there. Finally, when I was about to cry (I should have just realized I could have bought groceries from the SuperSol), we asked the guy at one random cafe if he could make me a salad with only vegetables. The guy was so friendly and accommodating and said yes of course and I can also grill vegetables for you! Even though I normally hate that, I hadn’t had a standard grilled veg plate yet on this trip (hooray!) so I said that would actually be good. The veg plate was, but the salad came with a big plop of tuna on top ughhhh people fish is not a vegetable! We took the plopball off and the surrounding bits but it still had the fishy sense all over. Not a great start to eating in Ceuta but at least I had veggies. And bread. So much bread in Spain. I mean Africa. I mean Spain!
We stayed at Hotel Ceuta Puerta de Africa, and it was the first standard and modern kind of our trip, so not as charming or pretty or special like in Seville or Granada but it was clean and familiar. Also it had the first good wifi of the whole trip. And it had a bidet! Every bathroom should have one. After we dropped our stuff, we needed to find lunch! We had been traveling to get to Ceuta from 6am to 2pm, so we were hungry and all weird from travel snacking and off meal times. But we had a super hard time finding a place for lunch. We literally went into every. single. restaurant or cafe in the entire town center and checked every menu and found NOTHING even remotely veganizable. It was unbelievably frustrating. They eat a shittonne of fried fish and cheese there. Finally, when I was about to cry (I should have just realized I could have bought groceries from the SuperSol), we asked the guy at one random cafe if he could make me a salad with only vegetables. The guy was so friendly and accommodating and said yes of course and I can also grill vegetables for you! Even though I normally hate that, I hadn’t had a standard grilled veg plate yet on this trip (hooray!) so I said that would actually be good. The veg plate was, but the salad came with a big plop of tuna on top ughhhh people fish is not a vegetable! We took the plopball off and the surrounding bits but it still had the fishy sense all over. Not a great start to eating in Ceuta but at least I had veggies. And bread. So much bread in Spain. I mean Africa. I mean Spain!
HER CA LEES HER CA LEES!
After lunch, we continued seeing the main part of town. It seems like a really small place, but 80,000 people live there! I would have guessed 19 tops. We saw the beach and got our feet all sandy, we saw the main shopping drag of unidentifiable locals shops and a gigantic Zara (don’t shop there! ever!), and we saw a fun mix of statues on the main promenade by the water. My favorite thing of the whole town is this gigantic statue of Hercules and the twin pillars from his 10th labor. Why Hercules? Because apparently the Rock of Gibraltar (next post!) is one pillar and the mountains of Ceuta formed the other pillar and Hercules formed them when he smashed through the (much bigger at the time) Atlas mountains with this superstrength and created the Strait of Gibraltar. Cool story, all I know is after I saw this statue I started singing “Who put the glad in gladiator? HER-CU-LEES!” and I haven’t stopped yet.
I also liked this statue called Paz y Libertad, in which a lady is setting a bird free after removing its chains. So deep, man.
After walking pretty far up the main drag, we visited literally the one thing ‘to do’ in the Ceuta travel guides – visiting the medieval city walls. These royal walls used to be fortresses complete with a moat, and now are overrun with birds and their poop. They are cool to see and walk around, and that’s really all there is to it, and that’s the thing to do. It has become a hangout for Ceuta yoots, and the only other people we saw traversing the walls were a baby in a stroller, a group of male yoots smoking and doing bad things I can only assume, and a girl yoot and boy yoot making out. I usually judge yoots very harshly but I almost felt bad for them because there is nothing to do in their town.
After walking pretty far up the main drag, we visited literally the one thing ‘to do’ in the Ceuta travel guides – visiting the medieval city walls. These royal walls used to be fortresses complete with a moat, and now are overrun with birds and their poop. They are cool to see and walk around, and that’s really all there is to it, and that’s the thing to do. It has become a hangout for Ceuta yoots, and the only other people we saw traversing the walls were a baby in a stroller, a group of male yoots smoking and doing bad things I can only assume, and a girl yoot and boy yoot making out. I usually judge yoots very harshly but I almost felt bad for them because there is nothing to do in their town.
The medieval city walls. Cool. Coolcoolcoolcool.
