The World’s Best Vegan Products in 2011 (as judged by me)

I’ve had so much fun trying all the products available to vegans all over the world, and while I like the differences I find, I can’t seem to help but pick favourites.

These are my favourite vegan products across the countries I have visited since being vegan (Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Micronesia, USA, UK, Denmark, France, Italy, Austria, and Georgia). I have never received any free or discounted products, or any inducements to review a product from any of the suppliers mentioned below, or any others. That said, I’m totally up for free stuff if any one wants to send any my way (I suspect I don’t have the readership for that!).

Just a note: the countries referred to in parenthesis are the countries where I have seen the products. I don’t know where many of them come from, or they are manufactured in various locations.

 

Plain non-dairy milk

Winner – Edeka Natur Soy Milk (Austria, Georgia)

Runner Up – Bonsoy (Japan, Australia, world)

 

Flavoured non-dairy milk

Winner – Its a tie between Kikkoman Coffee flavoured soy milk(US and Pacific) and Edeka Vanilla flavoured soy milk (Austria and Georgia).

Kikkoman Pearl Soy Milk (Edeka not pictured)

Runner up – I love all flavoured soy milks, so everyone is a runner up.

 

Yoghurt

 Winner – Alpro Soy Yoghurt, raspberry flavour (UK).

I have no photo of the yoghurt, but here is some pudding, margarine, Sheese and vegan sausages!

Runner up – The many soy yoghurts in the USA are edible and taste somewhat like real yoghurt.

 

Nothing available in Australia, France, or Austria come anywhere near a passable yoghurt-ish favour, and most suffer horribly from an overwhelming soy-boiled-in-plastic taste (I’m looking at you, Soy King).

 

 

Vegan Cheese

Winner – Cheezly, the French version (France). Hard cheese style, soft and creamy, and tastes just fantastic.

French vegan stuff - the chese is at centre stage

Runner up – its a tie between Daiya Cheddar flavour (US) and Redwood Cheezly Mozarella (NZ, Australia). Daiya is good for the meltyness it brings, and it buttery flavour, but Redwood Cheezly continues to be my favourite for use on pizza and in canneloni, lasagne, etc.

 

An Honorable Mention must go to Sheese (UK, Australia) for having so many flavours, even though they do suffer a little from the overwhelming-soy-flavour problem that plagues so many mock dairy and mock meat endeavours.

 

 

Convenience Foods

Winner – Fry’s Beef-style strips and chicken style cutlets (UK, Australia) ties with the Valsoia vegan chicken croquettes and meat balls available in nearly every freezer section in every supermarket in Italy.

 

Runner up – Tofurky vegan pizza with Daiya Cheese (USA), and Amy’s for having such a range and ensuring some options for the gluten free peeps.

 

 

Pizza

Winner – Pizza rosso with chilli from all the take out “by the slice” places in Rome (Italy).  It is deep dish style, oily, warm and fantastic. This stuff is so good, yo don’t even miss the cheese. Not to be confused with pizza from pizzerias or restaurants, which is the thin, crusty, less flavoursome kind.

 

Runner up – Vegetarian pizza with vegan cheese from Eat Pizza, Melbourne (Australia). Their vegan lot is pretty good too. Tied for second are the frozen Tofurky pizzas with vegan cheese, available in freezer sections across the USA.

Honorable Mention – Goes to the vegan pizza at The Rusty Anchor on Pohnpei, even though we’re probably the only people who have or will ever order it.

 

 

Spreads

Winner  – Tartex, all flavours, seems to deserve its reputation and price point. I tried many other vegan spreads with similar ingredients while in the UK, France and Austria, but none of them lived up to the full flavour of Tartex.

 

Runner Up – Eggplant with Cinnamon and Walnut (badrijani da darich’inis) (Georgia) and Ajika, a local chilli paste (Georgia).

Honorable Mention – goes to coconut jam in Pohnpei.

