In July, Sophie and I visited the Netherlands so that Sophie
could give a paper at a conference at the University of Utrecht. We stayed at a
lovely hotel, Figi Theater Hotel in
Feist, which was a 20-minute easy bus ride from the University. I happily ate
my way through these two cities. Years ago, when I traveled to the Netherlands, I recall most meals being centered around meat, cheese and bread.
While it likely is possible to still eat this way in the Netherlands, I found
these two cities to be enthusiastically vegan friendly.
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| 1. Zeeiwier salad for lunch |
Feist and Utrecht are very international with folks from
many places in the world both visiting and living there. People go out of their
way to be helpful and on the whole people in service professions are friendly
and good-natured. Herein I share some highlights.
The grocery stores! From the regular grocery store to the
Asian markets to the health food groceries the produce were fresh and plentiful
and the packaged foods are well-labeled—often in several languages that I do
not read. Nonetheless, I was able to find all sorts of breakfast and picnic
foods in the grocery stores. At my first grocery store visit I was looking for
a ready-made salad to eat in the room for lunch. I looked through several and
found one that appeared to be free from meat, milk (melk), cheese (kaas), and
whey (wei). It looked delicious and hearty with grain and greens and nuts. When
I opened it and tasted it, I realized it was a seaweed salad! Somehow the word
for seaweed (zeewier) was lost in translation. I added some avocado and spinach
that I purchased separately and had a delicious and filling lunch.
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| 2. Dizzying array of vegan foods |
In Zeist, I explored an Asian grocery called
Ibuko: Food Toko Lunch which had food
ingredients from all over Asia and right next door I visited what I would
describe as a health food grocery called “de groene winkel”, which translates
as “the green store” that had a dazzling array of vegan meat and cheese
products as well as all sorts of other healthy food ingredients
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| 3. In room breakfast picnic |
(see photo 2).
I tried a sliced vegan chorizo which was featured in a solo picnic lunch and
breakfast the next morning for S and I.
(see photo 3). Sometimes the
translations between Dutch and English come out humorously—as in “worst
chorizo” (see photo 4).
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| 4. 'worst chorizo' |
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| 5. tzatziki made with Alpro yogurt |
A special mention about Alpro
and Provamel (the all organic product
line), products (also in the photos). I am sure that I have written about Alpro previously. They are a company in
Belgium that makes outstanding dairy-free yogurts, puddings, creamers, etc.
Even 25 and 30 years ago before I was vegan, I wasn’t much of a yogurt fan, and
I can just tolerate some of the non-dairy yogurts of in the US now. With Alpro and Provamel, I am excited for a breakfast of yogurt and fruit and
crazy for tzatziki made with unsweetened Alpro
yogurt, cucumbers, garlic, green onion and lemon (see photo 5 from our
visit with friends in Buxton, UK).
For the first 3 nights, we ate “around the world” for
dinner. On the first night we ate at an Chinese restaurant called Azie right next door to the Hotel Figi. While it took us a while to
find vegetarian items on the menu (odd in a Chinese restaurant—even the
vegetables section was dishes like “mixed vegetables with chicken.” After talking
with the server a bit, we decided on a “special vegetarian mixed vegetable”
dish and a version of Ma Po Tofu
served with rice and a carafe of white wine. We enjoyed every bite. I was
especially impressed with the tofu dish. It had lots of minced vegetables in
it, it was mildly spicy and it used silken tofu in small pieces. Truly
delectable.
On night two we read about restaurants in Zeist on the
internet and decided on “Buddha” which served Nepalese and Indian style dishes
in a handsome restaurant with prayer flags decorating the outside of the
restaurant. We ordered a vegetable curry, dahl tarkam and a third dish of
Nepali origin with black-eyed peas. They served us complimentary pappadum with
tamarind sauce, a slaw-like salad and nan bread. Very tasty all around and both
the slaw and the dahl reminded me of my travels in Nepal back in the early
80’s. In fact, I spent much of the meal regaling Sophie with stories from that
trip.
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6. Thai curry and eggplant dish in
restaurant Chang Siam |
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| 7. Som Tam salad |
One the third day, Sophie gave her paper and went out for
happy hour to share stories with some long time and new Classicist friends in
Utrecht. When the gathering dispersed, we walked back towards our bus station
and found a tiny Thai restaurant called, Chang Siam, that had an opening. Here
we had another delicious and wholly plant-based meal. We ordered a tofu with
garlic, chilis and basil. Som Tam (a green papaya salad) and green curry with
tofu and vegetables (see photos 6 and 7) and enjoyed every last bite before
hopping on the bus to head back to our stylish hotel room in Feist.
On the 4
th day, Sophie’s conference ended at 1:00
so we met two friends from home who also had attended a conference (in
Grongingen) and were now relaxing in Amsterdam. They took a train in from
Amsterdam to visit with us and see a bit of Utrecht. We decided to visit a
beautiful, large all volunteered tended garden in Maximapark called
Vlinderhof. For a post-garden visit outing, I
had searched happycow.net for possible interesting options and found a small
brewery, called “
Oproer
Brouwerij” that serves an all plant-based menu. We all trekked for about 45
minutes down a busy Utrecht road in search of this charming spot in a
warehouse. When we found it, it was like a dream for me because all of the
dishes from appetizers to desserts were vegan and for the others because we had
done a LOT of walking that afternoon.
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| 8. Eggplant with quinoa |
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| 9. Peach Melba |
Because there were 4 of us we were able to try and share 5 of
the 7 food items on the menu--ceasar salad, fried potatoes with a delicious
yogurt dip, a fajita taco plate and a dish of aubergine packets over quinoa
with rocket and two lovely sauces (see photo 8). Finally, we each enjoyed a
portion of the peach melba dessert (see photo 9) which was delightful!
Our adventures continued in Amsterdam the next day, but I’ll
not soon forget the delicious meals I had in Utrecht and Feist.