After we literally saw the entire town, we make a dinner reservation at what is supposed to be the best restaurant in the area, Oasis. Our hotel called and made us a booking for when they open – 9pm. The restaurant opens at 9pm! We definitely were not in London anymore (most things are closed by then!). Oasis is at the very top of the hills of Ceuta’s head bit by Mirador San Antonio. You need to take a taxi because, well, it’s far, but also it’s all winding roads where opposing traffic just comes barreling around the curves.
Mirador San Antonio has a perfect lookout spot we went to before dinner. At this spot, which sticks out over the water, you can see Africa curving around and a lil spot of Europe across the Strait of Gibraltar, as long as it’s not too foggy. It was kind of foggy. The temperature dropped considerably once the sun set, and we were at the highest, windiest point of town, so be prepared. I only brought warm weather clothes. Anyway, it was worth it because we saw a beautiful sunset between Europe and Africa and that is super cool.
Mirador San Antonio has a perfect lookout spot we went to before dinner. At this spot, which sticks out over the water, you can see Africa curving around and a lil spot of Europe across the Strait of Gibraltar, as long as it’s not too foggy. It was kind of foggy. The temperature dropped considerably once the sun set, and we were at the highest, windiest point of town, so be prepared. I only brought warm weather clothes. Anyway, it was worth it because we saw a beautiful sunset between Europe and Africa and that is super cool.
Sun is setting right down the middle!
Once it was finally close to 9pm, we walked over to Oasis Restaurant, and saw many ladies throwing buckets of soapy water on the windows and front patio. Um. Wat. I tried to open the front door (despite the soapy puddles) but it was locked. The ladies kept cleaning and scrubbing and throwing buckets of water just everywhere, so we walked a little up the road and decided to wait a few minutes. On our little wanderings, we saw these little fellas crossing the street:
So that was interesting! A little bit later, we went back to peek at the restaurant, and the ladies were still going strong with their water games. We’re at this incredibly remote spot, far from the center of town and far from any other living creature (except those crossing the street), and we were like what is happening! Finally a few minutes later a man came out the front door and said it would just be a few minutes more. And then he mopped the patio, while we just stood there in the cold. I wanted to be like, duuuude let us in and mop LATER. I was so angry and cold. So cold. Finally after at least 15 minutes we went inside, and it was gorgeous inside. It looked like Morocco. The man, although obviously very stupid, was nice and I stopped being so angry. I was concerned that it was supposed to be the best restaurant in the whole city, but we were the only guests! Also he was listening to a football match on the radio pretty loud which really did not jibe with the decor. So odd. We thought maybe the emptiness was because it was a Wednesday, or because Easter processions were going on (yup here too). Well, turns out we are just REALLY underestimating how late the Spanish do in fact eat. At 10pm (bedtime!), while we were eating our starters, a big family arrived. Then at 10:15pm, four teenage girls came. So random. Then at 10:30pm a group of old people friends. We were flabbergasted – when they say people eat dinner late in Spain (and pseudo-Spain), they really mean it! It’s semi-late in Madrid and Barcelona and Seville was tourist-friendly, so I guess we just never experienced dinner time for real in a town not catering to tourists. Places were people actually live like Ceuta do midnight dinner.
Then, at almost 11pm, a big family came in WITH AN INFANT. I was done trying to understand. I was literally falling asleep in my food and a baby was just getting started.
Then, at almost 11pm, a big family came in WITH AN INFANT. I was done trying to understand. I was literally falling asleep in my food and a baby was just getting started.
yes you’re right this is indeed a carrot salad I just didn’t expect it to be so carrot
The food ended up being just as good as I hoped. The mopper man seemed to be doing everything; he was the only staff I saw (though the kitchen was through the many big rooms in various connected buildings. It was a gorgeous space). He understood the veganness really easily and promised I would eat well. I started with a decent carrot salad, literally discs of cold cooked carrot with herbs that was really good but a little too much carrot. We also got great giant slabs of flat bread which is our favorite.
I MADE COUSCOUS
For my main, I had a delicious couscous. I know it sounds boring but it was one of the very best couscouses (couses cous?) I’ve ever had, up there with the ones I had on our honeymoon in Morocco which makes sense since this is effectively in Morocco. First of all, it came with chickpeas! Hooray for restaurants that give vegans beans! We want beans! Then, the broth that the cous was in was soo good, and it came with a good mix of weird veggies. It was wonderful! There was so much couscous though, I couldn’t even finish it. I liked this very much. MUCHO GUSTO.