Coconut Jam

 

 

Ice cream

Winner – Turtle Mountain Peanut Butter Zig Zag flavour. Its chocolate ice cream with peanut butter caramel fudge swirls. This stuff is incredibly addictive, and maybe the tastiest ice cream in a tub I have ever come across.

 

Runner Up – Well, I have tried vegan gelato in Italy now, and I can honestly say that the flavours to be had at Melbourne’s own Casa Del Gelato trump anything else I’ve come across in my travels. Eat up, fellow Melbournites!

 

 

 

Two Honorable Mentions – One for the vegan soft serve at Eden Bakery in Portland, Oregon, and another for Ice Kechang in Singapore. Ice Kechang isn’t ice cream as such, but it is a fantastic iced dessert for vegans on a hot day. No brand as such, its shaved ice, covered in many flavours of syrup, crushed nuts, and swimming in sweet red beans, syrup and lychees. Watch out, it is usually topped with sweet milk (condensed), so vegans need to ask for milk-free.

 

Chocolates and Sweet junk

 

Winner – Sajak’s almond and Sajak’s hazelnut filled chocolate cups (USA). These are just too good to pass up, mostly because of their lovely, creamy, praline centers.

Runner Up – Newman’s filled chocolate cups, particularly the hazelnut or peanut butter versions (USA). Also, all their vegan biscuits. Note, not everything in this brand is vegan.

 

Honorable mention goes to Justin’s Chocolate Nut Butters, which taste like a lolly, but are protein packed and come in packets which are really good if you are traveling and can’t carry bulky jars.

 

Plain Chocolate (Block form)

Winner – Organica Vegan Diets Swiss Courveture (UK) is the very best vegan chocolate block I have ever tasted. I wish very much that I had bought more of them to take with me across the globe. As it was I had one, and it disappeared in one sitting – it was that good. I have a feeling it would make the very most fabulous chocolate desserts, and I feel a little sad that I don’t have access to it in Australia. Its fair-trade, of course.

Organica Swiaa Couverture

In Australia, I continue to advocate for Plamil Milk-style Chocolate (UK, Australia), however wishing doesn’t make it as good as the Organica stuff.

 

Bathroom and Cosmetic Gear

Toothpaste – the winner here is the Red Seal Baking Soda toothpaste (NZ, Ausralia), however The Cooperative Freshmint Vegan toothpaste (UK) is a pretty close second.

Deodorant – My new favourite deodorant in the whole world is Tom’s Of Maine solid deodorant (USA). No stains on shirts, it seems to work for long periods, and it smells good.

Face Wash – I have itchy skin most of the time and am allergic to soap and just about every scent ever put in a cream, but I love the Lavera cream face wash (rose) I got in France. In Australia, Nature’s Organics gets the top points for being vegan, soap free and cheap.

Sunscreen – Natio will always win this one for me. Aussie, vegan, no animal testing, and available everywhere in Aus. The two bottles we took with us still haven’t run out.

 

So What have I missed? Leave your favourite vegan products for 2011 in the comments.

Vegan things you can buy in Georgia

While it is true that no Georgian I have met so far has managed to hide the confusion and shock they feel when I say I don’t eat meat OR cheese, there is actually quite a lot of vegan fare available in Tbilisi without any substitutions or changes required.

In fact, a lot of the food available in the supermarket here is so good, its hard to be bothered cooking. Its also very easy to find this food, particularly as my local supermarket labels everything in the deli section in Georgian and English, and I have made myself a handy cheat-sheet for reading the Georgian words for milk, dairy, eggs, advent, lent and fasting (some Georgians give up milk and meat for lent and advent, so there are vego versions of the classics available sometimes).

