Travelling Vegetarian

[elabyl]

Hi There~

There may be a board already with this very subject but I didn't find one when I did a search.. Anyway, as a vegetarian who loves to travel, I'd like to ask everyone's experience when travelling abroad and whether or not they've found places to be vegetarian friendly.

Obviously, I would expect India to be very Veg friendly.. I'm interested to know if different parts of Asia, Africa, Australia - basically anywhere that begins with the letter "A".. Just kidding..

Any suggestions/guidance would be great!

[omegaet]

elabyl....we are vegetarians and we have found this web site to be useful as a resource during some of our trips:

http://www.happycow.net/

[disneygal]

Hi elabyl, We're also vegetarians and use that same website! I've found good recommendations for restaurants - mostly we tried the listings for U.S. locations.

We haven't had much trouble travelling abroad, although I can't really speak to Asia, Africa or Australia. Our best experience was at the Mirabeau hotel in Zermatt, Switzerland, where they came up with items not on the menu to accomodate us. Worst experience was in Cortina, Italy, where no explantion seemed to get through. We've cruised on small ships, such as Windstar and explained ahead of time...no problem there. In general, I think there are more vegetarian items on the menus these days. But I would be interested to hear about the experiences of others in more remote parts of the world.

[disneygal]

Hi elabyl,

I just noticed in another post that you live in Brooklyn. Please forgive me community members for straying from the topic for a moment, but I'm just loving these 2 vegan cookbooks I just picked up. They're by someone with a public television vegan cooking show in Brooklyn. Have you seen it? Anyway, I do eat dairy and eggs, but the vegan cupcakes are just awesome. There are recipes on the website too.
http://www.theppk.com/

OK, I will now return to thinking only of travel.....

[omegaet]

elabyl....several years ago, we picked up a tip from one of Rick Steves' book on staying vegetarian while enjoyingforeign travel. We always try to avoid those moments of potential confusion:







We nowtuck a laminated phrase in our passport carrierin several languages (which we translate according to our destination(s)....i.e. for a recent trip to Italy during which we stayed in some smaller villages we relied upon:



"Siamo vegetariani. Non magiamo ne carne, ne pesce, ne polli. Uova e formaggio OK!"








Message Edited by omegaet on 08-31-2007 06:43 PM

[Mountie]

elabyl, you might want to stay away from Argentina!


Message Edited by Mountie on 08-25-2007 12:09 PM

[elabyl]

Thanks everyone for your input - those websites are great and will prove to be very helpful.. For my own input - I did have one horrible experience in Iceland. They literally have no vegetation there, everything is flown in, so I did not eat any actual vegetables at all. It seemed that the only thing they had to offer a vegetarian in the entire city of reykjavik was pizza!

As for the Brooklyn cooking show, I haven't seen it but I will definitely check out that website. I'm not a strict vegan, but I enjoy any excuse to bake a new variation of cupcakes

[two2go]

Hi Disneygal
Can we please return to recipes for just a moment? I am not a vegetarian, but if a recipe is good I am interested! We have a company in Montreal that is vegan. They made the most awesome muffins. So good my husband and I had one each for breakfast every morning. They were low fat, with burst in your mouth flavor. Well, then they decided to go organic, and changed the recipe. That was it for our muffins...No more. Do you have the great muffin recipe I'm looking for?

O,
I am sure that the Italians treated you to a feast. They surely were tickled pink at the way you were prepared to express yourself. I sincerely believe no matter where you travel in Italy, and whatever preferences you may have, the food is always great. Any disappointments along the way?
two2go

[omegaet]

two2go.....never been disappointed nor experienced difficulty finding great vegetarian meals in Italy.



As a matter of fact this recent trip, one of the chefs was so concerned he offered to do something "off the menu" for the vegetarians.....he invited us back another evening and prepared Gnocchetti di Melanzane or eggplant gnocchi. The recipe was a family secret and fresh eggplant was in season in the Veneto. The fresh eggplant was diced, macerated and mixed with freshly riced potatoes...form into heavenly light gnocchi.......the dishwas lightlysauced in a subtle pesto....fantastico!



We were delighted with our meal, pleased someone had taken some extra timeand effort to prepare something "off the menu"and, of course, wepraisedour equally delighted culinary artist for his labors!


Message Edited by omegaet on 08-27-2007 05:15 PM

[disneygal]

Hi two2go, Too bad about those muffins! I'll look in the cookbooks to see if there's anything that sounds similar. There are some muffin recipe on the website I mentioned below, although not all are low-fat.

How about this one? I haven't tried it, but it looks pretty good (although sadly not vegan):
http://www.wholefoods.com/recipes/br...pplesauce.html

I'm really getting into the vegan baking. I didn't realize the eggs are really unnecessary! Also, without that raw egg, I don't feel so bad eating the "left-over" batter out of the bowl.