Travel log: Barcelona Part II

Now we talk about the second half of my time in Barcelona! I apologize it has taken so long to get this out but my yoga teacher training is super intense! More than imagined it would be (more on that soon!).

So, back in Spain, that evening Marissa, Chris, and I met up to go to Rasoterra in the Gothic Quarter. I couldn’t wait to eat late so I had a little something before (a tofu burger from Veggie Garden that was super delicious) so ended up getting something small at Rasoterra. I wish I would have had a full course meal there because the menu was the most unique I saw and the few things I tried were amazing. They had tempeh! Rasoterra is fully vegetarian and we were happy with the vegan offerings they had available though small. Note that it does fill up with reservations so make one or come on the earlier side (we went at 8pm) to get a table.

We started with the gyoza, which came inside a mini cast iron skillet where it was baked and seared. The appetizer of tempeh and eggplant satay was perfectly prepared with crispy tempeh and eggplant that wasn’t mushy. Then, you guessed it, we went for gelato. This time I had strawberry and chocolate and it was heavenly! Marissa and Chris had to leave for France the next morning so we called it an early night and I went to bed early.

I had one more full day to explore and eat by myself and took full advantage of that. I wandered around town a bit, trying to catch anything I had missed. I stopped into Juicy Jones for a wonderful smoothie. It’s an eclectic place with brightly painted walls and free wifi. It definitely got me going for the day! I didn’t do the sights listed on the guidebooks (except Park Guell) while in Barcelona. I wasn’t really feeling like being a tourist. Not sure why, but it was definitely more of a foodcation for me than anything else, as you can see from my last post and this one.

In the afternoon I headed to Veggie Garden for their pre-fix lunch menu, which I had seen was available when I got a tofu burger the previous day. There were so many amazing choices it was hard to choose! VG is purely vegan and with a huge menu so I highly recommend it when you go to Barcelona. It’s an eclectic mix of foods from Indian, to American, and Spanish. I loved the variety.

The weather was beautiful so I sat on the patio. I was the first to arrive but it quickly filled up and I saw all the things offered on the lunch menu. They all looked amazing! Lasagna, a sweet potato tart, and what I ordered, the veggie crepe. I started with a black bean soup (I was tired of gazpacho at this point), the main was a thick crepe filled with sautéed veggies, served with potato salad and a green bean salad. Not sure what the sauce was, kind of like a creamy red pepper sauce, and it paired perfectly with the crepe. My belly was happy. I kind of wish I had stayed near VG so I could eat there more!

After lunch I spent the afternoon at Park Guell, a famous museum compound type thing featuring the architecture of Antoni Gaudi. You can see this style all over Barcelona. The park is sort of a tourist trap but it was interesting to see how far out a style of building would be accepted back in the 1890. Barcelona is full of interesting architecture that goes alongside its turbulent past.

For dinner, HappyCow listed a vegan place right near me so I headed to Enjoy Vegan when they opened at 7pm. It was a pleasure going to eat out and not having to ask what was vegan or if such and such dish had dairy, etc. As a vegan you know what I mean!

Enjoy Vegan has everything freshly prepared in a glass case for you to view. The guy working came out from behind the counter to try and explain everything to me in English. It was a bit tricky but I got the gist of what everything was. The menu was heavily Italian-influenced since the owners are from Italy (they had gnocchi!). This was a nice change of pace from the other restaurants. I opted for the lasagna which came with a salad for 6.50 Euro. This might have been my cheapest meal in Barcelona. And it happened to be the best lasagna I’ve ever had in my life! You could also choose two options for 10 Euro but I wanted to save room for dessert!

What was even more of a treat is that they had a selection of cakes and pastries. I didn’t find vegan cakes at any other place I visited. They had so many to choose from! I went with the one in the front of the photo above, which I can’t recall exactly what it was, but it was just sweet enough, moist, with a thin layer of frosting. Since I knew I’d be on a train to Madrid the following day I got the “meat”balls and a chocolatey cake to go. Those were both amazing too.

Again I wished I had more time to eat more meals at these wonderful places. People say that eating vegan is “so difficult” in Spain because they really love their meat and put ham in everything. But if you stick to the massive list available on HappyCow you will never go hungry. For me personally, I don’t even bother going to places not from that list because I don’t want to deal with the frustrations of communicating my dietary needs. I want to be able to go through the menu and easily decipher what is vegan or not. It makes traveling in a foreign country so much more pleasant. That’s just me. With HappyCow on my side I haven’t found it difficult to eat vegan in any country I have ever visited! We are privileged and blessed. Go forth and enjoy all that vegan food!