A Weekend in Paris

If you live in the South of England and a friend is visiting Paris all the way from the US of A then you kinda have to make sure that you're there to greet them with a vegan croissant and tips on where to find the best chocolate chaud. When that trip also coincides with another friends parent's visit to the continent then this applies doubly and explains why I recently drove to Paris to spend the weekend with Joanna (of Yellow Rose Recipes fame), Randi (I hope you read her hilarious blog), her husband Zach, and her parents Cheryl and Bob.

Whilst Randi and family were still en route to the city of light Nick & I met up with Joanna for dinner at Brasserie 2eme Art. Both this spot and sister restaurant Brasserie Lola are new additions to the Parisian vegan dining scene since my last visit way back in 2011 and what great additions they are. It's not often that you find the vegan spots situated on main streets and bustling corners, blending into the local area, and tempting people with their mood lighting and cosy patio heaters but here we are.

Paris - The Snacks.

I love a good picnic & Paris is certainly a great place to have one what with their abundance of natural food stores, parks and boulangeries. Sadly the last two times I've visited the temperature's been either below or close to freezing so the only chance for a picnic has been on the train home.

I always carry my trusty knife when I'm travelling & there was no problem getting it through security to get onto the Eurostar. Obviously if you're travelling by plane & not checking a bag a knife is not a good option! I love my Kuhn Rikon knives, they come with a blade cover & they're really sharp making cutting through bread or fruit an easy task. Also, they come in pretty colours!

We spoke to our hosts at the Gentle Gourmet B&B about buying bread in Paris & they confirmed that French baguettes would not contain any animal ingredients or be coated in an egg wash which left us free to choose our loaf from any of the many boulangeries we passed whilst wandering around Paris.

Our hosts also brought our attention to some great vegan margarine. We tried it at breakfast one day & we knew we'd be picking some up to take home. It came in very handy on our train picnic!

This spread is available in normal supermarkets, Carrefour & Monoprix are the two you'll see most often.

We were very impressed with the abundance of Naturalia food stores in Paris, they are not completely vegetarian but they stock many vegan & gluten free products. There seemed to be one around almost every corner in the centre of the city and a quick look at the helpful map on their website will show you where they are. We found the Sojami Garlic & Herb spread & the Wheaty slices for our train picnic there. There were loads of different seitan's, sausages & spreads to choose from & we picked up this Seitan to take home.

We're going to make a 'steak & chips' style meal from it soon. This seitan comes in two individually wrapped portions each with their own sauce...I'm only a bit tempted to keep them both to myself!

Paris Part III

I wrote about how much I loved Tien Hiang on my last visit to Paris & I was super excited to take Nick there on this trip.

We decided to order a whole load of food to share as we couldn't decide what we wanted to try. To start we went for the grilled dumplings, I'd tried the steamed ones last time but this time we wanted to try the chicken & vegetable filling.

We also chose the Salt & Pepper Chicken...

Mmmm deep fried chickeney awesomeness! These both came with a hoi sin dipping sauce, my favourite!

Next up we ordered Nems, now we had no idea what these were going to be but we were intrigued so we had to get them!

We certainly weren't disappointed with our choice, Nems turned out to be deep fried spring rolls - awesome!

I also insisted we order the Radish Cake, a few years ago I went to New York & met up with some PPKers at a restaurant in China Town. I let everyone else do the ordering as they'd been before & they insisted that I try the Turnip Cake. It looked creepy & I wasn't sure that putting it in my mouth was going to be a good idea but now, two years later, I still think about that turnip cake so it must've been good!

This version apparently came with grated carrot but I couldn't detect any. Man, just looking at this makes me want to learn how to make it!

I knew I had to have the Cashew Chicken Bamboo again, Nick loves chicken style mock meat & cashews too so it was a good choice.

This came with big chunks of tofu alongside the chicken & we chose to have plain boiled rice to go with it.

Next up we went for one of the 'Marmites' which I think translates (probably very roughly) as cooking pot.

