Flicking the Vs: July 2015

As you've spotted from the last few posts, I've been in Zagreb, Vienna and Prague. More posts from the road coming up soon, but I'm well and truly and back to London.

Coming back from holiday is hard. You've just spent all that time doing exactly what you like, enjoying new places, eating, drinking and sightseeing, and then suddenly you have to go back to work, chores and all the rest of the waxy build up that is life.

So, to keep the holiday feeling going as long as possible, I've been trying to treat London like a holiday. You know, not just going from home to work and back again once a day.

Here's the first thing that I've been appreciating: Kew Gardens.

I've been to Kew more times than I'd like to think about, but it never feels old. It's so huge, it doesn't matter how many times you go, there's always a new corner that's waiting for you to explore it. And, thanks to that hugeness, it doesn't matter how many tourists or locals pile in, there's still always empty benches and quiet alleys for you alone.

At the moment, there's an exhibition about spices, as demonstrated by these giant inflatables. They have little zips you can undo and have a sniff - this one stank of garlic!

The only downside of sorts is that there isn't much in the way of vegan food at Kew, but with all that grass just begging to be laid down on, it's prime picnic territory. Take a few sarnies, a bit of cake, and settle down to enjoy the view, and you've got all the entertainment you need right there.

My top tip: banana bread and a bench next to Queen Charlotte's Cottage.

For more holiday vibe continuing, I thought I should detour from my normal route home from work and stop by a cafe that was rumoured to have vegan cake.

The cafe, Montage in Forest Hill, doubles as an art gallery and antique shop - you like anything on the walls, you can probably buy it and take it home with you. It's kid friendly, there's dark, moody corners if you need to get work done, and even a little outdoors bit if you're in need of sun.

And yes, they do do vegan cake. Along with three or four non-vegan varieties, there was a promising looking vegan pumpkin loaf. I did the decent thing and ordered a slice. (Side note: they will try to give you a small chunk of cake with your hot drink which may or not be vegan. Stick to the clearly marked vegan cake and you're fine.)

The pumpkin loaf was really light and warmly-spiced - think ginger cake and you're halfway there. Non-vegan cake accompaniment aside, the coffee was pretty was good too!

When I was a kid, during school holidays, me and the family used to go to pick your own places - those farms where you can go and grab a basket and pick your own berries, covertly shovelling every third one into your face and the other two into your punnet.

I got to do the same with Mr Flicking the Vs' family at the weekend. Pick your own places have changed since I was a kid! When I was wee, you could pick strawberries, and maybe raspberries if you were lucky. Now they've got all sorts of fancy shizzle. The one we went to had not only strawberries and raspberries, but beans, peas, rhubarb and even sunflowers.

I couldn't resist grabbing handfuls and handfuls of bright lights chard - not only is it the prettiest vegetable out there, it's so tasty and incredibly good for you. I can't help but think it would also make a great bouquet for a vegan wedding!

banana bread

Back from holiday - and boy, it's chard

As you've spotted from the last few posts, I've been in Zagreb, Vienna and Prague. More posts from the road coming up soon, but I&...

burger

Vegan Vienna: Ice cream shops, bakeries, and why not to take tofu through airports

If you've read my earlier post on the few vegan friendly restaurants I tried, you'll know that I ate very well in the Austrian capit...

cake

The Moveable Feast - a great vegan-friendly popup

If you been to The Moveable Feast yet, get yourself on the next Tube down to London Bridge and check it out. The Moveable Feast is a pop...

buffet

Vegan in Vienna: Three vegan-friendly restaurants

The last time I went to Vienna was probably half my life ago. Really. Yep, that long ago. It was probably still part of the Austro-Hungarian...

burger

Vegan Zagreb part two: Burgers, sandwiches, raw cakes and self catering

My last post on Zagreb was all about the rather tasty restaurants that are available to herbivores in Zagreb, but there are some cheaper opt...

When I first got off the bus in Zagreb, I couldn’t remember for the life of me why I’d decided to stay there for a week. The city looked bone meltingly hot, stuffy, unappealing, and a bit beaten up, and it definitely didn’t look like it was going to keep us entertained for one day, let alone seven.

But bus stations are always ugly, right? Maybe it was just a bad start. Then we got to our hotel. Imagine that in the 1970s someone tried to build a place that was the dead spit of the 1920s and missed a bit. Well, missed a lot. It was like an Agatha Christie film seen through a Boogie Nights filter.

We dropped our bags at our hotel, and went for a walk, exploring some dull and gently falling apart streets nearby. We tramped up a hill that looked like it might lead somewhere interesting. It didn’t.

Me and Mr Flicking the Vs weren't making eye contact by then. We didn’t want to see the look of ‘we’ve come on holiday by mistake’ on each others’ faces. I wondered why we’d booked the plane ticket again. Abandon hope all ye who enter Zagreb, I thought.

Things looked up a bit, as they so often do, with dinner. We found Zrno Bio Bistro, which reckons it’s Zagreb’s first 100 percent organic vegan restaurant, and who am I to argue? I didn’t see any others over that week.

Zrno is a sort of healthy eating, macrobiotics type place. The food is grown on the Zrno farm, and there’s some nice outdoorsy seating for those bone-melting Zagreb summer evenings.

The menu runs to soups and sides, simple plates, bigger plates, and desserts. There’s also smoothies, wine and beer, depending on how virtuous you’re feeling.

I asked for a wheat beer and a macroplate. The beer, I was told, was too warm and the macroplate was off for the day. I gave up. ’What would you have instead?’ I asked our waiter. He told me an amber beer and gomaku, a brown rice dish with seitan, veggies, tofu and chard on the side. I liked this guy a lot.

