Lost in the Supermarket

One of my favourite things about travelling long term is the ability to stop and just breathe for a while. After a bout of travel fatigue brought on by some unexpected travel challenges Nick and I decided to come back to Thailand and to stop in Bangkok for a month. It's been great to get to know the city better and to live in a more chilled way rather than trying to cram as much exploring as possible into every single moment. We've even been to the movies! We have a favourite restaurant (more on that next week!), we've been meeting friends and Instagram buddies when they've been passing through the city, we've started learning Japanese and we've even had the time to start planning our next adventure(s). These are all challenging things to do when you're living life of perpetual movement! To enable us to do this without breaking the bank or driving ourselves crazy looking for last minute Priceline deals every day we've been Air B&B hopping all over the Sukhumvit BTS line. To help us save some cash for the next leg of our adventure we've also been eating in which I've loved. I don't always want to get my shit together to go out for breakfast, lunch and dinner every single day and we all know I'm not gonna be skipping a meal. Having a kitchen means that I can eat a proper breakfast in my PJ's - you have no idea how happy that makes me! My breakfasts range from soy yoghurts (you can pick these up at 7/eleven now!) and cereal to fried tofu or a big bowl of noodles but lunch tends to be where the fun comes in. I love wandering around supermarkets looking for exciting vegan products and having a kitchen with a fridge, freezer and cooking facilities means that so much more of the store is open for consideration.

The Gourmet Market chain is one of my favourite places to look for fun vegan food stuffs, their freezer sections are particularly interesting and my favourite location is the one inside the Terminal 21 Mall. Not only do they have some Amy's boxed meals, including the Daiya Mac & Cheese and the chocolate cake, but if you dig deep you can find all sorts of delicious dumplings. My favourites include the Taro Bao, the Shiitake Bao, the Tofu and Vegetable Crispy Dumplings and the Oishii Taro Gyoza which are totally a dessert dumpling. Genius. 

Tofu & Vegetable Dumplings

Aside from the Tofu and Veg dumplings which are a Korean import all of these have the Jay logo printed on the packet which makes picking up something vegan easy - just make sure you turn stuff over, you never know where the sticker will be lurking! 

Mallrats of Bangkok!

Let's get real for a second, Thailand is hot. Bangkok is hotter. I'm not a person who is particularly good at dealing with the heat. Having grown up in the UK you might expect this but before I embarked upon this adventure other Brit's kept telling me that I'd acclimatise. I am still waiting for the magical acclimatisation date (40 days and counting!) and I'll share just one story with you lest you think I'm exaggerating... When I arrived at the check in desk of a hotel a week or so ago the receptionist looked at me wide eyed and enquired as to whether it was currently raining? Nope, I'm just that sweaty! Good times! My bright red face and I are happily persevering with the heat sitch but in the meantime I have grown to love malls. I know right! Malls! I never thought I'd say it either, I hate shopping, but in Bangkok malls are different. In Bangkok malls are special. Air con aside some malls, like Siam Paragon, are so upscale they're verging on the ridiculous and some, like the fantastic Terminal 21, have amazing concepts. Terminal 21 is like an airport and boy have they committed to that theme, each floor has a city theme with accompanying models and signage, pertinent mall info is displayed on departure boards and even the information assistants are dressed like cabin crew. It's so fun!

Am I in Japan? No! I'm at Terminal 21!

The other great thing about the malls here is that there's vegan food everywhere! There are gourmet markets, supermarkets, food halls and restaurants and as someone who can happily wander around supermarkets for hours on end marvelling at new and exciting fruits and veggies and reading the ingredients on the most implausible things (I've hit the jackpot doing this on so many occasions that I will never stop!) they're a pretty fun place to be.

Anyway, without further ado, here's my guide to Bangkok's malls which are all conveniently located in the Sukhumvit area along the BTS Skytrain line.