We chose the Satay Beef Marmite & were slightly worried when it arrived as it looked like it had a lot of chilli in it. Neither of us are great with spice but this was perfect, slightly spicy but not burney & there were loads thick noodles, chunks of beef and, as with the Cashew Chicken Bamboo, tofu. Yum.

I really love Tien Hiang, I often wish that I could hop on the Eurostar & just go there for dinner...but that would be ridiculous & incredibly expensive so I won't!

One thing Paris definitely does well is Falafel, we stopped off at Maoz after a morning spent wandering around the Musee d'Orsay.

It was a little hard to find because our map didn't really have a clear representation of the area we were looking in but the streets surrounding it are interesting and fun to wander around so we didn't mind getting a little lost!

I went for the small falafel sandwich in preparation for gorging myself on ice cream at Berthillon the famous Parisienne ice cream store on the Ile St Louis but sadly they were closed for refurbishment so I'll have to try to go there again next time.

We also shared some delicious frites.

These usually come with mayo & ketchup so you need to make sure that the person making them understands that you want neither or just ketchup.

The next day after a day of sightseeing by boat we headed to L'as du Falafel, again this is somewhere I visited on my last trip but I wasn't going to deny my falafel loving husband the chance to try this monster sandwich.

It was just as good if not better than I remembered, their falafel balls are deep fried to perfection & it makes me happy that the salad isn't just lettuce cucumber & tomato but also crunchy cabbage & aubergine - yum.

Hopefully I'll end up in Paris again some time in the not too distant future because I don't know how long I'll be able to last without my Tien Hiang fix!

The Gentle Gourmet Bed and Breakfast

* Sadly The Gentle Gourmet B&B is now closed. The people behind this fabulous B&B are now running a The Gentle Gourmet Cafe which I've heard wonderful things about and hope to visit soon*

Last weekend was mine & Nick's first wedding anniversary & we decided to mark the occasion (I'll find any excuse for a holiday!) by spending the weekend in Paris.

After trying some of their delicious food at Paris Vegan Day I decided that I really wanted to spend the weekend at The Gentle Gourmet B&B.

For those of you who haven't heard about this place yet here's the lowdown! The Gentle Gourmet B&B is a vegan owned & operated business located in central Paris. It's only a short walk from the Champs Elysees, Arc du Triomphe & Eiffel Tower.

We took a lovely walk down the Champs Elysees to the Arc du Triomphe & back to the B&B after dinner one night.

The owners Deborah, Caroline, Alex & Paul (who are also the people behind Paris Vegan Day) have two apartments in the building, one with a double room & it's own bathroom situated in the apartment where breakfast is served and one with two double bedrooms & a shared bathroom which can either be rented separately or as one private apartment for 2 - 5 travellers. The Gentle Gourmet also offers Bistrot & Gourmet dinners, cooking classes, picnic baskets & tours of local kitchen gardens.

We chose to stay in the double room with it's own bathroom & we thought our room was lovely, light, bright & airy. We also loved the incredibly warm welcome we received from our hosts Deborah & Paul, it felt more like we were arriving at an old friends place rather than at a faceless hotel.

As far as I'm concerned breakfast is the most important meal of the day (Neither Nick or I are fun people to be around if we haven't eaten in the morning) & I often find that a good breakfast is one of the hardest things to find as a travelling vegan.

On our first morning we opted to have breakfast quite late and we were excited to see the table was all laid out with breads, spreads, yoghurts, granola & juice. The french bread was delicious so we were even more excited when the lovely B&B owner & head chef Deborah brought us out a huge plate of French toast with baked apples to share. In fact I was so excited that I didn't manage to take any pictures of it, it looked great though & it tasted pretty spectacular too. I liked that it wasn't overly sweet, most of the sweetness came from the apples & the maple syrup I drenched mine in.

On our second morning Deborah and Paul whipped us up a batch of pancakes...

...and some little traditional French chocolate chip breads alongside some fruit salad & yoghurts.

This was another fantastic breakfast, what a great way to start the day!

