{"id":3761,"date":"2018-06-26T14:02:50","date_gmt":"2018-06-26T14:02:50","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2019-04-16T16:46:43","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T16:46:43","slug":"eating-vegan-in-warsaw-poland-pierogi-paradise-and-more-html","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/laughfrodisiac.com\/2018\/06\/26\/eating-vegan-in-warsaw-poland-pierogi-paradise-and-more-html\/","title":{"rendered":"Eating Vegan in Warsaw, Poland: Pierogi Paradise and More"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I have a theory, and it’s not about people who live in Lake Erie, although I have been listening to the cast recording of “Bandstand” a lot lately. (I have to throw some bones to the theatre readers when it’s not Thursday.) I think the most vegan-friendly cities are places that are extra-trying to show how progressive they’ve become since their not-so-great pasts, whether consciously or not. In Europe at least, the places that were hit hardest during World War II, whether literally by being destroyed or politically by falling prey to fascism, have been incredibly vegan-friendly in my experience. When I’ve been in Berlin, for example, with its endless vegan signs and tattooed yoots and overall sense of freethinking and tolerance, it seems like the people are on a particularly passionate mission to prove that they’re no longer Nazis, and with that sort of progressive thinking comes veganism! I got the same vibe when I was in Warsaw, Poland, which was decimated by the Nazis during the war as we learned last week.<\/a> Warsaw’s rebuilding after the war came with sort of a rebirth similar to Berlin’s, and I was delighted to find that it is a bona fide vegan paradise. <\/div>\n
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We didn’t have too much time planned in Warsaw, because this was intended to simply be a quick stop off the train on our return journey from our months in Asia<\/a>. However, as we left Kyiv<\/a>, I finally looked into my food options in Warsaw. I had NO idea. My HappyCow app was blowing up and every place I found, I added to my list. We had time for maybe<\/em> three meals and I had a list pushing 50! Luckily, we made fantastic choices and had some of the best meals ever. With all of its vegan options, Warsaw is at the top of my list for must-return-to cities, because there’s so much incredible-sounding food I didn’t get to try. Of course, I’d have to make return visits to my favorite two restaurants, which we’ll talk about below, so I’ll need a lot of eatin’ time on my next visit, or a bigger tumnus. <\/div>\n
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The counter at Organic Coffee Stare Miasto. They get right to the point with that name<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Before we talk about those meals, I have to say how, with all the many options in the Old Town, vegan food is usually convenient. On the morning when we were meeting our walking tour, we had only a few minutes to find breakfast (it was early! it was probably not that early), and the closest coffee shop was a HappyCow entry called Organic Coffee Stare Miasto! They had a green smoothie for me! They also had a few vegan baked goods, like cookies (which we tried – twas decent!) and cakes. They had a very interesting sounding porridge kind of thing that I don’t remember too much about except that I would have had it if we had more time (I am not a cookie for breakfast person!) but anyway, it’s a great thing to know about since you can literally see Sigismund’s Column from inside. The smoothie was fine; it would have been better blended with ice but hey it was a green smoothie while traveling. <\/div>\n
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Okay, onto the stars of the show, the talk of the town. During the short break in between our day of INTENSE walking tours, we found ourselves close to a few lunch options: one of the burger chains Mango Vegan Street Food, or Veg Deli. The former is a popular, casual joint with burgers and fries that I’m sure are all great, but I am weird and enjoy healthier or at least healthier-seeming food more. And I needed vegetables! <\/div>\n
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Veg Deli gave off a sort of Scandinavian vibe, with its modern, simple, and clean interior and its slightly upscale menu. The options all sounded great, so true to form we over ordered, getting two starters and two entrees. First up was my choice, as it always has and always will be when they’re on a menu: salad rolls. Or summer rolls. Whatever you wanna call them; it’s veggies in rice paper rolls. I love them, which is weird because I usually hate everything with that gummy consistency. (Don’t you EVER double up on the wrapper to make it more durable, future restaurants. I’d rather the wrap break and everything pinata out then deal with mochi-like gumminess GAG.)<\/div>\n
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Red cabbage summer rolls<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
These were filled with red cabbage, mint, basil, coriander (that’s cilantro for non-Europeans), and avocado. So many herbs! So many good things. The sauce was, I wanna say peanut, which seems weird but hey I love peanut sauce. <\/p>\n

Our second starter was the Mexican soup, with black beans and corn and so that makes anything Mexican. Very good! <\/p><\/div>\n

