After three weeks in Rome me and Matteo finally had the chance to go to Rewild, the only vegan restaurant in Rome. It's said to think that a 5 million people city has just one vegan place to eat. Well, better than nothing. They open just for dinner and it would be too late to go with baby boy - and we're still fighting to get him a new routine after the moving out of Ireland - so we asked them if we could go earlier and they agreed to open the doors like two hours before to have us ;-)
The place is not that close from city center but you can get there by subway, so it's all good. It's a nice and big salon and people are the nicest. Their menu is huge, from starters to deserts and they have the classic Italian way of eating: starter, primo, secondo, dolce. And we wanted it all!
I have to apologize for not having good pictures but I only had my phone and it was dark there. But I'll go back - as many times as it's possible - and I promisse a good photo shoot in the future.
First me and Matteo ordered two sandwiches, with different types of burgers. Both delicious (and huge!). Than for primo(usually some kind of pasta) we ordered lasagna and raviolli (and these pictures aren't nothing close to show how good they were). We could stop here and just ask for dessert but we asked for secondo (usually meat). I asked for a kamut seitan and vegetables medallion and Matteo got a sliced seitan thing. I didn't taste Matteo's one cause it was time to breast feed little boy but mine was a piece of heaven!
To close the night - yes, we had more - we asked for the veganisu, or vegan tiramisu, of course. It was great that I could order it for two reasons: it's made with orzo and not coffee (and I'm not having coffee) and it doesn't have liquor (to attend their straight edge audience)! I have just one thing to say about it: I could it a piece of this veganisu every day of my life.
So, if you come to Rome - better, when you come to Rome - don't worry about seeing the Pope but go to Rewild!
I have to say that I'm not a big fan of going to places that also sell meat products or meals but sometimes we have to face reality. Dublin has no vegan restaurants. Really. And just a few vegetarian places. And because me and Matteo cook at home every day sometimes all we want is to go out and have a good time outside. The only place we used to go that is not at least vegetarian is Rotana Cafe (and they have the best falafel in town). But yesterday things changed and we found out a new option.
I've heard about Nando's many times before. First cause a lot of my friends from the UK use to go there and second because a lot of my friends from Dublin use to go there too. But I always thought they wouldn't have anything suitable for vegans (they're a Portuguese chain specialized in spiced chicken) until a few weeks ago, when I read Hannah saying something about the place. So I decided to check the website and in their FAQ's they have a question related to options for vegans (just type "vegan" in the question box and search). So yesterday me and Matteo decided to go to the Dundrum Town Centre unit to see how things were for real.
Before we got a table Matteo asked if any of their burgers were suitable for vegans and the waitress said yes and told us they had a list of ingredients too. She brought us the menu and also a kind of brochure which has all the meals' ingredients and also marks for "suitable for vegetarians" and "suitable for vegans". I've seen in the website before that the veggie burger is suitable for vegans if you ask without mayonnaise and this was confirmed too. So we asked for a hummus starter to share and two veggie burgers with no mayonnaise and plus fries. They are also very clear about they way they prepare veggie food:
"Please note that Nando’s are not vegetarian restaurants and do not imply in any literature that we are. However we do take specific steps to segregate our vegetarian product from chicken products as follows: A separate area of the grill is defined for the exclusive cooking of vegetarian and bean burgers; Separate utensils are always used with vegetable products; Separate bottles of the Nando’s bastes are used exclusively for basting the vegetarian products." (from their FAQ's)
The food was really good and also the atmosphere of the place. Staff was also very friendly. One other positive aspect is that they've opened a new location in town and they're open until late (23:00), which is rare in Dublin too.
The only place that you can be sure that the pizza dough is vegan is in Italy. This is something that I've learned in all these years of being vegan. In Brazil they might use eggs, so I'm used to always ask about the dough before even considering asking about vegetarian options or to have a pizza without cheese. In Dublin is not different, some pizzas places have eggs or milk in their dough and it's not that easy to find a vegan option in the end of the day. Back in February 2010 I was checking the Domino's Pizza website to try to find some information about their pizza dough. If you go to Food Guide Introduction, you'll find the topic "Pizzas Bases and Toppings - Ingredients and Allergies" and it's a PDF with all the ingredients.
As you can see, "milk" is marked with the "x" for all bases. If you take a look in the Ingredients column you might think there's no milk there in the firs item, "Regular Crust Dough". It's not that obvious (mainly if English is not your mother tongue of if you became vegan recently). But "whey powder" is a milk derivative product. It may sounds silly for a lot of people, but I'm sure that a lot of other people aren't aware of this information.
To make things even clearer, I wrote an email to Domino's and I got two different answers. If I had stopped with the first answer, I would probably ended up buying a pizza from Domino's:
Answer 1: "Hi Glauce, There is no milk or egg in our regular dough base. The milk would predominantly be contained in the cheese. Hope this help."
But I wrote a second email saying that I'm vegan and that the word "milk" was marked in their ingredients PDF.
Answer 2: "Hi Glauce, The base does appear to contain a stabilser which contains whey powder. I was not aware of this as it does not state it on the product in store. Whey is a derivative of milk and is used in a huge amount of food ingredients and flavourings. There is no actual milk added to make the dough. I hope that this helps you further."