TRAY OF SUGAR
After dinner, the mopper man brought fresh mint tea which is literally our favorite thing. This tea was in that great Moroccan tradition of being way too sweet and poured from a great height. He also brought us a huge, HUGE, dessert tray. There were peanutty jawns, sugar syrup baklava type jawns, flaky cookies that left tons of powdered sugar in their wake, all kinds of sugary syrupy twisty little bites that were so good and sooo sugary. I wish that he had told us that we would be charged for each little piece we ate, but they were super cheap and it’s better than being charged for the whole gigantic tray. I just wouldn’t have bit every single one and put half back. Just kidding I didn’t do that I am not a monster. It was a great meal overall. The only annoying thing (besides the opening wtf) was that I asked for a half liter of water (no tap water really in all of Spain. Or Africa) and he said they only had full liters left (menu said both so it was a supply problem) but on the bill he charged us for the full, which I thought was wrong since we wanted to get just a half (I had bag water as always).
The guy called a taxi for us (you can’t hail one at the deserted top of a mountain) at 11pm, and it took a full 30 minutes for it to come. Ughhhh it was sooo cold outside too and I was dizzy from all the sugar in the tea and the desserts and that darn baby was still going strong inside. It finally came, and after all that it couldn’t drop us at our hotel but a few blocks away, because this was happening:
The guy called a taxi for us (you can’t hail one at the deserted top of a mountain) at 11pm, and it took a full 30 minutes for it to come. Ughhhh it was sooo cold outside too and I was dizzy from all the sugar in the tea and the desserts and that darn baby was still going strong inside. It finally came, and after all that it couldn’t drop us at our hotel but a few blocks away, because this was happening:
YUP, another Easter parade! Even in Africa! And after 11pm! Oh boy this was getting kind of annoying. I mean I’m not a fan of parades to begin with so a slow, somber one about Jesus and clan got old kinda fast. But still it’s pretty cool, and kind of hilarious. Thank goodness we couldn’t really hear the drums from our room.
So that covers all, seriously all, of our time in Ceuta. There’s not much to do as a tourist, so it’s kind of meh and I can’t recommend that people actually vacation there. But if you happen to be in the area, it’s cool to see a geographic oddity and the Strait of Gibraltar, and you get to say you went to Spain but Africa. Also you get to sing “I am Africa” the whole time. Oh and of course the songs from “Hercules”! So it is great for the music in your head if nothing else.
“The Essential Vegan Travel Guide” & Interview with the Author, The Vegan Word!
This is Caitlin! Caitlin says hi!
Hello everyone! Today we have a special post about the very helpful book “The Essential Vegan Travel Guide”, by Caitlin Galer-Unti of The Vegan Word. The book has been out for a little while but Caitlin and I are both very very important people so this is more of a reminder to buy the book rather than new news. Not only am I going to share my thoughts, which you love, but we have a super awesome interview with the super awesome author herself, CGU! Caitlin Galer University! I ask the tough, hard-hitting questions that we all wished Megyn Kelly had the balls to ask, so gird your loins. Just kidding I ask fun questions. Also buy it here!
A shot from CGU’s travels in Romania! Romania! She knows what she is doing. Photo cred: Caitlin Galer-Unti.
Before we get to the interview and find out about all the drama that went down during it (zero drama), let’s talk about this book. I haven’t been so happy reading a book that felt like it was written just for me since I read the backstage account of the “Wicked” run in San Francisco called Unnaturally Green. If you are vegan and if you ever traveled, you will connect with this book (the vegan travel one, not the Wicked one) in many ways. And if you are vegan and want to travel ever again, this book has some great tips to make it easier and better.
Right off the bat, the introduction will have fellow seasoned travelers quickly commiserating about the worst thing that happens when you’re traveling – finally getting to that restaurant you’ve been so excited to go to and finding it closed. Ew and oh no! Luckily, CGUniversity gives great advice for how to avoid such heartbreak. I appreciate how the book actually describes new-to-me research methods for finding vegan food in any location instead of just saying ‘use the internet, it’s all there.’ I know how important and how frustrating research can be for any purpose, so having new tips and tricks at my disposal is going to make such an important difference in this most important purpose of research, finding food.
