Moby Dick at the A.R.T: An Epic that No One but Dave Malloy Could Attemptby Randi / January 2, 2020One Short Day in the Capital City: A Quick Tour of Brussels
Obviously (it’s so obvious guys) you’re supposed to sing the title of this post to the tune of the song from Wicked: “one short day in the Emerald city/one short day full of so much to do/every way that you look in this city/there’s something exquisite/you’ll want to visit/before the day’s through.” Except…except (sorry to my Belgian friends) but Brussels is kind of x. X means whatever. Every way you look in Brussels, there’s not something exquisite. And you might not want to visit. But if you are visiting another, more charming place in the country, like Bruges, which we talked about before, you will likely be passing through the capital. So here’s what to do if you find yourself with some time in this Detroit of Europe (no offense to Detroit, just that it’s like…industrial and charmless).Â
Things
The only really nice to look at part of Brussels is the Grand Place, the central square of Brussels and the most crowded place in Europe outside of Parisian museums and the London tube after work. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Grand Place is often named the most beautiful square in the world, which is…surprising. It’s nice, don’t get me wrong, but the most beautiful square in the world? Maybe in August every other year, when they do the incredible flower carpet over the entire thing. But in winter? It’s fine. I’m fine.
I enjoyed the pinkish purpley lights and the giant Christmas tree. And while it is very nice, it’s not my favorite thing in the city. For someone who talks SO GD MUCH about how often she has to pee, I know you know exactly what my favorite thing in Brussels is:
Manneken Pis! I know it’s so stupid and so touristy but there is a STATUE in the CAPITAL OF EUROPE of a LITTLE BOY PEEING and it’s the MOST FAMOUS SYMBOL OF THE BELGIAN PEOPLE. You cannot tell me there’s anything better than that. Little Boy Piss is smaller than you expect, about the size of a child his age would be so it’s actually easy to miss on its unassuming lil street corner about 5 minutes from the Grand Place.
It’s said that Little Pissing Man (actual translation) represents the people of Belgium’s independence of mind and sense of humor, which I’d say is true about the fact that this statue exists and is on display, but the actual statue represents their tendency to pee outside.
The statue dates from the early 1600s, and this one is a replica; the real one is in the Brussels City Museum. There are several legends associated with Manneken Pis, and they are all incredible because they all are about a little boy urinating and they all try to explain why that was a momentous event. It’s really extraordinary. They’re all amazing but I’ll share one: in the 14th century, Brussels was under siege by a foreign power, and the attackers placed explosives at the city walls to finish things but seriously. A little boy was spying on the attackers as they prepared and he urinated on the burning fuse and, of course, saved the city. Brussels wants you to know that peeing outside can save lives.
So most people know about Manneken Pis, but did you know about his sister-in-crime, (not me) Jeanneke Pis??!! There’s another little pissing child statue in Brussels and it’s a girl! I honestly cannot.
Jeanneke Pis is located down a dark (and pot-filled) alley so it is not as touristed as Manneken Pis. Gender discrimination, I think. Jeanneke was built as a companion piece to the little piss boy, and she was commissioned in (checks notes) THE YEAR OF MY BIRTH! She’s my spirit statue! She’s behind bars because even Europeans are still lagging behind on women’s rights you’re supposed to throw coins into her fountain and make a wish. Great stuff, Brussels.
Food
Like all capital cities worth their salt, Brussels has some great options for vegans, especially compared with the last time I visited the city like 15 years ago, ugh and oh no. Hooray for progress! Not only is there tons of vegan chocolate even in the chain stores as we saw in Bruges, there’s also now VEGAN WAFFLES!!! But before I share the waffles, you’ll have to eat your vegetables, unless you’re that idiot pathetic man who complained about the Golden Globes going vegan when it’s a) a free meal b) ONE meal and c) he would never be invited, ya basic!; if you’re that guy you don’t get anything.
For lunch in Brussels, I did all my HappyCow research and decided on the most predictable choice for my salad-and-bowl-loving self: Yummy Bowl. It’s a vegetarian bowl joint. They make bowls, like full of all kinds of vegetables. It’s literally perfect.
Well it’s not perfect perfect because I went up to the counter when I arrived and was told to sit and that someone would take my order from the table which is fine but then for the next 30 minutes they took people’s orders at the counters???!!! Like yes all those jackfruits were doing it wrong but they still got served first so the lesson is NEVER FOLLOW THE RULES. But finally I ordered my Super Bowl (not to be confused with the upcoming football game that can EAT my SHORTS because the Eagles are out (are you proud, fam, doesn’t it seem like I actually care? #goeagles (look I did it again!))).
My Super Bowl, like Walt Whitman, contained MULTITUDES: red and white quinoa, young shoots and baby leaves salad, gomasio tofu, avocado hummus, garlic grilled green beans, red cabbage, roasted sweet potatoes, edamame, marinated zucchini, grilled broccoli, mango, pomegranate seeds, goji berries, sunflower seeds, and lemon curcuma dressing. I KNOW! ALL THESE THINGS MIXED TOGETHER! Obviously I sang like the boy in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (“Oh Happy DAYYYY”).
I know some of you are like ‘um you know they have vegan burgers and fries and stuff in Brussels, right’ but you know I love a loaded salad like nothing else. And I got a waffle for you! Well not ‘for you’ but for you, know what I mean?
Let’s take a walk through this GORGEOUS arcade to find our vegan waffles!
Here we are!
Vegan Waf is, you guessed it, the vegan waffle joint in Brussels that I say is a MUST VISIT. This was SO DELICIOUS, not to be confused with the best ice cream brand but man alive did you know? Did you know about waffles??!!! Like about real Belgian waffles? I think I had one when I was first in Belgium but I wasn’t vegan yet so I didn’t appreciate it because I was probably like “yeah I can eat this I can eat ANYTHING I don’t even care!” but now I care.
If you aren’t vegan, or you drink beer, or both, I even have a recommendation for you! Before our train home to Londres, we whiled away the hours (conferring with the flowers) at La Mort Subite, which is a very direly named old-fashioned bar that is suuuupes classic and like French if you are looking for that sort of thing. Rude old men waiters, enormous blocks of cheese, amazing beer (so I’m told), so I have it on good authority (husbo’s) that you should go there. We sat at the window and the people at the table outside had a dog so I was set.
Anyway that’s literally all we did in Brussels.
Sleep
I don’t actually have a recommendation for you, I have an anti-recommendation. An opposite torture, as Michael would say. We arrived in Belgium on the late night Eurostar, so we slept in Brussels before leaving first thing in the morning for Bruges. We stayed in the B&B Hotel Brussels Centre Gare du Midi, right across the street from the train station, just for a cheap simple place to spend the night. It was literally the worst, most uncomfortable bed I’ve ever encountered, and I’ve slept in some random places all over the world. So, just a warning.
Brussels might not be the most charming to look at, but there’s lots of culture that you should immerse yourself in, via the many many museums and tours and more. I did that last time so this was just for how to pass your short day in the non-emerald city. Goodbye!
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Eating Vegan in St. Petersburg: So Much More than Buckwheat and Pickles
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.
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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.
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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!
2 Comments
That waffle looks so good! And I visited Detroit last year for a few days, so Brussels is next on my list. 😉
Haha you are TOO FUNNY! Would you say that’s an unfair comparison? Not saying that Detroit and Brussels aren’t great cities, but just that they aren’t visually stunning?