Tuesday 15 January 2013

Barcelona adventures: Part 2

As the UK is in the midst of another cold snap I'm loving looking back over my photos and remembering spending time in warmer places. I like both autumn and winter - the changing leaves, bonfire night, Christmas, hot chocolate under a cosy blanket - but I think, at heart, I'm a spring kinda girl and spring in Barcelona is wonderful. I was there in April with my friends Carmen and Melanie and you can read about part one of our adventure here.

I knew before I hopped on the plane that I needed to try Gazpacho in Barcelona, what I hadn't considered is that it would be a little early in the year for this seasonal speciality. Eventually we spotted the elusive cold tomato soup on the set menu at Veggie Garden so of course I ordered it.


This was just as delicious as I'd expected, I'm not usually much of a soup person but something about this classic Spanish dish really stood out.


As the main part of this meal I chose the vegetable tart with a red wine salsa and beetroot & apple salad.


I'm a fairly new convert to beetroot but I love it now especially when paired with something sweet like these apples or a mix of carrot and raisins. The actual vegetable tart was simple and delicious and I loved the slightly meaty salsa.

Dessert was an apple crumble. I was slightly surprised upon tasting the first spoonful to find that this was served cold but it actually really worked and the next time I make a crumble at home I may not even bother re-heating the leftovers in the microwave!


I really loved the abundance of cheap set menus all over Barcelona. This meal was €8.25 for three courses, with a few options for the starter and the main, bread and a beer. Such amazing value and we loved every menu of this type that we tried.

I also loved checking out the vegan store, Veganoteca. Whenever I travel one of my favourite things to do is scope out the food stores, whether they're specifically vegan like this one, or not, you always find something new and exciting.


This store had a whole fridge full of mock meats, vegan cheeses and spreads...


...and a case full of some of the best looking baked goods I've ever seen.


We bought doughnuts and took them to the beach. It was such a beautiful day!


Melanie & Carmen dipping their toes in the ocean.

I also picked up some little pastries for breakfast the next day. When I was 14 or 15 I went on a Spanish exchange trip and lived with a family near Bilbao for a week, every morning we had these delicious individually wrapped pastries for breakfast and I remember thinking that cake for breakfast was the coolest thing ever!

I surprised myself by liking these lemoney ones more than the chocolate ones. They were perfect and they brought some wonderful memories flooding back.


To continue the cake in the morning tradition we headed around the corner from our apartment to buy Lujuria Vegana cakes from Pastarella de Estrella. These cakes were tiny and incredibly cute as well as tasty.


I also picked up a little package of cookies which turned out to be my favourite purchase that day. These were all melt in your mouth delicious and I wished I'd had more!


Lunch that day was at the branch of Juicy Jones at Cardinal. I was having wisdom tooth issues and looking back a sandwich probably wasn't the wisest of choices!



Melanie is a coffee connoisseur so when we smelt the beans roasting at Cafés el Magnífico we had to pop in.


I don't drink much coffee but when I noticed that they had decaf and soya milk I thought I should give their soya latte a whirl.


As I'm no regular coffee drinker the fact that I thought it was good is probably irrelevant but look how pretty it was!

I'll be back with the concluding chapter of my Barcelona trilogy later this week, it features some of the most beautiful cakes I've ever had the pleasure to eat!

9 comments:

  1. I have fond memories of Barcelona too- I spent 6 months there in 2011 as part of my university year abroad. I never tried Veggie Garden but the set menu looks just like Juicy Jones' which I loved- amazing value! Lujuria Vegana was definitely another favourite- I would pick up a slice of their carrot cake from Gopal for a special treat :)

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  2. Yum! I'm so excited for our next trip!

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  3. P.S. I fell in love with Gazpacho during my time in Barca and have since discovered you can buy the Alvalle brand (which is everywhere in Spain) over here in Waitrose. It's worth it in the Summer months for a bit of nostalgia

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  4. yum! The Lujuria Vegana cookies are so delicious. The only problem for me is last time I was in Barcelona for the Primavera festival they had the chocolate LV cookies at the vegan food stand (yep an entire vegan food stall!) so I ate loads of them. But then I started feeling a bit nauseous, and still ate one or two of the cookies... fast forward a few days later and I was really sick once I returned home to Ireland. So sadly those cookies always remind me of being sick :( Cry! They weren't the cause of me being sick, I have to add. Looks like you had a great time in Barcelona, thanks for the tips!

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  5. I love your inspiring posts abut where you've been and what you've eaten there. As a fellow decaf soya coffee drinker your opinion on coffee (here, Dukes and everywhere!) matters to me!

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  6. Hi, I stumbled on your blog via another blog and was curious to read about vegan eats in Barcelona. Wow! Your pics and descriptions of the goodies you found there make me want to hop on a plane right now. I'm definitely suggesting Barcelona to my boyfriend (also vegan) for our next holiday. Looking forward to part 3.

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  7. omg - all the eatz!!! It looks so amazing!! I am lusting after those chocolate dipped croissants in the pastry display. God only knows how many years it's been since I last had a croissant. !!tummy rumbles!!

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  8. I was super excited when I stumbled upon Veganoteca - especially when I saw the chocolate croissants!! He must have so many crazy vegans photographing them, I've got the same shot too haha.

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  9. Barcelona really in the dogs - much more vegan friendly than I thought. And you know you've gone somewhere pretty darn fantastic when you can get a whole assortment of vegan cakes. I haven't had a vegan donut for AGES...

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