Cake in Stockholm! I didn’t get any cake in Stockholm! What the hell! It’s because I didn’t have this book yet! Photo cred: Caitlin Galer-Unti
You’ll also be commiserating hard with her recap of a terrible American Airlines flight (is there any other kind) where not only did they forget her vegan meal, but they also LAUGHED at her. Guess what? American did the same thing to me! Well they didn’t laugh (CGU that is AWFUL) but they just didn’t believe me that cheese and eggs weren’t what vegan meant and tried to persuade me that I was the one mistaken. Moral, don’t fly American if you can help it. What a bunch of shittoboggans.
But most of the book is inspiring, and you will feel not only excited but ready to make your next trip a slam-dunk. Or you will be ready to slam-dunk it. How do basketball words work? I love loved how the book strongly suggests making friends with vegan and vegetarian locals. Honestly, I never do this and I really want to now. It’s clearly the best thing to do – these people will know where you can eat and where you can eat well, and they’ll know the best things to do in their town! Why haven’t I done this more? Why haven’t you? Another, very different, thing I never considered doing is making oatmeal in a coffee maker! Dude! That’s hilarious and also brill! I don’t even make coffee in a coffee maker (I don’t drink coffee) so I never really considered their usefulness to me. This is a game changer for places where your only other breakfast option is maybe a piece of bread with nothing on it, or, you know, if you love oatmeal, which everyone does.
CGU offers lots of tips like these and more, all while maintaining an optimistic tone. I cracked up several times at her blunt humor. For instance, when responding to the common refrain we all hear about how we will ‘insult the local culture’ if we don’t eat their traditional foods, Caitlin points out the very true, very persuasive fact that ‘even non-vegans might refuse to participate in [some local traditions] – like bullfighting, child marriage, or stoning gay people.’ Cracked. Up.
The only thing I wanted more of was how to deal with the non-food part of your travels, the activities in places where everything you can do seems non-vegan. I almost went on a trip like this, where the only things to do were like hunting and ice-fishing and bear-riding or something like that and decided not to go. But maybe I missed other things I could have done. But obviously that is not the intent of this book, which is a great help about the most important part of your travels – eating. Go buy it! Here’s a link! I get a kick-back!
But most of the book is inspiring, and you will feel not only excited but ready to make your next trip a slam-dunk. Or you will be ready to slam-dunk it. How do basketball words work? I love loved how the book strongly suggests making friends with vegan and vegetarian locals. Honestly, I never do this and I really want to now. It’s clearly the best thing to do – these people will know where you can eat and where you can eat well, and they’ll know the best things to do in their town! Why haven’t I done this more? Why haven’t you? Another, very different, thing I never considered doing is making oatmeal in a coffee maker! Dude! That’s hilarious and also brill! I don’t even make coffee in a coffee maker (I don’t drink coffee) so I never really considered their usefulness to me. This is a game changer for places where your only other breakfast option is maybe a piece of bread with nothing on it, or, you know, if you love oatmeal, which everyone does.
CGU offers lots of tips like these and more, all while maintaining an optimistic tone. I cracked up several times at her blunt humor. For instance, when responding to the common refrain we all hear about how we will ‘insult the local culture’ if we don’t eat their traditional foods, Caitlin points out the very true, very persuasive fact that ‘even non-vegans might refuse to participate in [some local traditions] – like bullfighting, child marriage, or stoning gay people.’ Cracked. Up.
The only thing I wanted more of was how to deal with the non-food part of your travels, the activities in places where everything you can do seems non-vegan. I almost went on a trip like this, where the only things to do were like hunting and ice-fishing and bear-riding or something like that and decided not to go. But maybe I missed other things I could have done. But obviously that is not the intent of this book, which is a great help about the most important part of your travels – eating. Go buy it! Here’s a link! I get a kick-back!
On to the interview!
TEN QUESTIONS FOR CAITLIN GALER-UNTI OF THE VEGAN WORD
Italics are my words, non-italics are CGU’s. I mean also try to look at what’s in the form of a question.
Italics are my words, non-italics are CGU’s. I mean also try to look at what’s in the form of a question.
1. First of all, I’m going to ask something that only I really will care about. In the book, you mentioned a boat hostel in Stockholm. About ten years ago, I stayed in a tugboat hostel in Stockholm! The Red Boat something? Did you stay here? Because that was awesome and I haven’t thought about it in ten years!!