Here tis:

It was a pretty simple thing, but just what I fancied.

Mr Flicking the Vs opted for breaded tofu, for he is a wise man. He got three perfect triangles of tofu breaded and fried excellently, sat on a bed of stir-fried veggies. There was salad with sauerkraut, and the sort of thick sauce that people write poems too. I craftily stole most of it when his gaze was averted.

Given the quality of the mains, I thought it would be rude not to check out dessert. There were about six vegan desserts (always a positive sign) but only one was calling my name deafeningly: the Hungarian cake.

I went to Budapest last year, and loved it a great deal (read my rapture here). But no morsel of Hungarian cake - that’s Esterhazy torte if you’ve feeling a bit fancy - passed my lips. Here was my chance, and I wasn’t going to let it slip through my hungry fingers.

While your traditional Esterhazy is made of meringue, this one was more thin layers of pancakey stuff, sandwiched together with chocolatey stuff. For good measure, ice cream and chocolate sauce. Heavenly.

Espresso-ed up, we wandered off into the night, thinking we might have been wrong about that there Zagreb.

Next morning, we settled down to an impressively vegan friendly breakfast. There was soy milk! Aver! Vegetables! And even salad things with chick peas in. Zagreb, you scamp, you’d been holding out on me.

Next day, we stopped in at the Mimara - the best art museum I’d never heard of, replete with works from pretty much every big-name artist from the 13th century onwards. There were some Dutch 16th century still lives that I loved (sometimes just a bowl of fruit can catch your attention for ours) and a Palestinian icon from the 6th century that I’d never seen anything like.

We stopped by the Upper Town for some beautiful streets and checked out the churches, castles, and the excellent Museum of Broken Relationships. We also discovered some top-notch drinking spots there.

Due to having discovered the drinking spots, we didn’t get to dinner until about 8.15pm. Not necessarily that late for me and Mr FtVs, but given the restaurant was closing at 9pm, we wondered if we’d still get fed.

Luckily the folk at Vegehop were exceptionally nice and didn’t try and hurry us out at all. Vegehop isn’t vegan, it’s vegetarian, but I only saw a handful of things that weren’t suitable for herbivores.

Still jonesing for some healthy food, I went for a gluten free platter - fried tofu marinated in soy sauce, brown rice with sesame, steamed veg, and a walnut and olive pate. Don’t get me wrong, this sort of food isn’t Michelin starred stuff, but it’s good, solid cooking, filled me up and pleased my tastebuds.

As is so often the case, Mr FtVs got the better end of the stick. He just asked for their daily plate with soup and salad. First, a little bowl of courgette and mint broth got him started. Then there was a bowl of green(ish) salad, and a marvellous plate that I sadly didn’t photograph. You’ll have to imagine this one a bit - steamed veggies, turmeric sauteed potatoes, a crisp beetroot and apple salad, and four little fritters of veggies and grains, topped with a sauce that Mr FtVs thought was a bit like the taste of cheesy Doritos, and I thought was more like Marie Rose sauce. Either way, very good.

In case you, like me, are quite partial to booze with tea - no such thing is available at Vegehop, but the grapefruit juice they made instead was rather stellar.

Having decided by now that Zagreb was in fact the best thing since sliced bread, we hiked up the mountain known as Sljeme. We didn’t reach the top, mainly because I was sweating and cursing at having to do something approaching exercise for several hours. We met a nice retired Croatian guy on the hike up that chatted with us and had a very friendly dog, and that was the highlight for me, but Mr FtVs is an outdoorsy guy, so he liked the whole thing.

Luckily, more food can numb the pain - dinner at Nishta. I’d eaten at the Dubrovnik branch last time I was in Croatia and enjoyed it, so I was happy to try out its Zagreb sister. Again, it's not entirely vegan, just veggie, but the vast majority (including all desserts!) was vegan or had a vegan option.

We shared a starter of pakora between us, which was more dense and chewy than pakoras rightly should be, but you'll no complaints here though, because the sauce that came with it - a green bean-based raita - was fantastically interesting. I’d have been happy with that alone.

The main event was falafel for him:

And a thali for me:

Huge, huh? I still got through it, because I’m that kind of trooper. The waitress warned me that the subzi (at the top there) was a bit on the spicy side, but after two days of plainer fare, i ploughed through the lot. There was also a more gentle dhal, and a tofu curry type dish that I wasn’t mad about, as it tasted a lot like tomato puree and not much else. The naan bread was great, and the chutney was a welcome touch.

Equally welcome - it was huge! All the more for me to enjoy. Sadly, it meant no dessert for me, but if I could, I would have thrown myself gladly on the vegan tiramisu on the menu if I had a spare inch of space in my stomach. Zagreb, we both agreed, is a great town.

Zrno Bio Bistro
http://www.zrnobiobistro.hr/
Medulićeva 20, Zagreb 10000 
+385 1 4847 540
restoran@bio-zrno.hr

Vegehop
http://www.vegehop.hr/en
Vlaška ulica 79, Zagreb 10000
+385 1 4649 400

Nishta
http://www.nishtarestaurant.com/zagreb/en/
Masarykova ulica 11, 10000 Zagreb
+385 1 8897 444
contactzagreb@nishtarestaurant.com

For what it's worth Zagreb has another vegan-friendly eatery, Sumski Kuhar, but it was shut for a holiday when we were there. It looks good, so here are the details:

Sumski Kihar
http://www.sumskikuhar.com/
Tkalčićeva 7, 10000 Zagreb
+385 1 4819 634

croatia