It's important to know the questions you're making when you're eating out or wondering to ask for delivery. Sometimes people just answer to our most usual question: "Is there any eggs or milk in this product?" or even "This product has anything with animal origin?" A lot of people don't know all the answers and most of the times they are too lazy to check. Make sure you're asking all the questions and that you received very clear answers.
I don't know if Domino's has the same ingredients for their products in other countries, if you know about it (or even about any other pizzerias that people usually think that offer vegan pizzas but this is not true), please feel free to share with us!
It's unbelievable that Dublin has basically five vegetarian restaurants and I still didn't write about all them here. If I had to choose one or two words now to define Blazing Salads it would be "life-saver". During these busy days, it's being the best place to eat or to go to grab some food to take away.
Blazing Salads is more like a deli place than a restaurant. It's small, but with a great atmosphere and offer salads, soups, cakes, snacks and desserts. They also have a bakery that offer a selection of organic bread. I first went there in September of 2008, while we were in Dublin for the first time, to decide if we would really move here. I loved the snacks options and my favourite one was the vegan pizza slice. But at that time I got that idea that it was a place for salads lovers and I'm not one of them, or at least I wasn't. Because of that I stayed a long time without going there.
But since I'd started to work one block away from there, I decided to go there more often. And I have to say that it was a great idea! For the last months me and Matteo are eating more salads in general, so it's easier now for me to go there. And they also have one of the best hummus in Dublin! It's hard to find a place to eat there during the lunch time, cause the place it's designed to be a take away option, but it's not being a bad thing these days cause the weather in Dublin is surprisingly sunny and warm. So I'm trying to enjoy it as much as I can, having lunch in the roof of the office building.
You can choose between 14 salads option and you pay for the weight. The price is fair enough and they offer quality food. They also have some organic, gluten-free and vegan products to sell there.
If you're in town or if you work around the area, stop there and try it. It's worth it and you can become addicted!
The Blazing Salads Food Company
42 Drury Street
Dublin 2
Couscous + green quinoa salad + hummus
One of my reasons to go to restaurants is to have the chance to try different, original and tasty vegan meals, things that I haven't the talent (and experience) to cook myself. One other good reason is that some days a good food is a ready food. And you know, I'm not having the time to cook and when I do, I'm too tired to try new adventures in the kitchen.
But there are two different kinds of thoughts that usually go through my head when I'm looking to a menu or to the meals of the days in the restaurants:
1. "Could I make this at home?" - This is what I think when I try something really good and different that I'd like to eat more often (and that I wouldn't have the money to buy that often). I really like to try to find out all the ingredients used in a meal and think about the way it's made. I know that most of the times I won't be able to do exactly the same, but I enjoy trying and also adding some personal touch to those "restaurant meals"..JPG)
An amazing spaghetti al pesto salad that I had at Cornucopia last week
2. "I could make this at home!" - On the other hand, this is a not a good thought. Well, not a good one for the chefs and restaurants, I think. Sometimes I ask for a meal and after trying it, the first thing that comes to my mind is "F**k! I could make it home, better and cheaper!" And this second thought really annoys me. I know how practical is not having to go to the kitchen to prepare a meal, but I always expect to get something at least not so trivial when I'm in a restaurant.
I know that I'll always have one of these two thoughts going out to eat, no mater where, but I hope I can have more of the number 1.
Have to start this post saying that I'm really sorry about my lack of posts here but I have a very good reason to not being around that much: I got a full-time job and I'm working in a place that I love and I'm working in my area (Online Journalism). And the classes of the Master are back this week and I'll have classes during some evenings + 2 afternoons + 1 morning. It's not that hard to figure it out how crazy the next months will be, but I'm happy and excited!
The first consequence of all those changes is that I'm almost never at home during the week, what also means that I'm not cooking at all. Even during the weekends it's being hard to find energy to go to the kitchen to cook, all I want is to relax and to have some ready-to-go (or in this case, to eat) food. But I'm sure I'll be back soon, just have to get used to the new routine.
For now, my lunch time consists basically in soups, salads, snacks, sandwiches, wraps or cakes in one of my three restaurant options: Cornucopia, Blazing Salads and Cafe Fresh. Sometimes I eat in the restaurants, sometimes I ask for the take away option and eat in the office. The food is always delicious in those places but I'm experiencing two different things: not having proper meals for all the lunch times (which I used to have in Brazil and while I was working at home here in Dublin) and having to eat alone most of the days. But it's being great so far.
I will post some pictures of the kind of food I'm eating in my working days, they don't look amazing but the food is great! And I promise I'll have more posts for now on, starting with one about Cafe Fresh that I want to write this week.
Toast with carrot, spinach, beets and olive oil - Cafe Fresh
Broccoli, carrot, onion and peanut wrap (raw) - Cornucopia
Falafel sandwich - Cafe Fresh
Pizza with tofu and vegetables - Blazing Salad
Vegetable soup + brown bread - Cafe Fresh
Potato garlic mayonnaise - Cornucopia
Lemon and almond "cheese cake" with soy cream - Cornucopia
Chocolate cake - Cafe Fresh
Chocolate and raspberry mousse pie - Cornucopia
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