Here are a few of the delights we’ve been tasting in Georgia so far:

Roasted capsicum wth walnut paste

Eggplants stuffed with walnut paste

Walnut Paste with Beet Leave (left) and Eggplant with Cinnamon (right)

Be aware, there are many kinds of walnut paste dishes. They all taste fabulous, but I don’t recommend the one with the beet leaves – its tastes good, but looks like cat vomit, and feels how I imagine cat vomit would feel, because of the hard, stringy leaves.

Every kind of jam and preserve imaginable. These ones are chilli (wth fenugreek and dill, of course), pomegranat and plum (all local products)

Lobiani, a bean pie, or "Lenten" pie

Bean pie filling - savoury, not sweet

Be careful when buying the bean pies – some of them may have an egg wash. This one doesn’t.

Shotis Puri, a Georgian bread

Fastng Khinkali (this one is mushroom, though the potato one tastes better)

What lunch looks like for vegans in Tbilisi - bread, spreads, jam, tea and varenki (Russian dumplings)

Also, sometimes like this- salad, sauted cabbage, seeds, khinkali, tea and Georgian pear lemonade

Also available at Goodwill (supermarket closest to my place) is pre-made fried potatoes with mushroom, roasted vegetable medley, rice dishes, breads, pastries, dips, salads, red beans, red bean salad, red bean soup, Georgian corn cakes, vegetarian spring rolls-looking things, soy milk, vegan lard, and even vegan (though not fair trade) chocolate.

The far more numerous supermarket chain, Populi, also has bread, frozen vegan khinkali, and a some of the walnut and eggplant dishes, though they don’t have an ingredient list. There are also bakeries selling warm, local bread (vegan!) everywhere, numerous popcorn and doughnut vendors (I’ve been told the doughnuts are ok for fasting, so no animal fat or milk, but they may have egg) and plenty of fruit, veg and all the walnuts you can eat (these guys have a for serious obsession with walnuts).

So, you see its a total walk in the park being vegan in Tbilisi, regardless of the incomprehension of the locals.

Scotland!

Sheese and Tartex and Nairn’s Oat Cakes
When I booked the Scotland stop into our trip, I imagined a whole two weeks of pigging out on Sheese, trying every flavour, sheese pizza, sheese on toast, sheese on everything!

Unfortunately it didn’t turn out that way. It turns out Sheese is harder to find in the country of its origin than it is on the other side of the world. I did nab one packet at a tiny itty bitty health food store in Edinburgh, along with one huge tube of Tartex (the Tartex cost less than 2 pounds – crazy cheap) and a packet of Nairn’s Oatcakes.

I wasn’t sure about the concept of oatcakes at first and I bought them only because we needed lunch and couldn’t find any vegan bread. I’m glad I got them in the end – they were fab. Nairn’s Oatcakes are officially my new favourite dry biscuit.

Alpro soy stuff
Here’s a question for you, soy purveyors of Oz: why does very single soy yoghurt in Australia suck almost completely, when there is such good soy yoghurt everywhere else in the world?

In the US we tasted some pretty good soy yoghurts, and a passable coconut yoghurt, but the best one we’ve had by far is the Alpro raspberry flavoured soy yoghurt that we found in Tesco and Morrison’s and C0-ops all over Scotland. If you’re a vegan who has never been overseas, you can’t even imagine how good this stuff is. I may have cried a little on the inside when we left for Copenhagen.

Another hit from the Alpro brand was their chocolate and caramel puddings. These are like Yogo in Australia, but you don’t need to keep them in the fridge, so they’re perfect for travel. We kept a stash of them with us the whole time we were in Scotland.

Alpro pudding, sheese, vegan marg, marmite and Linda McCartney sausages

Linda McCartney frozen stuff
We didn’t see any tofu anywhere in Scotland, but one vegan product that was ubiquitous was Linda McCartney brand frozen sausages. We baked ours from frozen, and they were fab, though a little salty for me. You can have too much of a good thing bethought, and as we ate these more often than any other food while we were there, I can’t say I want to see another one for a very long time.

