Meat-free travel: vegetarian hits and misses

23 November 2009 4:21pm

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Here’s our pick of the perfect destinations for the best food without a face – and three for vegetarians to avoid…

Singapore: heaven

From hectic hawkers’ markets to sophisticated specialist restaurants, the Southeast Asian island state harbours a huge number of vegetarian eateries – well over 100, according to www.happycow.net. In Singapore you’ll munch on the best of Asia’s great cuisines – Malaysian, South Indian, the varied flavours of China – and specifically that blissful blend of Nyonya (or Peranakan) cooking, rich with lemongrass, tamarind, galangal and coconut milk. Though the cuisine isn’t specifically vegie, meat-free mains are nigh unbeatable – order a vegie laksa lemak (spicy coconut noodle soup) to reach Nyonya nirvana.

India: heaven

Two words: thali and dosa – South India’s great gifts to the world. The first is an ubiquitous all-you-can-eat feast: a thali can range from a few simple of curry, dhal (lentils) and rice on a banana leaf to a half-dozen-plus chilli-tinged treats in special dimpled trays. The dosa is the king of southern snacks, a rice-flour-and-lentil pancake that comes in countless varieties: paper-thin and crispy, laced with onion, packed with spiced veg and dipped in soupy lentil sambar. In South India, carnivores are the weirdos.

San Francisco: heaven

This is the city that has hosted the World Vegetarian Festival each year for a decade, a fantastic destination for discerning vegetarians. Partly it’s the result of the embedded counterculture ethos that’s simmered here for years, and partly the efforts of gastronomic pioneers such as Alice Waters in promoting respect for fresh produce. What it means for vegies is that you can tuck into anything from a vast Mission burrito to a five-course vegan ‘Aphrodisiac Dinner’ at stylish, inventive Millennium – all without a whiff of meat.

Morocco: heaven

Wander the narrow alleys of any souk and you’ll realise why Moroccan food is so tongue-tingling: the carefully shaped, rainbow-hued piles of spices are dazzling. Be warned, however: not all ‘vegetable’ dishes are necessarily meat-free, and the occasional bland number crops up, but when it hits the mark dishes such as vegie tajine (fruit-sweetened stew slow-baked in a conical earthenware pot) or couscous can be sensational. Add spicy harira soup for kick, olives to snack on and hummus to dip, and you’re almost there. The test of a destination’s culinary credentials is bread – and in Morocco, khubz is king.

Italy: heaven

Sure, it’s the spiritual home of pizza and pasta, but to discover Italy’s true culinary genius plan a picnic. First, pick up bread – soft focaccia or thin, crispy Sardinian pane fresa. Market-stall-hop for antipasto: olives, sun-dried tomatoes, marinated artichokes and peppers. Add a lump of pecorino, taleggio or dolcelatte cheese, toss in a bottle of local red, and away you go. And the best bit? Each region boasts divine local specialities – try truffles (black in Umbria, white in Piedmont), asparagus from the Veneto and Sicilian capers.

Lebanon: heaven

Mezze magic! Why be limited to only one or two dishes when you can load a table with scores of finger-food portions? This admirable philosophy reaches its apotheosis in Lebanon. Dips, grains, marinated and cooked vegetables, stuffed leaves, fried pastries and salads…grab some flat bread and start dunking and scooping. Our pick is baba ghanoush, humble eggplant roasted and miraculously transformed with tahini, garlic and olive oil – voila: dipping delight.

Thailand: heaven

Like San Francisco, Thailand has a vegetarian festival. Unlike San Francisco, during the vegetarian festival on Phuket – here called Kin Jay – devotees stick sharp spikes through their cheeks. Quite what that has to do with vegetarianism is debatable, but the festival is also a chance for ethnic Chinese Thais (and lucky visitors) to munch a dizzying array of faux-meat dishes. The rest of the year, specifying that you’d like your meal jay (vegan) or mangasawirat (vegetarian) gets you your favourite pad thai noodles, red curry or spicy papaya salad sans animal.

Central Asia: hell

This little-travelled region may represent the global nadir for herbivores. As a rule, dishes on the Asian steppes and mountains feature mutton or horse. You might happen on Kazakh manti (steamed dumplings filled with meat), Kyrgyz besh barmak (boiled horsemeat with noodles), lagman (noodles cooked in meat broth) or regional favourite plov (mutton, horsemeat or beef fried with rice and carrots – in fat). If you’re vegan, forget it – chances are if it’s not meat, it’s dairy. Is it worth it? Explore ancient Silk Road cities, roam vast steppes, trace the Pamir Highway, then make up your own mind.