I will be recommending the Gentle Gourmet B&B to all of my vegan friends (in fact, one friend has already booked themselves into the B&B for their next holiday!) and I would definitely love to stay there again next time I'm in Paris.

Paris Part II

Sadly we were only in Paris for a short amount of time meaning that we only got to try out a few of Paris' many eateries but I think we chose pretty well!

First off, Tien Hiang. We arrived at around 8.30pm on the night before Paris Vegan Day & we were so happy that they were able to find us a table considering how busy they were. We just had to wait an hour but there's a bar on the corner so we were fine with that!

I started off with salt & pepper tofu and prawn dumplings.

These were both SO good, I was surprised to get such a lot of tofu in a starter but I certainly wasn't complaining. The dumplings were perfectly steamed & contained a delicious mixture of minced 'prawn' carrot & mushroom.

For my main I went for the Cashew Chicken Bamboo.

I ate this delicious mixture of mock chicken, peppers, baby corn, carrots, courgette & cashews with a side of fried rice. I'd never had such delicious mock meat before & I'm a huge fake meat fan so that's saying something!

Excitingly I'm heading back to Paris with Nick for our first wedding anniversary in a couple of weeks so I'll be making sure to go back to Tien Hiang for dinner, and this time I'll remember to book a table!

After a long day cruising around the sites of Paris on a sightseeing boat my friend Holley & I headed to L'as du Fallafel to stuff ourselves with, well, falafel!

We'd heard about this place from a fellow PPKer who said it was the best falafel in Paris, thankfully she'd also told us which things were vegan as our French is pretty bad! We'd been advised to order the ''falafel special'' a large pitta filled with falafel, aubergine & salad and topped with tahini sauce so that is exactly what we did!

We certainly weren't disappointed with the size of the 'falafel special'', this thing was almost the size of my head! It was messy to eat but it really was the best falafel I've ever had, coming a close second is the falafel from Maoz in London & there is a Maoz in Paris too in case you are there needing falafel on a Saturday when this place is closed.

We also ordered a side of fries each to go with our pitta's which seemed to amuse the guys working there, they told us that the falafel special is VERY large & that there is no way we could possibly eat fries too, maybe we should share some fries? Uh, no sir, if there's something my friend & I are good at it is eating huge quantities of food & we were very pleased (smug even!) to give back our totally clean plates at the end of the meal!

L'as du Fallafel is another place I can't wait to go back to in a couple of weeks especially because Nick is in kinda love with falafel & I know he'll think this huge falafel sandwich is awesome!

We're going to be staying at The Gentle Gourmet B&B whilst we're in Paris, I was so impressed with the brownies & waffles I tried at Paris Vegan day that I am incredibly overexcited about getting to eat breakfast there during our stay. I will of course be taking pictures & blogging about it when I get back!

Paris Part I

I know this blog post is crazy late but Paris isn't going anywhere!

Our journey started at St Pancras International where I spotted Le Pain Quotidien. I'd heard on the grapevine that they do vegan food so I headed straight over there and found a muffin that was even labelled vegan! Awesome!

It was a pretty good muffin , very crispy ontop & soft in the middle. It was also full of blueberries rather than just having one or two hidden in there. If you're ever passing through St Pancras pop into Le Pain for your muffin fix.

We went to Paris specifically for Paris Vegan Day but decided that we should stay a day either side of the main event to sample some of the city's restaurants.

First of all we headed to Les Cinq Saveurs d'Ananda to grab some lunch. Les Cinq Saveurs d'Ananda is an almost all vegetarian macrobiotic restaurant with a lot of vegan options. We'd heard that this restaurant has an unmissable vegan souffle so we all opted for that.

The tofu souffle came with a huge plate of steamed seasonal veggies, salad, brown rice & bulgar. Although I wouldn't say the tofu souffle was exactly as I remember souffle from my pre-vegan days it was melt in your mouth delicious. The whole meal was nice & filling and a good healthy start to our weekend of eating!

Not wanting to start the weekend off too healthily I had the tart tatin for dessert.

This picture's terrible & doesn't do this tart justice but sadly I didn't manage to take a better one!

