Adventures of a Vegetarian

Just got back from a two week trip to Austria. We went to Vienna, Villach, Innsbrook, and Zel am Zee. Austrian food is not big on the vegetables but they do have some unique vegetarian specialties so you will have fun trying them out. Did I mention the bier? My favorite was the Weisbier (medium darkness and unfiltered) but they were all good. Another fun one is the Raddler which is half bier half lemon juice.

Austrian Specialties for Vegetarians (they have cheese):

Käsespätzle- The original mac and cheese. Topped with fried onions. Hearty and fattening I am sure. You can get this everywhere…

Kasenudel – Austrian ravioli filled with cheese or sometimes chanteralle mushrooms (Pfifferlinge) or spinach (spinat)

Pfifferlinge – Austria’s chaneterelle mushroom, they are delicious and they are on the menu when they are in season. I highly recommend trying any dish focused on them.

Spinatknödel – Spinach dumplings in a cream based sauce. Pretty tasty but also high calorie. Lunch of champions.

Apfelstrudel – yummy apples in pastry, like a deconstructed apple pie.

Topfenstrudel – sweet cheese in pastry, sometimes with vanilla sauce.

Kaffee – Austrians are known for their coffee, there are about 8 different coffee drinks you could order. I liked the Verlängerter, but try them all and find you favorite brew.

I will now summarize the places we visited including things to do and where we ate.

Vienna:

Wow, what a beautiful city, the architecture and the art work will blow you away. Make sure to check out the Uber Hapburg Monaracy buildings now in the ownership of the state: Residenz (wow), Treasury (beats the crown jewels), national museum (check out Klimt early work in the form of Murals on the top floor walls), Egyptian museum, and the Belvedere (ode to Gustav Klimt). Also check out St. Stephen’s cathedral, Rathous (city hall), “Plague statue, main park, and walk every nook and cranny of the old city, so you can see all the pretty old buildings, fountains, and churches. In terms of eateries, this is a major city so you will be spoilt for choice.

Bio Bar Von Antun – vegetarian / vegan restaurant in the center of the city where you can have vegan sausages with sauerkraut, not to mention vegan goulash. I highly recommend this place for the food, service, ambiance, and price. Rick Steves walked in when we were there! I did not muster the courage to ask him for his autograph…

Indien Village – They have main veggie options including a vegetarian Thali. The food was very tasy and well spiced. It is a bit out of the center of the action but that means a 7 minute walk, not big deal if you want really good Indian food.

Zanoni – Tasty Gelato, tons of flavors, in the middle of everything, and less expensive than others.

I just came back from a trip to Toulouse, France for work. Toulouse is a beautiful city, full of energy, students, street life, night life, and 16th medieval century architecture. But it is a fusion of old and new in that Toulouse is the capital of the aerospace industry in France so it is also known as the City de L’Espace.

France is not very veg friendly unfortunately. Something very important to point out is that if you say you are a vegetarian to many waiters that means you also eat fish. So specify that you don’t eat fish either (Je suis vegetarian mais Je ne mange pas le poisson). If you are a vegan that is a vegetalian, with an l, this means you don’t eat any animal products.

I did find one veg restaurant, La Faim des Haricots. But your best bet is to hit the ethnic eateries (Indian, Middle Eastern, Chinese). Or if you want french food then hit the creperies where you can get cheese and vegetable crepes. Also the dessert crepes are to die for. I reccomend getting the local ciders to go with the crepes.

I would avoid the Capitole for food and eating as it is too touristy and pricey. The side streets of the old city have the best ambience and prices.

In any fancier restaurant you should be able to ask for a vegetarian plate, but specify that you dont eat fish too.

Some restaurants that I went to included:

Le Sherpa Creperie, Rue du Taur:
Here you can get the Crepe de Provence which is vegetarian. The fruit and chocolate crepes are good. Very inexpensive but the service is pretty slow. Sitting outside on the street will put you in the middle of all the action.