Argentina: hell

Meat rules across South America, so picking the least veg-friendly country is tricky. Argentina gets the nod partly because of its prodigious meat consumption – a whopping 70kg per person each year. In Buenos Aires and larger cities you can dodge the ubiquitous parrillas (grill houses) and unearth some excellent vegetarian restaurants. But if you want to fall off the wagon, this is the place for it. Pick a sharp knife, douse your carne de vaca (beef) with chimichurri (olive oil with parsley and garlic) and get stuck in.

Germany: hell

Eating flesh-free in Europe is easy…in theory. In practice, you’ll need to stay sharp; many chefs still seem to believe that chicken and ham sprout in vegetable patches. But it really pays to be alert in Germany. Yes, Berlin boasts a wide selection of excellent vegetarian options in a range of international cuisines, but all too often that pink dumpling in your soup is, yes, bacon. Conversely, Teutonic food doesn’t get the acclaim it deserves, and for carnivores it’s a treat. Wurst isn’t just sausage – it’s 1500 sausages, an almost infinite variety.

Every vegetarian traveller has a horror story to tell – what’s yours? Or do you belong in the ‘if it moves, eat it’ category, whereby overseas travel frequently involves sampling extreme cuisine? Go on, spill the beans (or should that be brains?)…

Comments

27 November 2009 9:28PM icantfindone Report this comment
Morocco's bread is fantastic, but Man does not live on bread (and olives) alone. The reality in Morocco is that a vegetarian will live on salads, french fries, and bread. Outside of places that see tourists, Morocco is far from a vegetarian's paradise. The concept is totally foreign. Vegetarian dishes often mean that the bits of meat are picked out for you.
28 November 2009 11:23AM giuri Report this comment
I'm not a vegetarian, but I think basically the whole American continent is hell for them south of the Rio Grande
28 November 2009 11:59AM martin2008 Report this comment
I agree with the first ones, yes South India is a vegetarian area of the world (whether Western / Chinese vegetarians like local South Indian depends on their tastes as South Indian food is sort of like monk food, religious and free from garlic too)
I disagree with Germany being on the Hell list...the reason being I went to Hamburg and they have a lot more vegetarian snacks in the streets /railwaystration (such as brie cheese sandwiches and spinach pizza slices) than in most other European countries. Germany also has quite a few frozen veggie products in their supermarkets compared with the Scandinavian countries up north of Germany....but of course England is the Vegetarian strongold of Europe with tons of soya-meat products and ethnic restaurants hehe
29 November 2009 6:36AM mj42 Report this comment
Switzerland and Poland both have some very good veggie restaurants, and Spanish restaurants often do all-you-can-eat buffets with plenty of vegetarian choices. Norway and Sweden are pretty bad - fish with everything - but the worst of the lot has got to be France. I know of one very good veggie restaurant there (Poeles de Carottes in Strasbourg) and one fairly good one (Le Petit Legume in Paris) but it pretty much the whole of the rest of the country the concept of vegetarianism is completely alien.
Best veggie restaurant I've ever been to, though, is Harmonija in Skopje. It's tucked away in the basement of a nondescript shopping centre in a quiet side street and if it hadn't been mentioned in LP I'd never have found it, but it's a fantastic place.
29 November 2009 10:14AM rlissner Report this comment
Being a vegetarian in Israel is extremely easy and I am surprised it's not on this list (although Lebanon is close enough). Because of religious reasons, a good chunk of restaurants serve only meat or no meat at all, make it quite easy to find a strictly vegetarian restaurant. Plus Levantine food in general (a la Lebanon) is often vegetarian.
I'd say Iceland is one of the more difficult places to be vegetarian, at least economically speaking. Since they have to import all of their produce, buying some vegetarian snacks to compensate for meals still adds up quite quickly. It is possible to have a completely vegetarian experience in Reykjavik because there is a surprising amount of vegetarian places there.
And since you singled out San Francisco, I'd definitely say to consider Toronto. The cuisine is as diverse as imaginable and there is an annual vegetarian festival, too. You can easily get Singaporean, Thai, Moroccan, Indian, Italian, and Lebanese food here with no problem.
29 November 2009 12:04PM mia_in_london Report this comment
I'd list Thailand as 'hell' unless you're ok with fish sauce in everything.
You can get amazing shojin ryori meals in Japan - two of the best (vegetarian) meals of my life were in Tokyo. People may prepare special meals for you - but remind them not to garnish the dish with fish as the habit is hard to break.
Vietnam is brilliant for vegetarians. Laos was also surprisingly good. I've only spent a few days in Cambodia but it was a bit meh.
Germany - well, I've eaten an awful lot of Italian, Turkish and Indian meals in Germany. East African restaurants are also good. To be fair, most of Europe can be pretty hard going for vegetarians.