In one supermarket we also found Linda McCartney pies and sausage rolls. The pies were excellent – the best vegan pie I have ever tasted, in fact – but the sausage rolls were nothing to write home about (but I suppose this could have been because we were eating them cold, without sauce, in the car at about 6.30 in the morning).

Pie and roast veg for lunch

Haggis with neeps and tatties
The haggis came in a tower, topped with mashed potato (and turnips, I think), and a pot  of thin gravy on the side. The mash was creamy and delicious and the haggis tasted very peppery, and had a strong but pleasant juniper berry flavour, which I liked, because I think juniper is a very underused spice. The gravy wasn’t great – sweet and flat-flavoured – but it didn’t matter because the haggis and mash was tasty enough on its own.

Haggis

We also ordered a mezze plate which came with olives, grilled veg, toasts and dips, including an apricot and red lentil dip which I can’t wait to try my hand at making.

Mezze plate

Yummy apricot and red lentil dip

The dessert on the specials board caught my attention, so we shared a slice of warm chocolate and nut cake. The cake was fabulous, all warmed up and gooey and covered in melty ganache.

Gooey chocolate cake

If we had been in Edinburgh longer, we definitely would have visited Henderson’s again, because the rest of their menu looked great too.

In the end, Scotland was an easy place to be vegan, because we were lucky enough to be staying in people’s houses via AirBnB, and in youth hostels with kitchens. The supermarket provided us with all the essentials – soy milk, margarine, bread, sausages, and veg – although we did miss tofu, tempeh, and tomatoes (there are only sucky tomatoes in the UK).

If we had to rely on restaurants alone it would have been a different question. Menus seemed to consist mainly of meat and potatoes, with the veg option always being cheesey lasagne or eggy quiche. The variety got worse as we went further North, so my advice to vegos is to make sure you have access to a kitchen, or a vast store of UHT hommus if you plan to head outside of Edinburgh!

The Perfect Pie

What’s more aussie than a meat pie with sauce? Well, lots of things, probably, given meat pies were certainly not invented here, and are currently eaten across the entire western world. But I digress.

There is something about a meat pie (individual sized, not the big shared ones), with tomato sauce on top, eaten standing up, outside, preferably at some sportsball event, that seems to be pretty standardly Aussie.

So what’s a vegan to do? Make your own? No, everyone knows the point of the meat pie is convenient, no-effort eating. Go without? Bring your vegies and dip and die of the shame of unAustralianism? (oh noes!)

Nope. Here in Melbourne, we’ve got all your pie needs covered. I’ve tried them all (I think), and will describe them in detail so you can pick your perfect pie.

La Panella 465 High St Preston

La Panella is a bakery in Preston. They are vegetarian business, selling breads, cakes, donuts, pastries and, of course, pies and sausage rolls. You could easily mistake them for an omni bakery if you weren’t in the know.

Their pies are the square, shortcrust pastry type you ate when you were a kid. The filling is thin, with mice-like lumps, even the ocassional piece of creepy faux-gristle. The gravy tastes exactly as I remember commercial meat pies tasting. They are fantastically realistic, very tasty, and sure to satisfy your craving for any of the commercial meat-pie varieties from your pre-veg days. They sell their pies hot or cold (for storage at home to meet unexpected pie needs), and at around $2 each, they’re a steal.

Mr loves these pies. I like them. I like the flavour of the gravy, and the pastry is fab, but meat pies were the very first food I gave up (when I was 12), and the realistic texture puts me off. Great if you want the real deal, good for serving to omnis, and a fabbo cheap treat on market day.

As a bonus, they also sell seriously awsome vegan sausage rolls, and vegan iced donuts.

Organarchy RMIT food court, Swanson St.

Organarchy are the vegan food co-op of RMIT. As such they are only open at lunch times,  during uni semesters, Monday to Friday.

