Mediterranean eating in Brussels

After Iran, back to Brussels life...

I've already written here about how it is sometimes quite challenging to be vegetarian in Brussels - or at least, how it might be difficult to enjoy high quality vegetarian food here. Belgian cuisine does not provide excellent opportunities for this, but luckily the city is full of world cuisine that is more adapted for veggie-eaters. Thank god for immigration and globalization (yep, otherwise I would be complaining only about the Finnish food...). 

Recently I've tried two choices from the 500 Brussels secrets list of "The 5 best restaurants for Mediterranean cooking". 

Where is my couscous with a twist?

I have to say that even though I love tajines and couscous, in the North African restaurants their veggie versions are often pretty much the same stuff over and over again, and even though it's guaranteed good it's really nothing special. No. 23, La Kasbah, in Rue Antoine Dansaert in the Centre, has an atmospheric interior and great service, but the vegetarian couscous was slightly boring - the same as everywhere and nothing I couldn't cook myself. It's a pity because the place is very nice otherwise. 

No. 24, Kif-Kif, in Square Biarritz in Ixelles, however was an excellent choice for a vegetarian - or any food lover. The owners have blended Moroccan and Jewish traditions and the meze plate was superb with more than ten different veggie dishes. The place is cool and trendy with a young crowd attracted by the fresh approach. 

Kif-Kif mezes, a great treat for vegetarians, and not too expensive either.

I don't if it was for the weekend and some bigger groups celebrating birthdays, but there was also a surprise moment when a female dancer in typical harem sort of clothes came to make a dance performance. We were a bit unprepared for this and, to be honest, it took us a while to have a comfortable feeling about the half-naked dancer. In the end, we decided to enjoy the show and the beautiful dance as well as the dancer. For sure, at least that night, it wasn't a place for a quiet romantic dinner, but for a fun celebration Kif-Kif would be an optimal choice.

Kif-Kif, empty cups, and food happiness.

Closer to my work, and indeed, in the list of "The 5 best places for lunch in the European Quarter", you'll find at Place de Londres No. 44, El Turco. A wonderful Turkish restaurant, which is the best possible place for lunch in the neighborhood (and with a pleasant terrace). So far, it is also the best Turkish restaurant where I've been (not only in Brussels but anywhere). There is a lunch buffet with plenty of vegetarian (and even vegan) options and they taste all too good for a light lunch. The big portion below in the photo comes to around 12 Euros. The Turkish coffee there is also very good, though 3 EUR price is a bit high.

El Turco's wonderful lunch buffet.

Another possibility for this type of food in the EU quarter is L'Oriento next to Place Jourdan (and not in my list of 500 Brussels secrets). It is also an excellent choice for people loving Middle Eastern cuisine (and a weekend brunch that I still need to try). As in El Turco, they have a lunch buffet. You either pay by weight or you can choose an all-you-can-eat lunch for around 15 Euros. Guess which one I chose...

Iran for vegetarians - varying success

It wasn't always easy to find vegetarian food in Iran. It is a shame, because Iran has some excellent dishes for vegetarians, but unfortunately they are seldom served in simple restaurants that focus on local fast food (meaty kababs). 

The first few days in Tehran, where everyone was on holidays, it was difficult to find any restaurant in the first place and I ended up eating "vegetarian" stew with some meat in it. This actually happened a few times, so be careful if you can afford to be more picky than I was. 

Pistachios are great in Iran, and necessary when looking for a restaurant in an empty Tehran...

Great food in Ananda Vegetarian Restaurant in Tehran.

However, on our second day in Tehran, we were more prepared and asked the hotel to call a few places recommend by the Lonely Planet to make sure that we would find good food for lunch. And indeed, Ananda restaurant, founded by the Iranian Society of Vegetarians (yes, there is one!), was a top choice and even my carnivore friend loved the place.

However, I recommend that you don't walk from the Gholhak metro station if you are already a bit hungry, because the way is longer than what it looks like on the map... In any case, even if you arrive in a grumpy mood, you will soon be filled with joy in this little oasis of vegetarian food. In addition, Ananda is in a quite chic neighborhood that is great for a little walk for digesting the food afterwards.

Ananda Vegetarian Restaurant is a peaceful oasis.

The breakfast was always included in the hotel deals, which was good since it was not always straightforward to find a café or any other place suitable for breakfast. In each hotel, the breakfast was about the same. Flat bread, more or less dry, with feta-type cheese, carrot marmalade, amazingly fresh dates (I hope they start to export these to Europe), sweet tomatoes and cucumber, tea (and in some cases horrible instant coffee), and eggs in some form. Good stuff for vegetarians!

 

The best veggie dishes in Iran were based on eggplant and they were truly delicious. Kashk e bademjan was absolutely my favorite dish and something I should really try at home as well (and here's a recipe to try it out). I tried kashk e bademjan in various restaurants, but the best one was in Khan-e Dohad restaurant in Yazd where, in general, the supply of nice traditional restaurants was the best of all the places we visited.