Mercury Ville

As well as being the location of Veganerie vegan bakery (which I blogged about here) you can also grab a a soya based milkshake (you just need to ask about honey) from Soya Soyum or a pre-dessert salad at Dressed. I went off menu at Dressed and used the fun salad creating device to throw together a salad that included two types of greens, mandarins, almonds, tofu, grated carrot and avocado. I also went with a blueberry vinegarette dressing that complimented my salad choices nicely. The only downside being that it was freaking expensive, like, 300THB / £6 / $9 expensive which for Bangkok is a little ridic. Also the tofu was plain, cubed and silken which I'm okay with but I know a lot of people would be hating. I'd probably eat it again despite the price because it was super fresh and totally cured my weird salad craving.

Central World

Talalask in the food court (back left hand corner) of Central World Mall was listed on Happy Cow as vegan until I rocked up and saw them making spaghetti carbonara with cows milk. Everything else was vegan though and it's your classic cheap Thai fare - fried rice, pad thai and, oddly, some Japanese gyoza which I loved and ordered every time we swung by. 

Both the Pad Thai and Pad See Ew were good, I've definitely had better but this place wins points for both convenience and people watching.

The Central Food Hall here is also pretty great especially if you're craving the taste of home. I found these Fox's Chunkie Cookies there and daaaaamn are they good cookies! I also picked up some Nature Valley Crunchy Peanut Butter granola bars which are the kind without the honey. Yay!

MBK Centre

I wasn't a huge fan of the veggie place located in the food court at the MBK Centre but that had a lot to do with me hardly having any choices due to my allergies and the things I chose were definitely on the bland side. If you're looking for the cheapest plate of food this is the one for you.

Terminal 21

Okay so Pala Pizza Romana isn't exactly in Teminal 21 but it is attached to the outside so I'm totally counting it. I discovered this place when I googled "vegan pizza Bangkok" after listening to Nick whinge about his pizza craving for about an hour. I totally get weird cravings too and I'll never say no to pizza so we headed one sky train stop away to Pala and fell in love. I adore faux cheeses and mock meats but sometimes a simple marinara pizza is so perfect that it's hard to fault it. This place is generous with the garlic and they serve by the slice, half meter or meter. Geniuses!

There are also vegan labelled salads on the menu as well as a bean soup although I was sad to hear that the marinara slice topped with truffle oil had been discontinued.

The Gourmet Market located on the ground floor of T21, otherwise known as Rome, is the only place I've found in Thailand selling soy yoghurts. Joya brand were already a favourite of mine after trips to Vienna and I'd have bought many more of these for in-room breakfasts if the place I was staying in had had a fridge.

Siam Paragon

This is the spot where I bought some egg and dairy free bread that I described as "a crime against bread" in my last post. Sadness. As an aside Veganerie is the spot for all of your bread based needs. Siam Paragon isn't all shiny cars and sad bread though and I managed to hunt down some vegan umeboshi onigiri from a little Japanese stand opposite the Gourmet Food Court's checkouts.

Siam Paragon also has a Dressed if you're in the market for some (expensive) veggies.

I even managed to find Mintons in the imported gluten free foods section here. Mintons! I've never seen these in a store before. Sadly this traveller is now on a budget and I couldn't justify what works out at £4.20 for a pack despite these essentially being a vegan yoyo!

I did of course scope out Bangkok's non mall based vegan food scene but that's a whole 'nother post.

I'm currently writing this from Chiang Mai where I've just returned from spending a week volunteering at Elephant Nature Park so expect some seriously squee-worthy animal pictures in my next post. If you want to keep 100% up to date with my travels I'm trying to post to my Instagram daily when wifi will allow.

Veganerie, Bangkok

You just know somewhere's going to be amazing when there's a huge buzz surrounding them and I feel like there's been no louder a buzz recently than the one surrounding Veganerie. If you haven't heard of them yet where have you been? Do you live under a rock?! I feel like so many vegan bloggers and IGers managed to get there before me and they've only been open since October! 

This shiny beacon of sugary vegan deliciousness is located in the MercuryVille Mall which means that you don't even need to step out of the station to get there. You can just stroll right in from the BTS Skytrain walkway, pop up one floor on the escalator and you're there. It literally couldn't be more perfect.