Pastel et Sarrasin, Rue du Taur:
Another creperie in the old city area, fancier than Le Sherpa, with better service and alcohol selection. Here they have crepes and galette (a buckwheat flour based pancake). They have a vegetarian galette which was good with more veggies than cheese. Their dessert crepes are decadent. You can’t go wrong with any of them.

La Faim des Haricots, Rue Puits Vert:
This is a vegetarian buffet style restaurant. Definitely worth stopping here for lunch or dinner. Tasty food and reasonable price.

Brasserie de Beaux-Arts, Pont Neuf/ la Daurade:
Nothing vegetarian here but the location is excellent, across from the Pont Neuf. I asked for a plat vegetarienne and they brought out a plate with about 5 different vegetable dishes. It was quite good and 12.5 Euro.

Indian Restaurants:
There are Restaurant d’Indien all over the city. You will be able to find vegetarian food at all of them.

Drinking:

Toulouse is a great place for wine, cider, and beer. Bars stay open until 2AM and then the streets fill with people. The La Daurade area is a fun place to drink in the late evening / early morning but there are little bars all over the side streets. Definitely try the Brut ciders and Belgian Blond Bier’s. I did not have a wine that wasn’t good. You are spoiled for choice here.

Things to do:
Walk around every little nook and cranny of the old city built in the 16th century. Walk up and down the Garrone river front, cross over the Pont Neuf for excellent views, take pictures of teh Palace de Beaux Arts at night, and check out the daytime markets along the Canals. Check out the Capitol square (day and night), Saint Sernin Basilique, Eglise de Jacobin, Notre Dame de La Daurade, and the local art museums. The City de L’Espace is not to be missed. It is a Space Themed amusement park and the best of its kind in the world in my opinion (as I am an aerospace professional that means somethinng). You can walk through the Mir Space station, under the Arianne 5 rocket, see all the Mars rovers, spin around in a gyrosope, and learn all about the solar system from formation to the present day. It is accessible by bus from the city center and is great for adults and families.

For out of city excursions Carcassonne is a must see, a medival city with a beautiful castle and catedral, about 90 minutes by public transport. Also the historical city of Albi with a massive 13th century Catedral, old city streets, and the world famous Lautrec Museum housed in a 13th church. Make sure to pick up a few Lautrec prints in the Museum store and you too can turn your house into the Moulin Rouge. It is about 1 hour by public transport.

I am originally from the UK and have visited far too many places to recount each city at this point. I will attempt to do so at some point. But there are some simple tips for finding vegetarian food in england. In every town in england you will find one or more Indian restaurants. You will always be able to find vegetarian dishes here as most hindus are vegetarians. Just go to the vegetable section of the menu and there will be at least 5 main dishes to choose from. If you can, do a veg thali, or order 3 or 4 dishes for your table with an order of naan and rice. You can never go wrong with dishes with eggplant (baingan), spinach (saag), chick peas (channa), or potatos (aloo). If you are a vegan ask your server if the sauce is cream based, as some of them are.

Just like indian, you can usually find a chinese takeway in each town. Here you might need to ask the server which dishes are vegetarian if they don’t have a vegetable section called out, but I am sure they will be able to make you one meat free if you ask.

In england due to the large indian population even the pubs will have at least one vegetarian dish, as will the sit down restaurants.

Also some fast food treats that you can get that are veg are cheese and onion pasty, vegetarian cornish pastry. Even in the fish and chip shop you can usually get veggie burgers, peas, fries, mushrooms, and beans! You may have a harder time fiding vegan food however, as cheese and dairy finds its way into most everything.