CGU: That’s the hostel! Unfortunately I didn’t stay there though. It looks so cool though!
(thus ends the questions I asked for personal reasons.)
2. Everyone knows you are a baller of a vegan traveler, but did you travel a lot (or at all) before going vegan? If so, how do the experiences compare?
CGU: I’ve done more travelling since going vegan but I did travel quite a bit in my pre-vegan days. I’m a lifelong vegetarian so all my pre-vegan travel experiences were of vegetarian travel. I went all over the U.S. with my family as a child, mainly on road trips. I don’t know exactly but I think we visited between 40 and 45 states! I also went to Canada and 7 countries in Europe as a vegetarian, some of which I later visited as a vegan.
So, I’ve visited a few places as both a vegetarian and a vegan and can directly compare. And honestly, the main difference is I eat SO much better as a vegan traveller!
It does involve a bit more upfront planning – now instead of reading a guidebook, I find myself looking up vegetarian and vegan restaurants in advance of my trip and reading reviews. It means I never end up at just any old tourist trap – not that I ever set out to eat at tourist traps, but I definitely didn’t take very much care in choosing restaurants prior to going vegan, and would often just eat at the first place I saw. And sometimes the result was some pretty dissatisfying meals!
For example, I remember eating at several bistros in Paris in my pre-vegan days and being told the only vegetarian option they had was chips and a side salad. We actually ate pretty awful food the whole time we were in Paris. I’ve been back many times since then as a vegan and I’ve eaten so well! Although Paris has historically had a bad reputation for vegan food, it’s improved a lot in recent years and I’ve had some great food there, from vegan fondue at Gentle Gourmet to a burger at East Side and even an all-vegetarian bistro experience that was miles beyond my experience eating vegetarian at a non-vegetarian bistro.
Taken in Barcelona, where CGU now lives! Lucky! Photo cred: Caitlin Galer-Unti
3. The advice in this book will definitely help in avoiding such situations, but how do you cope in those rare times when everything goes wrong, you can’t find food, it’s pouring rain, you’re lost, you’re homesick, you’re actual sick — aka, the amalgamation of travel nightmares?
CGU: I had pretty much that in Beijing and I just allowed myself to feel really sorry for myself. I had a really bad flu, and coupled with the pollution had developed a hacking cough. It was raining and I couldn’t find a vegetarian restaurant which wasn’t where it said it would be on Happycow (this is why I suggest in the book that you always double check the address and even call in advance!), and I was nearly an hour’s walk from the nearest metro. I was hungry and angry and I just sat down on pavement and cried. I got all the frustration out with my tears and once I was done I actually felt a lot better, and was able to pick myself up and go back to the only vegetarian restaurant I’d been to previously and was able to locate easily. I got myself some takeaway and went back to my hostel to have an early night. Then I found a vegan on Meetup.com who arranged the vegan meetup in Beijing, sent her a message and she suggested a traditional tea I could pick up for my flu – within a couple of days I was feeling better!
4. You’ve recently moved to Barcelona! How cool is that? I went to Barcelona for a week in 2006 but haven’t been back since; I really can’t wait to return! Where did you live before and how did your traveling prowess help with the move?
CGU: Barcelona’s such a great city and it’s really improved for vegans in recent years! The first time I visited was in 2011 and there weren’t many vegan options but the vegan scene’s really exploded in the last few years and now a new veggie place seems to open every month.
I moved from the US to London in 2008 and lived there until moving to Barcelona last summer. While I was in London I had the chance to travel around Europe a lot so I got pretty used to finding vegan food all over.
5. How does Barcelona’s veganness nowadays compare with your hometown’s? What would be the first piece of advice to you give someone traveling to Barcelona?
CGU: Hahaha – my hometown is in the middle of the cornfields and fields of cows (in the summer when the wind blows the whole town smells of manure) in the Midwestern US so Barcelona is about a hundred times more vegan! Actually, I hear there’s a vegan restaurant in my hometown these days so it’s made some progress (just goes to show you veganism’s growing everywhere!!).