I headed here immediately after getting off of the overnight train from Trang and the very first thing I was drawn towards was the Chocolate Waffle Plate because god damn, look at this thing. It is perfection. This is the large size and the lovely ladies behind the counter were visibly shocked when Nick and I ordered one each. I'm one of those people who could eat the vegan equivalent of a horse at breakfast time so it was okay, we killed both plates easily and didn't show ourselves up as amateur eaters! 

This is right up there on my list of dream breakfasts. Not only are the waffles chocolatey but you can add chocolate ice cream (I also added matcha) and then the whole thing's finished off with a drizzle of chocolate sauce just in case you haven't imploded from all of the deliciousness already. The whipped cream that accompanies it is the only whipped cream I've ever liked. There was an almost whipped cream thing in Stockholm once but that's it. Usually cream is on my list of no-go's but this, wow, it's so light and fluffy and not too sweet because who needs it to be when it's accompanying waffles and ice cream y'know? Apparently it's made of coconut and I totally want the recipe. Oh and that cute lil' thing that says Veganerie? You can eat that! It's really just too much.

They were also so happy that we were enjoying our food that they gave us some free granola to take away. I ate it with a pot of strawberry soy yoghurt for breakfast one morning and it was totally amazing. Super chocolatey, not overly sweet and really crunchy. I'd have totally bought more if it came in something more sensible than a glass jar because when you're travelling they just aren't practical.

The French Toast plate was the second thing on the must eat list and I can say that it didn't disappoint. I probably wouldn't pick it over the waffles again but it was great nonetheless and there was more of that amazing whipped cream which I swear you could put on a shoe and it would make it taste great. Maybe they should sell it by the jar? I'd totally buy that.

If you're in the market for something small or, in my case, a side to your French Toast plate you can't go wrong with the chocolate chip banana bread. Banana bread has always been a favourite and this is A+.

Another delightful free gift came along in the form of this matcha slice which could totally be renamed matcha shortbread because it has that perfect melt in your mouth texture and the flavours were spot on.

I have to be honest and say that the matcha ice cream accompanying the waffle plate was almost too matcha-ey for my (silly western) palate but this was perfect for me. I loved the chocolate chunks too especially as they'd gotten a little melty by the time I chowed down. I bought several more of these which goes to show that giving people free samples of new products can be a genius idea!

Another dessert that deserves an A+ rating is the Brownie Sundae and not just because of the truly epic amount of vegan whipped cream ontop of it. Again I had chocolate ice cream because I find it hard to pick other flavours when this classic is being offered up and there was a frankly ridic amount of chocolate sauce going on. It was outstanding.

The brownie itself was on the fudgey end of the spectrum and held up perfectly when topped with sundae fixings. Both this and the chocolate waffle plate were probably my absolute favourites if you're forcing me to pick. I think I uttered the words "best thing I've ever eaten" on more than one occasion during this visit!

The Pizzookie, Veganerie's cleverly named cookie sundae, is another strong option. Just look at the amount of stuff going on here. Chopped fruit, whipped cream, chocolate sauce, ice cream and underneath all of that is a choc chip oatmeal cookie the size of the bowl itself.

Lastly I picked up a loaf of Veganerie's pumpkin bread and I wished that I'd done it sooner. The only dairy and egg free bread I'd found in Bangkok up until this point was a baguette from the gourmet food court at the Siam Paragon mall and my words upon trying to tear into it were "Holy hell, this is a crime against bread" which I think tells you everything you need to know. This bread on the other hand was a dream especially when paired with PB & J, the dream combo! If you're a hotel room breakfast fan I would strongly recommend a purchase.

As well as being 100% vegan and 100% delicious Veganerie is also owned and operated by vegan activists who are helping to spread the vegan message with their delicious baked goods. In my experience this is one of the best methods, win people over with food, show them that being vegan isn't a hardship and help open their eyes to animal suffering along the way. Classy move Veganerie.