Pasadena is a pretty historical town and has several good restaurants to choose from. But I have also found several bad ones, with the majority of those in Old Town, the most popular part of town. So all the good ones are just outside of Old town with a few exceptions. My favorite indian is definitely Sitar, on Colorado just east of old town. They have a wonderful lunch buffet with at least 6 vegetarian options. They also do a la carte dinner, with all the traditional north indian vegetarian dishes. The best Thai is town is Saladang, on fair oaks, south of Old Town. For some reason the owner has two restaurants, with the same name, that share the same parking lot. One is called Saladang the other Saladang Song. Both are good, but only Song has nice outdoor seating. Both have several vegetarian dishers to choose from. Their green curry is best of all the curries. There is an excellent Afghani restaurant just a block noth of Old town, called Azeen’s. There is a vegetarian combo plate as well as several vegetarian mains and appetizers to choose from. The food and decorations are fantastic. This is a real treat as it is rare to find Afgan restaurants. Very close to Azeen’s is the Tibet-Nepal House. It is sort of a fusion of chinese and indian food and is worth the trip to the lunch buffet where they have several vegetarian options. Another great option for lunch this time in Old Town is Father Nature’s Lavish Wraps which does massive-healthy wraps. They have several veggie wraps to choose from and you can eat in or take out.

Places to AVOID in the Pasadena area: All India Cafe, Wokano, Akbar’s, City Thai, any of the italian or Thai places in old town on Colorado, Picomolo, New Delhi Cafe, Thai Dishes, La Luna Negra, Georgees Pizza (La Canada), Min’s Kitchen (La Canada), and Dish (La Canada). These places are either really bad for veggie choices and/or incredibly overrrated / overpriced.

Portland is a vegetarian and vegan’s culinary paradise. There are an infinite number of vegan / vegertarians restaurants in this city and every other restaurant you might go to will have plenty of veg/vegan options. Portland is all about locally produced, locally made, and organic food. I could not possibly list all of the wonderful restaurants so I will just cover a few of my favorites from my most recent trip:

Portabella’s – Absolutely amazing and I would say a posh vegan nouveau american – italian inspired restaurant. Everything we had here was amazing from the cashew cheeze pizza to the vegetarian chicken piccata, and roasted beet pate. The decor and service were great too. Make sure to make a reservation as it is quite popular. The menu also changes frequently. Another excellent place is an organic/healthy mexican food Portland chain of Cha Cha Cha. They have vegetarian (and fish/meat) mexican dishes and it is super tasty and affordable. The restaurants are also very pretty inside. My favorite late night treat is Voodoo donuts where they make the coolest vegan (and non-vegan) donuts you will ever have. In the revolving display case they have a rack of the vegan ones. You have to get the voodoo doll (rasberry filled) but the vegan creme filled ones are super yummy too. Old dirty bastard is not that great. They have two locations now, and the line can often be out the door regardless of the time of day or night (open 24 hrs). This place is a Portland icon but it is worth the wait. A great place to get coffee and tea is at the Cafe inside Powell’s books. You have to check out Powells so you might as well get your breakfast snack here too. There is a vegan pizza restaurant right outside of the book store too in the event you spend three hours in the bookstore and come out hungry. Portland also has a brewery district where they have local pubs that make craft brews. Each also has good pub food with several veggie options. We went to Rogue Ale Pub and Restaurant and you can get a beer flight (so you can check out multiple beers).

Things to Do:
Powell’s books, Saturday and Sunday market, the botantical gardens, downtown shopping area, waterfront, local breweries and restaurants. If you have a car check out the coast and/or make an overnight trip to Mount Hood for some serious hiking or skiing.

Places to Stay:
The Marriot City Center in downtown is centrally located, has nice rooms, and a great gym.

Seattle is a great town and I have had the opportunity to go a few times for vacation and work related travel. There is a good emphasis on organic and locally grown food and several vegetarian eateries.

