Thursday, 26 March 2015

Vegan experience in Madrid

So back in Spain but this time in a big city. My fiancé is half Spanish so we had been to Spain together before (as a vegan) but in Galicia, where I found it very hard to eat, in all fairness we had not looked for 100% veg places at the time because we were not alone on holidays so I had a hard time - also because I had just turned vegan and wasn't so used to ask people to veganise things on the menu.

Well in Madrid this time on the first night we went to a tapas place, special promotion everything was 50 cents ! Wow. But unfortunately there was nothing vegan or possible to veganise - they had never heard about veganism before and were very interested about what vegans eat, even apologised for not having anything else than eggs, cheese and meat - so we headed to a Chinese buffet. From all the buffet the vegan things we found were: spring rolls, rice noodles, potato croquettes, tempura, mushroom; unfortunately even the fried rice had bacon. It was not much given the size of the entire buffet but hey it was good and it was vegan.

On the second day we tried the all vegan "Vega" restaurant just off the Gran via, tube station "Callao"
We were delighted - everything was very tasty, vegan and the music was great too. Deco was very rustic and DIY.
We had the mushroom croquettes, grilled seitan, kebab and coconut chocolate mousse.

In the afternoon we tried to get a latte at plaza mayor (the thing to do in Madrid) but they had no soy milk so we ended up having an espresso. Soy milk is not something that is widely available around here :(
At dinner we cooked at the apartment and made white & red beans in spicy tomato sauce, wild rice and (bought frozen) mushroom croquettes. And drank a kiwi and strawberry juice

Also we made a chocolate microwave cake 

On the 3rd day we had our regular smoothie for breakfast with kiwi, banana, orange and strawberry. At lunch we tried the all vegan restaurant "B13", not far from the other one (2 streets down, we also found a Chinese all veg buffet there which has quotes of vegetarianism at the door if someone is interested). 
Again we were very impressed: a full menu of burgers and tapas all vegan!! Really happy with their tortilla (which tasted like the real deal with eggs!!) and their patatas Bravas. We didn't try the cheesecake because we were so full but all the desserts looked amazing, as well as the chocolate smoothie with melted chocolate we saw at the neighbour table. They sell tote bags for 5€ in aid of local animal charities and I got one with the animal liberation logo :)
Deco was really cute with an open cage and birds flying out :)

In the evening we had a dinner with friends at the Hard Rock Cafe. We had the Veggie Leggie burger. Soy protein burger topped with grilled vegetables and  mushrooms. A bit pricey 18€ but really big and tasty, with handcut fries on the side.

The next day we had our regular kiwi, mango, strawberry and banana smoothie. We headed back to Vega and this time had the daily menu. This consists of starter, main and dessert for 6,90€ !! We had the miso soup with tofu, penne with asparagus and bell peppers, meatballs with wild rice and some kind of brownie for dessert. To drink we tried a nice wheat local craft beer "La Cibeles".

At dinner we were at the airport and found it very difficult to find vegetarian, I'm not even mentioning vegan... The only places we found to eat at gates A+B were a grill house and the Burger King. Then we found a Japanese place which turned out to be amazing: teriyaki noodles with vegetables (and no egg). Tasty tasty tasty !!