I found Morocco quite frustrating. It's really difficult to be sure that a dish doesn't contain meat, and options are so limited that I quickly got bored.
Azerbaijan restaurants can be a lifesaver in places like Russia, with super tasty vegetarian options.
I think Melbourne and Sydney are at least as good as San Francisco for vegetarians.
29 November 2009 1:55PM yukitan Report this comment
Another vote against Morocco, the "veggie" tajine is often prepared with bones as a base for the stock.
Cambodia had quite a few veg options and some of the best green curry I've ever had.
Do be careful in Japan, besides the ever present bonito flakes, you should specify that your food be prepared with no meat or fish stock (dashi) as well as list the varieties of meat you'd like to do without. Bacon is often considered a garnish, not a meat.
30 November 2009 6:27AM talesfromthehaolife Report this comment
Trying to find vegetarian food in airports in the USA is by far the worst time I've had as a veggie on the go. Even in places like L.A., where veggie food abounds in the city, the airport was a sea of meat-products.
30 November 2009 12:40PM emmamcm Report this comment
Outback Australia: Hell Unless you know bushtucker plants and/or can survive on chips alone. Chiko Roll anyone?
1 December 2009 5:26AM bd081098 Report this comment
I traveled to Spain last year and it was a challenge. Noticed a lot of restaurants advertising jamon (ham). I've been a vegan for over nine years but had to conceded to eating things I'm pretty sure were not when there. I didn't eat meat, dairy or eggs per se; but did eat things like croissants that most likely had some dairy. This probably explains why I returned to the U.S. a few pounds lighter. I did find an actual salad bar in Madrid but the vegetables were a bit on the wilted side.
1 December 2009 11:45AM rose_m Report this comment
Spain is really hard. Jamon with everything. I spent weeks surviving on chips and asparagus. When I got to Barcelona I went to the Mercat de la Bouqeria and there was a stall heaped with fresh rocket and I almost fell on my knees in front of it.
3 December 2009 4:08AM hercules Report this comment
Who comes up with these lists? They must not be vegetarian. I nearly starved to death in Thailand, they are NOT veg friendly, apart from the once yearly festival mentioned. Cambodia was much easier.
Argentina was extremely easy to find veg food, as is Germany (as long as you stay in the cities). Spain isn't that easy, nor is Italy. Unless you know for certain that the cheese they use is rennet-free, then pizza, etc. is useless. For those of you not in the know, rennet is a by-product they use in cheese, which comes from animal stomachs. Unless the cheese specifically states that they use microbial (vegetarian) rennet, then you are eating corpse.
7 December 2009 4:41AM owerram Report this comment
If anyone visits Trivandrum, Kerala you should visit the Arya Nivas near to the railway station for super Masala Dosha, you will love it.
8 December 2009 11:57PM colino Report this comment
At home I am a strict vegetarian but on my travels I have to admit to letting my standards slip. I don't transform into a carnivorous beast stuffing the first bacon buttie that passes my radar, it's just that I have to be a little bit pragmatic about the food and its veggie credentials.
At first I used to get stressed out about finding 100% veggie restaurants in the middle of nowhere. I now relax a lot more and will eat some thing that is "meat-free" without interrogating the poor waiter about its hidden ingredients.
Whilst it works most of the time the mishaps do happen. For example the delicious tomato soup we had in Cambrils, Spain where lurking in the bottom like a deep sea creature was a lump of Black Pudding (or Blood Pudding). I obviously stopped eating and politely left it saying I was full.
At the end of the day life's too short to worry about it. We can only do our best.
We didn't have to try too hard in India though. It's certainly the Number One Vegetarian Heaven.
30 December 2009 4:43PM reviewers10 Report this comment
indian vegan food is much much more than only south indian dishes, for eg : the sheer inventiveness of bengali/marathi/rajasthani/gujrati ( and i am sure elsewhere in the country) vegan food is a revelation if only you know what to look for ....vegan food is linked to our religion and other ancient traditions and isnt a life style fad therefore its long and enduring and very evolved and not limited to any specific region only....
2 January 2010 6:16PM fuzzyturtle11 Report this comment
I am surprised that Indonesia did not make this list. Tofu, tempeh, and veggie dishes were some of the cheapest and most delicious i've had. Since i usually cooked my dinner at hostels while i was traveling in europe, i was pleasantly surprised by the amount of organic, non-gmo soya products available in grocery stores in south-west germany, northern italy, and slovakia (bratislava specifically). If i did eat at a restaurant, most 'vegetarian' options consisted of cheese or were totally drowning in cheese. I am usually vegan at home, but my european diet was basically cheese, bread, fruit, yogourt, and chocolate. I am going to have to agree with Colino; if you are veggie/vegan you might want to relax your standards a little bit and not obsess about every hidden animal product in order to have a more pleasant holiday. I should also add that vancouver is an excellent veggie city and restaurants are very accomodating to vegan requests!