Things to do:
My favororite thing is Seattle is the Underground tour. This is a tour of the original city which is actually below street level. Modern day Seattle was buily above sea level so the original city can still be visited. In fact anytime you walk over pavement with little purple glass squares you are walking above the old city. The old city can be visited by tours that start in Pioneer Square. The other must do is Pike’s place market which has great fresh food, locally made goods, and the original starbucks just accross the street. After these definitely check out the central park area and visit the science fiction museum, a must for any scifi fan and the Experience Music project where you can play instruments and mix your own songs. Then head out over to the house boat community on the lake.

Place to Eat:
There is a fabulous vegetarian restaurant in the suburbs of town called Cafe Flora. You can get a bus here or drive. They had a beautifully prepared food, eclectic atmosphere, and really amazing rosemay ice tea. If you are staying in downtown you should also check out the Pan Africa Restaurant, just up the street form Pike’s Place. Here you can get tasty vegetarian Ethiopian food, although they are not exclusively veg. If you are only in Seattle once you should check out the Space Needle and get a reservation at the orbiting restaurant at the top. They have a vegetarian main and appetizers. It is a pricey but the view is spectacular and makes for a very memorable and romantic evening. If you arrive later or have the midnight munchies head down to Pioneer Square. This place is filled with late night (post clubbing crowd) middle eastern eateries where you can get good falafal, pita, humous, and baba ganoush.

Places to Stay:
A beautiful boutique hotel to stay at is the Alexis Hotel right in downtown just a few blocks up from the water. You can also eat at the Library Bistro, the hotel’s restaurant and bar which looks like a library from an old englidh manor house. Another place I stayed at was the Marriot Waterfront which is absolutely beautiful, but expensive. Make sure to get a room with a view of the bay and you can watch sunset every evening over the water.

Following my week in Dublin we headed out to Sligo and County Donegal for a “megalithic” road trip. We headed out on the motorway from Dublin and 4 hours later were in the countryside. We started out in Sligo Town, then over to Donegal Town, around the western coast to Carcheevan and Dunfanaghy. Then we headed out to Northern Ireland, which will be in another post.

On the drive over to Sligo we attempted to visit the shaft tomb site called Carrowkeel just off the main road, supposedly where Quen Mab is entombed. You MUST have GPS coordinates of the tomb in order to find it as you have to hike to it from the main road and off of the hiking path. It is pretty chilly on the hilltop so only attempt it if you have a wind-proof jacket and hiking shoes. Also watchout for wayward sheep, baahhh..

In Sligo we ate at a great indian restaurant called on the main street. I forget the name of it now but it is upstairs and in a white building with modern furnishing,decor. They had a full selection of vegetarian entrees and the prices were reasonable. We stayed at Pearse House B&B which was a beautifully appoint B&B with friendly and helpful owners. It was about a 10 minute walk to town and had parking.

From Sligo we drove over to County Donegal and on the way visited the neolithic Court Tomb of Creevykeel and the neolithic cemetary site of Carrowmore which are chock full of Dolmens and stone circles. These are both very impressive neolithic sites and are WELL worth the visit. They are also not that frequented by tourists so you get some great pics.

In Donegal Town we ate at the Olde Castle bar restaurant right across the street from the Castle. This is a (large) traditional pub and they have at least two to three veggie mains to choose from. The portions were large and very nicely prepared. They also have a locally made beer which is worth trying. We ended up staying at a B&B just outside of town, so we had to drive in to see the town, shops, castle, and restaurant. I reccomend staying at a place in town or in walking distance to town. In town the big draws are the beautifully restored castle and a 13th century monestary just above the main parking lot overlooking the river.

Afterwards we drove along the Donegal coast and visited the beautiful cliffs and sea caves of the Slieve League. If you are afraid of heights don’t get too close to the edge! We continued the coastal route and spent the night in Dunfanaghy on the Northern side of Donegal.

In Dunfanaghy we ate at the newly opened (at the time – 2010) Swan Chinese restaurant. It is on the main street but upstairs, so if you aren’t looking up it can be difficult to locate. They have several good veggie options to choose from. We stayed at the Whinn’s B&B which was a lovely place, beutifully decorated rooms, friendly owner, with ample parking and a 5 minute walk from the town. It is across the street from the beach.