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SOUP GOOD<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
For our mains, I of course ordered the closest thing to a salad – this mess of greens and avocado with balls of some sort. Hehe balls. They were like cake-y bean-y beancakes or whatever and it was great. They went a little heavy-handed on the dressing, and that tomato is too big I mean look at it I am NOT going to eat that, but otherwise I loved this. My perfect kind of dish – greens, avocado, beany thing. <\/div>\n
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delicious ball salad<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
But Z always orders best, because while I get distracted by GREENS and SALADS he always zeroes in on the best thing on the menu, like these fried giant oyster mushrooms. Oyster mushrooms are THE SHIT(ake), and this dish was hella ethics as my man Pillboi would say. That white creamy sauce for dipping was PHUH NOM. I don’t know how they made it but it was not tofu or cashew, just thick fatty white cream gunk I don’t know it was delicious. And it came with fried spinach so it was well-rounded. <\/div>\n
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mushroom manna<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
That amazing lunch set us up nicely for the rest of our day walking all over tarnation learning about how horrible humanity can be. But if you can believe it, it wasn’t even the best meal I had in Warsaw. It’s not too far off from the lead, but I guess I’m a sucker for pierogies because I’d give the edge to the vegan town favorite Vege Miasto. I think miasto means city so it’s an appropriate name for what I took away about Warsaw, that and Nazis being so bad. <\/p>\n

Vege Miasto’s claim to fame is that it’s doing traditional Polish food, but all vegan. Well it also has non-Polish food like wok-fried vegetable stirfy (wat) and spaghetti with pesto (huh) but stick to the Polish food since it’s such a treat to get it veganized. As we learned when I ate in Beijing by myself that time<\/a>, I am obsessed with dumplings of all sorts, and that’s what pierogi are really, so in honor of the sequel coming out soon and starring CHER, (what), sing it with me “MAMMA MIA (2)! HERE WE GO AGAIN!” <\/div>\n

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anyone else’s first thought ‘OOH! DUMPLINGS!’ in the voice of John Mulaney’s former coworker when she says ducklings no okay<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
So Vege Miasto is FORKING AMAZEBALLS. Again, true to form guys, do you expect anything else from us, we ordered wayyy too much, so much that most of the non-dumpling dishes came back to the hostel with us (and did not get stolen! praise the yoots!). We got two of the five pierogi options (one is a sweet pierogi, like blueberries and tofu! so weird!), which can come pan-fried or boiled. I think we did one fried, one boiled. I prefer boiled. If I recall correctly (I probably don’t), we got spinach & tofu pierogi and cabbage & mushroom ones. All sooo good. The best part was that both enormous dishes of pierogi came with little salads! It’s like they saw me coming and were happy<\/em>​ about it! Omg this was sooo much pierogi and I want it now! Is there anywhere like this in London? I guess I have to make them, and I do make very good pierogi (ask Z!) but it takes time. <\/div>\n
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HEY PIEROGI HO PIEROGI HEY HEY HO PIEROGI HEY HO PIEROGI THE FAMOUS TROIKA DRIVER <\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
For our mains (lololololol), it was a hard choice but we went with super traditional Polish options of Buckwheat Crepes and the Cudak. The Buckwheat Crepes, oh man, these were CHOCK FULL of veggies which are my favorite kinds of pancake type things, AND it had a little baby salad in the middle too! THIS IS MY DREAM RESTAURANT! EVERYTHING COMES WITH SALAD! I’M NOT SHOUTING! The mini buckwheat crepes (BLIN) were topped with a tomato-based stew of chickpeas, kale, spinach, mushrooms, and then also pumpkin seeds and herbs and sprouts and it was hearty and earthy (anything with buckwheat is automatically earthy I guess) and delicious. I wasn’t a huge fan of the orange-y sauce that was also on top but everyting else about it was great. It’s extraordinarily filling too, especially after you have eaten dozens of pierogi, so we had that show that everyone tells us to watch. (Leftovers.) <\/div>\n
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BLIN! <\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Lastly, we got the Cudaki, because supes traditional. Talk about filling – these were halved potatoes stuffed with tofu, nuts, white cheese, spinach, tempeh and like 100 kinds of creamy sauces. Hot damn this was deeeelicious. Creamy potato things are delicious! And I adore tempeh, even just plain, so this bacon-y version of tempeh was a treat and worked so well in the dish. We ate like one potato. Damn it was good. And it came with a pickly salad, with marinated zucchini, carrots, pickles, and fennel. Such a smart salad for this super heavy dish. <\/div>\n
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I must add that Vege Miasto has a very impressive Main Salad section, and left to my own devices I probably would have ordered one and been happy but would have missed out on this traditional food! Thank goodness we made sure I wasn’t led to the dark side. Stuffed to the absolute gills, we nevertheless had to order dessert. I mean, LOOK at this dessert set up! Luckily they were able to pack up a few pieces of cake so we could eat them later without exploding, and since we were already taking home bags of food a few pieces of cake thrown in on top wouldn’t be a problem. We decided on the chocolate cake and the Bounty-inspired cake (Bounty is a famous coconut-chocolate candy bar). Here I made a fun little slideshow for you. <\/div>\n
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