They serve pies of all flavours – curry, gado gado, shepherds pie, mushroom and tofu, the list goes on – all with wholegrain pastry (i think), and sauce or chutney optional. These pies are wholesome, warm and filling, although the intensity of flavour depends on your chice of pie – I find the some are great (like the curry), but some can leave a little to be desired (tofu and mushroom was a little bland).

These pies make a great  workday lunch for city office dwellers.

Funky Pies Available from your Radical Grocery Store, 347 Sydney road, Brunswick

These vegan pies originate from Bondi, but sold in various locations around Melbourne. There are a few flavours, however I have only tried the No Wurry Curry and the Funky Chunky varieties. The pastry was lovely, flaky and buttery (hooray!), and the fillings were flavouesome. The No Wurry Curry felt wholesome and was tasty, although a little lacking in salt for us salt addicted folk. The Chunky was great, and I liked the realistic flavour with  the obviously vegan texture.

Home Made

Sure, I know I said you can’t make a pie yourself, as it would defeat the purpose, but well, you could try. I’m a bad maker of pies, but I do go in for a cheap and nasty home made sausage roll every now and then. I just thaw out some puff pastry, wrap it around a vegan sausage, glaze it with olive oil, soy milk and sesame seeds, and pop it in the oven. Tada! sausage rolls! My nan will be very ashamed

And the winner is….

Well, it depends on what you’re after. For a real deal meat pie n sauce, La Panella is your best bet. For the best sausage roll in town, again, La Panella rules. For a wholesome hit, you’d best get down to Organarchy. And for a flaky pastry without an extra trip, put a Funky Pie in your shopping basket at the Radical Grocery.

New kid on the block, Global Green

Global Green Food is the newest dedicated vegetarian grocer in Melbourne. Located at 33 Peel st in the city, they’re just across the road from the Vic Markets, and have a big range of vegetarian foods and ingredients for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai and other cuisines.

I finally visited today, after seeing the bright green sign a few weeks ago. I was glad I did. Their selection of mock meat is enormous. I went in looking for vegetarian crab balls, and I found them, but I also found mock gamon, mock duck in every variety (roast, fried, crispy, soft), mock fish (some in fish shapes), more than one freezer full of varieties of mock chicken, mock ham, and any number of other mock things. They even had mock shark fin.

They also have the usual array of vegetarian friendly sauces, curry pastes, spices and additives, as well as a selection of snacks, noodles, drinks and teas. I even spied a bottle of vegetarian fish sauce, although it was chili flavoured, and I decided to have a go next time instead (maybe it can wait for the week I do Thai or Vietnamese).

I came out with a bunch of mock and some rice vinegar (it was on my list). I bought mock fish, mock crab balls, some goyoza, and something called Vegetarian Luck Chunks, which appears to be mock beef.

My loot

On the down side its a vegetarian store, not a vegan one, so buyer beware – some of the products I came across contain milk, such as the mock smoked salmon, which sucks because I was so excited when I saw it.

Also, most of the products are shipped from all over the place which isn’t super carbon-friendly, and contain ingredients that you may be avoiding, such as MSG, high fructose corn syrup, palm oil, unknown flavour enhancers (labeled as permitted flavours, or vegetarian flavours), and the like.

I spoke to Christine, who was behind the counter as I left, to let her know I was going to put up this review, and ask if she had a website I could link to. The website is currently under construction, but she asked if I could post a little info for her. I’m happy to oblige for a vegie store any day.

She will be sending me a flyer via email, which I will add to this post when I receive it. She also mentioned that they do tastings every Saturday at 11am, to familiarise people with their products.

I think its a great store for what it is, which is asian vegetarian foods and ingredients. It will never win my heart from the Radical Grocery Store, with all the western vegan goodness, but it was pretty darn fab, and there’s a lot there to get happy about. So my advice is to hop along to a tasting, or visit the store any time, it will be worth your while.

Global Green Vegetarian Food is at 1/33 Peel St, West Melbourne.