I have to come here for work and somehow always in the winter time, definitely not the time to be at the Beach in Holland. The local food is very bland and mainly meat based, which means you need to hit the few ethnic spots you can find. I did find one really good restaurant with several veg options, a Chinese-Indonesian place called Tong Ah. One day I ordered the vegetarian combination dinner and the other night a tofu dish. This is probably the tastiest food in the town, and the price is very reasonable. You can eat in or take out. I also went to two different Italian places on the beach front street. Neither was great but at least you can eat pasta and pizza that is meat free. Steer clear of the stake and seafood places entirely, they would not accomodate vegetarians.

Places to Stay: I like the Gand Hotel Huis Ter Duin. They have big rooms, great service, excellent gym, and indoor pool. For something less expensive there is the Hogerhaus, and they have a free breakfast. On the even higher end is the Hotel Van Oranje.

Thnigs to do: Visit Leiden and Amsterdam. They are much more happening towns and have better nightlife and restaurants.

I have an annual trip to Big Sky which naturally always involves snowboarding. I dislike the restaurant choices at the resort, super expensive and boring. But Big Sky has several neat restaurants in little shopping centers down the street from the resort, if you can get yourself out of the ski resort (you will need a car). My favorite is La Luna Restaurant in Meadow Village, which is an eclectic take of Mexican and has some other international fare. They have a alot of vegetarian options and I think I usually get the enchiladas. The place has art work from the locals hung on the walls (and it can be purchased) as well as craft beers. The wait staf is very nice and friendly. There is a fabulous Thai restaurant, Lotus Pad, which is always sooo busy (it is tiny), so you MUST make a reservation for and then will still have to wait, but it is worth it. You can get a veggie curry, lemon grass tofu, or pad thai, all of which are excellent. This place has sort of an open kitchen and you can see the super chef “woking” away. Another option is Bugaboo Cafe. This is more a traditional american type of place but they have several veggie options (I got a great pasta dish here) and excellent desserts. Great ambiance and friendly staff.

Mountain view is the more affordable town right next to Palo Alto. I actually far prefer the restaurants here to Palo Alto and it is a bit less pretentious. The best part about the Mountain View restaurant scene is the ethnic diversity. All the restaurants have several veggie options, the prices are reasonable and the all are conveniently located on or near Castro street. For Thai I like the King of Krung. For indian Shiva’s has a killer lunch buffet and great ambience for a fancy dinner too. I also think Sakoon’s is excellent for a group dinner indian feast with an atypical menu. For coffee and tea I always go to Red Rock, on the corner of Castro and Villa. For sinful desserts I always go to Cafe Neto, they also do nice mediterrean salads and sandwiches. For Mexican I like Fiesta Del Mar just down the street from Red Rock. My absolute favorite place in MV is Amber Cafe off of Castro on El Camino Real. It is called Amber’s bits and bites on their sign. It is an indian cafe / restaurant where you can get an indian take on pizza and wraps (those are good) but the real reason I come here is for the bombay street food. You can not find this stuff in regular indian restaurants. The Pav Baji is to die for (vegetable stew with four swett buns for dipping) and the channa batura (chick pea curry with a big puff pastry for dipping) is killer to. I absolutely love this place. I think Amber’s is entirely vegetarian too. This place is good for lunch or a casual dinner. They also do take away.

Places to Stay: My favortie is the Hampton Inn on Castro. It is new and nice. The residence Inn on El Camino Real is nice too if you are going ot be there for a while. The buildings are a little old but they are all nicely furnished inside and there is a full breakfast and light dinner some evenings. If you can swing the two bedroom loft, you will like it.

Things to Do: Walk up and down castro street, walk around palo alto, take the train to san fran,