I assumed that a French apple tart would be delicious & it really was. I love fruity pastry based desserts and this was perfect!

We spent the rest of the day exploring the sights of Paris...

...and next time I'll be writing about my very favourite Parisienne eating establishments!

Vegan MoFo Day 30 - Paris Vegan Day

I've just been in Paris for Paris Vegan Day which was amazing but I am glad to be back home in time to write a proper final MoFo Post. There's no way I can write about everything we did (& by that I mean ate!) in one blog post but that just means I'll be back blogging sooner rather than later!

Paris Vegan Day is organised by an non-profit organisation made up from people in the local vegan community including people from The Gentle Gourmet B&B & VG-Zone. As soon as I arrived I was impressed by the size of it, in the basement there were stands with information on animal rights issues, the ground floor had cooking demo's, debates & stalls selling food & on the upper lever were talks, free samples & stalls selling clothes, cosmetics, beauty products & of course, more food.

The first thing we did was head upstairs towards the area where you could buy and sample exciting vegan products. I immediately honed in on the Vegusto stall as I've tried their No-Muh-Chas melty cheese before and it's seriously good. They had a huge selection & I came home with some fondue, 2 tubes of melty cheese, parmesan snack cheese & 2 blocks of cheese, Walnut & Mildly Aromatic.

I also picked up some of their seitan which I can't wait to try.

I ate some of both block cheeses for lunch today & they were really good - the closest thing I've tried to a real hard cheese. I think the Walnut is my favourite.

I was also really excited to see the Roots of Compassion stand, they have a great range of products including Go Max Bars & Vantastic Foods chocolate, I was a bit sad to see that they didn't have any of their t-shirts or hoodies for sale as I really like their stuff but I managed to keep myself happy with this selection of chocolatey snacks.

2 Jokers bars, 1 Buccaneer bar, Carte Blanche biscuits & a bar of Fruit & Nut chocolate.

Next we headed over to the Wheaty stand, I can get their products in the UK but there are a lot that I hadn't tried.

We munched on many sausage samples before I decided to buy the Hot Dogs & the Grill Sausages. We also spotted this seitan kebab & decided we'd HAVE to head back there later for lunch.

Next up was Isa's cooking demo, we headed down there a bit early to get good seats & whilst we were waiting we found a stall selling delicious vegan cupcakes...

...I went for chocolate mint. I love the little V on top of the cake!

Isa had Terry up there with her & they were both super cute & really funny AND Isa managed to make blini's look easy - I'll definitely be making them round Christmas time now. We saw Terry's demo later on in the afternoon but I sadly didn't get any decent photos - she made empinadas which smelt delicious and they're another recipe I'll be making soon. I had no idea that with both of these recipes can actually be made in advance & re-heated when you want to eat them - awesome!

Smelling all this delicious food made us hungry so we headed upstairs for the previously mentioned Wheaty kebab!

Unfortunately by the time we got to the stand they'd run outa salad stuff but that was okay because they still had the best bits - seitan & bread!

I then decided it was time for something sweet & headed over to The Gentle Gourmet table where I picked up this crazy delicious brownie to munch on whilst watching my friend Melisser do her talk about vegan travel & her book The Vegan Girl's Guide to Life.

It was more cakey than fudgey & it pretty much melted in my mouth, delicious.

After watching Melisser's talk & then Terry's cooking demo I decided it was time for more dessert & I'd just spotted The Gentle Gourmet people selling waffles so I headed straight over, unfortunately they'd just sold out but they were perfectly happy to make us another 5 for our group.

These came with whipped cream which everyone else loved but as a cream hater I had mine plain, it was delicious but it would've been even more awesome if they'd had chocolate spread!

We had a fantastic day, everyone we met was super friendly & the food was great. The event seemed really well organised & after tasting their food I can't wait to go & stay at The Gentle Gourmet B&B. I was also so excited that something like this was happening in a city famous for it's love of fur & foie gras - I hope Paris will be famous one day for it's amazing vegan friendliness instead. Next time I'll be writing about our non vegan day eats!