Barcelona’s really vegan-friendly today so my advice would be to start familiarising yourself with the vegan restaurants here! I’ve got a lost of the vegan dishes you absolutely must-eat in Barcelona and I’m actually working on a vegan guidebook to Barcelona right now (you can sign up for updates on the book plus get my list of Barcelona’s best-kept vegan secrets here). The vegetarian and vegan restaurants in Barcelona are pretty concentrated in the centre and the alternative neighbourhood of Gracia, so you’ll run into most of them just walking around, and if you’re seeing the main tourist sights you’ll never be too far from one! While there aren’t as many veggie places as in London I’d say they’re more concentrated here in Barcelona so you’re more likely to stumble across them. For example in my neighbourhood, Gracia, I live within 10 to 15 minutes’ walk of an all-vegan supermarket, vegan bakery, vegetarian bar, a vegan deli, plus a couple of vegetarian and vegan restaurants and countless small health food shops.
6. Part of being a good traveler is having respect for other lands and cultures, buuuuut, if you could change one aspect of a place you’ve been lately, what would it be?
CGU: Apart from making everyone vegan? 😉 I’d say I’d get rid of the ham here. Barcelona’s really good for vegetarian and vegan restaurants but I’d definitely get rid of all the jamon (Spanish ham) if I could. People eat way too much of it, they put it on absolutely everything, rendering otherwise vegan dishes non-vegan, and there are giant ham legs hanging from ceilings all over the city – so gross!
7. Do you prefer traveling alone, or does it depend on where you’re going?
CGU: It depends who I’m going with! Haha. I generally prefer travelling alone, because I feel like I see more. I get really distracted when I’m talking to someone and don’t really pay attention to my surroundings. Plus sometimes when you’re travelling with another person or a group, you end up in a little bubble and don’t interact with locals. However there are some places I haven’t been that I’ve heard are generally safer to visit with someone and I’ve saved those to travel to later….Now I just need to find someone I can travel with without wanting to kill them.
8. Do you collect souvenirs or something similarly tangible on your travels? When I was younger, I strongly eschewed souvenirs and claimed I was ‘collecting experiences’, but now I’ve started buying personal souvenirs to remember those experiences. My stance fully switched. Have you completely changed views on some aspect of your traveling?
CGU: I tend to spend most of my money on food so I never have any left over for souvenirs! However I do fairly frequently end up buying some item of clothing that I forgot at home, like a scarf or gloves, and I always enjoy looking at it later and remembering where I bought it.
I used to try to spend the absolute lowest amount of money on travel I could (like so many 20 year old backpackers!), which often meant taking a flight at some ridiculous hour of the morning. I always insisted that was absolutely fine and I’d never pay extra for a flight, but now I have completely changed my mind and I’d much rather pay extra to not have to get up in the middle of the night to catch a plane!
9. Name three people that you wish would buy your book, whether you know them or not. What do you hope they will gain from it?
CGU: Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, because they are my vegan heroes and their book Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World made me go vegan. I’m sure that Isa and Terry are vegan travel pros though so they probably don’t need it!
And then this is cheating a bit because it’s not a specific person but I’d say anyone who is vegan but struggles with travelling. I’ve heard so many stories of people eating non-vegan stuff on their travels (like this) and it makes me super sad! I usually end up reaching out to them and offering them a free copy of my book – which is probably bad for my bottom line but I think it’s way more important to make sure that people are informed about finding vegan food on the road. (this is a cheater answer I really just wanted to know if you knew any celebrities just kidding really nice answer 😛 )
10. If an anonymous benefactor wanted to bankroll one month of travel for you, where would you go and what would you do? Is this a place you’ve already been?
CGU: Ooh! If an anonymous benefactor’s reading this (hi! 😉 ) I have this dream of doing a vegan Lenten tour of Eastern Orthodox countries. In the Eastern Orthodox church, devout followers eliminate meat, dairy and eggs (though sometimes not fish) for Lent and for other religious festivals during the year. I found out last year during a trip to Romania that these countries become incredibly vegan-friendly during this time. Most restaurants offer vegan Lent menus, even in really unexpected places like fast food restaurants. I’ve heard in Georgia Dunkin Donuts does vegan Lent doughnuts! So one of these days I’m going to plan a road trip through Eastern Orthodox countries during Lent so I can report back to everyone on vegan Lent delicacies. I’m just waiting on that anonymous benefactor… 🙂
***
That’s all folks! Go buy “The Essential Vegan Travel Guide” and have better vegan travels!