27 January 2010 4:09PM ore0cookies Report this comment
Philippines is very hard for veggies, the staple is bbq meat (oh yes) and white rice. There are a couple of gems (check out happycow.com) and a fantastic vegan kebab with spicy roast potatoes in Dumaguete's "Boston Cafe". These places however, are few and very far between.
If you can find accommodation with a kitchen (Citadel Alona Inn in Pangloa is a brilliant cheap, clean option) stock up on fresh veg from the market or local "surry surry" store and get cooking - it really is the best way to eat in Philippines (even the bread here has lard in it!).
Alternatively stay with a Philippino family...we've enjoyed a multitude of vegan delights the past couple of days..."adobo" made with green beans and "magic meat" (Philippino TVP/Soya chunks), "lumpia" spring rolls and "puncit" fried noodles . Eat this stuff anywhere else without doubt you'll find bits of meat and fish lurking around especially as most local meals are pre-cooked.
31 January 2010 4:09PM namyangjubadger Report this comment
South Korea = hell
There is no word for vegetarian in the Korean language. All dishes center around meat. Try to order something without meat and it will show up with some other kind of meat in it. I've also ordered a veggie dish and had a waitress refuse to serve it to me b/c she didn't think it was any good and gave me a pot of beef instead.
Absolute veggie hell. Perhaps the few Buddhist restaurants saved it from this list.
2 February 2010 9:30PM cianjb Report this comment
Ethiopia is heaven for veggies. For Ethiopian Christians (about half the population, depending on who you ask) fasting means abstaining from animal products, and Wednesday, Friday and a whole host of feast days are all compulsory fasting days. For vegetarians, just say you're fasting every time you order - they'll be impressed at your devoutness, and you'll be stuffed!
2 February 2010 11:23PM durvasi Report this comment
Morocco is certainly not a vegetarian's paradise! I was eating bread and olives, tomatoes and avocado most of the time. Cous-cous is always cooked with meat, even if they don't put the meat in your plate.There are certain traditional soups without meat but they are difficult to come across in the little eateries you find when travelling. Curiously, in an expensive restaurant in Fes they served a lot of delicious vegetarian dishes as an aperitif before the meal but they were not part of the menu.
3 February 2010 12:04AM rlissner Report this comment
Being a vegetarian in Morocco, Spain, and Buenos Aires is a joke.
When I travelled in Morocco, I drank orange juice and ate about five types of bread on a daily basis. The only time I had a satisfying vegetarian meal (as in a meal and not a hodgepodge of foods) was when I stayed at someone's house and they prepared a vegetarian tajine for me.
Barcelona and Buenos Aires has ham in everything and it is definitely a challenge to find a good vegetarian meal. I went to one vegetarian restaurant in Barcelona and was so disappointed.
Here in Buenos Aires, there are a handful of vegetarian restaurants, which I am so, so thankful for, but vegetarian meals at non-veggie restaurants are pretty miserable. While I can't vouch for the Argentine meat, I have to admit that the rest of the food here is pretty insipid. The ice cream, however, is by far the best on this side of the world.
3 February 2010 3:59PM aleerak14 Report this comment
"Who comes up with these lists? They must not be vegetarian. I nearly starved to death in Thailand, they are NOT veg friendly" from Hercules
Not true! I have been to Thailand many, many times and have no problem eating vegetarian there.
My tip is to get a local to write in Thai: "I am a vegetarian. I don't eat meat. I don't eat fish. No fish sauce. No shrimp paste." on a piece of paper and show it to the staff at the restaurant you are at. They are usually very accommodating...
There are many vegetarian/veggo friendly restaurants in Thailand. Cabbages and Condoms in Bangkok is one of my favourites and I visit it every time I'm in Bangkok. There's also a street vendor in Soi Rambutri (near Khao San Road) that does a vast array of vegetarian meals for 30 baht. My last day there I tried 3 different dishes that were all vegetarian and tasted delicious!
4 February 2010 11:57PM 1cinnamon Report this comment
France = Hell, Germany = Heaven
France is clearly hell, especially for non-French speakers seeking vegetarian food in this non-veg paradise. With the exception of Asian/African quarters (such as the one close to the Paris Gare du Nord), it is almost impossible to get anything vegetarian. The haute cuisine restaurants are of course out of the question as they will dismiss you with their suave french.. searching for a veggie sandwich will bring you as much success in France as on the moon. Even at the Pizza joints, you get no deal, unless you find an Italian (boss or worker), who can sympathize with your dietary limitation.
Germany, in comparison is heaven. There's tonnes of Turkish joints (not to mention the pizza places and asian eateries) and it appears that even the (trendy) locals don't mind going veggie occasionally.. also, most city-centre places sport a veggie dish on the menu cards.