Another eggplant dish was khoresht-e bademjan, eggplants in tomato-based sauce. In some places, there was meat in this dish (maybe that's even the standard version), so as a vegetarian, try to communicate with your waiter (good luck...). I guess the secret is that they cook the eggplant for hours so that it just melts in your mouth.

Kashk e bademjan, delicious!

Khorest e bademjan, be aware of the hidden meat chunks.

Sometimes, when my friend was having a meaty lunch, I had to be content with biryani. I'm not sure if biryani just means any kind of rice, but normally I got this dill-flavoured buttery yellow-green rice with some beans in it. With some extra butter, it was quite good even though super simple and its nutritional value is probably zero... However, together with some lovely shirini (sweets), I survived and definitely didn't lose any weight during the trip.

Biryani, simple vegetarian...

Everyone, including Lonely Planet, recommend us the Restaurant Shahrzad, "the best restaurant in Isfahan". Although meat-eaters can enjoy the interesting fesenjun (meat with sauce of pomegranate, walnuts, eggplant and cardamum) there, it is also quite popular among big (German) tourist groups and for vegetarians there is absolutely nothing interesting except for the very friendly waiters. Personally, I prefer the traditional restaurants where you eat on a daybed. Shahrzad was a bit too fancy and vegetarians will leave disappointed.

Of course, in Iran, to get the authentic experience, the best thing is to get invited to eat with the locals at home. We were granted this wonderful opportunity in Isfahan when we had dinner with Reza and his family. Ok, to be polite, I tried a bit of chicken, but luckily, there was great vegetable stew with rise as well. But as often with the most memorable dinner experiences, the company was fantastic.

Eating Animals

Being vegetarian is not impossible in Vietnam but it is slightly challenging. A couple of times in Hanoi, I ate in a veggie restaurant for tourists but also tried the classic pho (noodle soup) with beef from a street stall. While I've abandoned sea food to great extent in Europe and I'm very conscious of the sad truth about over-fishing, by-catch that is thrown back to seas dead and extinction of many species, I allowed myself the culinary experience of sea food in Hanoi and Halong Bay where it was indeed an amazingly delicious experience: various types of fish, squids, crabs, other shell fish and prawns.

Moving ahead to the mountainous Northern Vietnam, I have started to refer to myself as an chai, which is a Vietnamese term for vegetarians (for religious reasons). I think I haven't missed out of anything, even the cabbage can taste wonderful here and tofu is sold in the market like loaves of bread. Markets are interesting for meat eaters as well. When in Europe you can perfectly well eat and buy meat without even noticing that the nicely packaged chicken breasts belonged actually to a living creature before satisfying your overly meaty diet, here you can't avoid to understand that eating meat means eating an animal. At the market in Sapa, you could see parts of cow still with hairy skin on it, pig's head next to its paws, and various unrecognizable intestines served for lunch to the locals (not many tourists eating those things). Seeing this outdoor butchery, I however considered it much more human compared to the factory farming practiced in the 'developed' West. When it comes to food production, development and progress do not seem to mean anything positive.

The scene also reminded me of the young Finnish girl scouts with whom I visited Senegal one year ago. They were shocked how the Senegalese bought their food, a living goat, from the markets and were dragging it along the roads to their dinner table. The Finnish girls were naive enough to think that this was cruel. It only highlighted the fact how the Western people are so alienated from the reality of food production that they believe it's inhuman to forcefully drag a goat by the road, while a factory farmed animal would be hardly able to stand by its own legs.

Close to Sapa, I stayed over night in a home stay with a local village family. They had dogs and four cute puppies of 1,5 months old. They would be later sold for their meat, price around 1,5 dollars per kg. I also learn that puppy meat is tastier than older dog meat. Though the puppies were adorable (not any more adorable than baby sheep, rabbits, cows or goats however!), I hoped that all tourists would take the opportunity of reconsidering their attitudes toward eating animals when seeing Vietnamese eating puppies. In his inspiring book "Eating Animals", Jonathan Safran Foer makes a good point about eating dogs. He doesn't promote eating dogs but with this analogy tries to make people understand what it means to eat animals. Why not eating dogs? There are plenty of dogs in the USA that are fed to livestock that is later eaten by humans. Why have this step, why not eat dogs directly, he asks. What's the difference between a dog and a pig after all (the latter is even smarter)? It's all socially constructed and cultural, so how do you justify eating pigs or any other animals that are kept in horrible conditions and fed with massive amounts of antibiotics to survive and hormones to make their bodies grow in unnatural ways so that they die under their own body weight? Next door in the village, they killed a cat in the morning. It was stealing meat from the kitchen so it was now its time to get into the dinner table... An chai!