Vegan in Turkey, Part the last – outside of Istanbul

For our second week in Turkey we visited some sites outside of Istanbul, including Canakkale (Troy and Gallipoli), Kirazli (Ephesus), and Pamukkale (Heiropolis, Travertines).

As in Istanbul, we ate a lot of simit, nuts, fruit, and pringles (because you can get them at the bus stops), but we also had a few standout meals about town.

In Canakkalewe stayed at the Kervan Saray hotel, and found that the Ev Yemekleri next door was stocked with vegan foods. I didn’t manage to write down the name of the place, but if you head there, look for the hotel, and its the place to left of the door. The staff were really helpful, paid attention to the vegan passport when we couldn’t explain things properly, and we had a great vegan meal.

Leeks, beans, stews and salads

We then headed to a small village called Kirazli, which is close to the ruins of Ephesus. We found a place to stay through AirBnB- a one bedroom/studioish flat being rented out by some expats. It turns out that the woman who owns the flat is also a fabulous cook, and we enjoyed two vegan dinners and one breakfast while we were staying there.

Menu Karyn made us (click to enlarge)

One of Karyn's gorgeous breakfast dishes

The food was really good and the flat was gorgeous, so I figured I should share with any future vegan visitors. It isn’t a vegetarian household, but we had one of the best meals we got in Turkey here. I definitely recommend it to any vegan travellers who’d like a break from the busy city and the battle for food.

Totally moreish coated cashews

Next up we travelled to Pamukkale, home of Heiropolis and the Travertines (natural hot springs flowing down the mountain to form baths and blinding white calcium formations). While every hotel was claiming to offer vegetarian food, most of the restaurants inside were actually closed for the winter. So, we went in search and found two passable options for the vegans to follow.

The reason to visit Pamukkale - that's not snow, it's calcium

Mehmet’s is a large restaurant space, covered in carpets and memorabillia, serving traditional Turkish food. Mehmet himself has very good English, and we found it easy enough to explain our requirements. He assured us the soup was vegan, so we ordered that and a platter of appertisers.

Unfortunately, while he understood that we did not eat stock, I think maybe he failed to let us know that the soup was packet mix. I don’t like to guess at these things, but it had that chicken-flavoured-flavour that I remember from powdered soup (none of which is vegan). We put it aside.

The apertiser plate was fabulous though. Fried eggplant in tomato sauce (like I made in Turkey week), stuffed vine leaves, stewed leeks (leeks seem to be season), and other delicious bits and pieces made sure we didn’t starve.

We enjoyed the food and the atmosphere here, and our host was very kind. Just don’t go for the soup.

We also ate at the Kale hotelrestaurant twice, and enjoyed it each time. The hosts made sure the food was vegan for us, and we got a specially made eggplant and zucchini dish with rice and home made chips the first time, and Imam biyaldi eggplant, rice, salad and fries the second time. They even gave us some of the homemade pomegranate juice the family was sharing, which was kind, and really tasty.

Special vegan meal at the Kale hotel

Vegan in Turkey Part 2 – The rest of Istanbul, or, what other bloggers said

Okay, I found nearly everything we ate in Istanbul with the help of other bloggers, most notably A Girl and Her Thumb and Vegan Backpacker, and with the help of our new friends Nalan and Genc. (Most recently, Vegan Soul Power blogged Istanbul too).

As did everyone else, I found there was plenty to eat in Istanbul, although it could be a little on the proteinless side.

I can second their recommendations for lokum and cig kofte, and only have a few things to add that these wonderful women didn’t already cover. First, simit. We ate simit every day, but it wasn’t until our second last day in Istanbul that we discovered that the simit available at street vendors totally sucked in comparison to the simit available in the many Simit Saray outlets around the place. SO much better. Crusty on the outside, fluffy on the inside, you buy jam to go with it, and it’s the same prices as the street vendor version, due to government control of bread prices.

While I went head over heels for cig kofte, simit, tea and lokum (Turkish Delight), we still needed to eat serious meals every now and then, which brings me to my second addition, the vegan passport.

Use the vegan passport. We forgot we had it for the first few days, and it was a revelation when we remembered. Only one person was reluctant to use it to help us, and she may not have been able to read Turkish well (my fault for not being able to pick the differences between regional peoples). It really helped us to get good food with no concerns.

I have one or two reviews to add for places around Istanbul that aren’t all veg, but helped us out.

Gurme Ev Yemekleri, near Taksim

Our Favourite

We found this place by accident, but it worked out really well, and we went back a few times during our stay.

It is just one of many Ev Yemekleri places (home cooking restaurants) around, but the guy there speaks fairly good English, and understood what we wanted. It took a little working out, but eventually we managed to work out what had “meat water” (stock) in it and what did not. Over a few meals we had a leek stew, bean stew, bean soup, vegetable soup, pilaf, salad, bread, and plenty of cig kofte.

Home cooking food

To get to it from Taksim Square, you need to find the Goldas shop, bordering the Square, but across the road, toward the Bosphorus. Go down the hill where the Goldas place is, and turn right at the fork, then the first left. Go down about a block, and it will be on your left. Tell them you are vegetarian, don’t take yoghurt, butter, cheese or eggs, and ask abut the stock.

Zencifil, also near Taksim

We found this place after a long overnight bus trip, when we were about ready to drop. It has some good reviews on HappyCow and elsewhere on the internets, but we weren’t super impressed by the food.

In the same vein as Parsifal, Zencifil had helpful staff with god English skills, a number of vegetarian and vegan items on the menu, and higher prices than the home cooking places. Unfortunately, like Parsifal, you pay for ease and atmosphere, but the food itself was pretty bland.

We got a dish of leek and chickpea, which was basically a large bowl of stringy boiled leek, with some chickpeas thrown on top. We also ordered a smoked bulgur dish, which was pretty good, but was still too bland to make up for a whole plate of leek. This said, it could just be our tastes not meeting those of Turkish tradition – I don’t know. On the upside, they made the best cup of tea I had in Turkey. I would go here again if I was hungry and tired, but it wouldn’t be my first choice.

Ciya Sofrasi

Probably the best meal we had in Turkey was got at Ciya Spfrasi, when we went out for dinner with our new friends. This place is on the Asian side of Istanbul, but worth the trip.

Is a mixture of buffet and a la carte styles, where you check out the selection, and order the mains as if off the menu, but self serve salads, which get weighed. The staff knew what had stock, butter, eggs, etc, but we were certainly helped by having Turkish speaking friends with us.

Ciya Sofrasi

We had a fabulous soup, some bean stew, and a plate of assorted salads and mezze, such as stuffed eggplant, stuffed vine leaves, hummus, radish salad, and other salads. All this was fab, but the real standout (for me, anyway) was the dessert bar.

I have never seen anything quite like it. There was an array of chunks of brightly colours but unidentifiable stuff, covered in sugar syrup. A waiter explained to me that they were sweets made from tomato, pumpkin, eggplant, olive, a citrus fruit (untranslatable for the staff and friends, so I don’t know which one), and walnuts. I couldn’t choose, so elected to get a little of each to share.

My favourite was definitely the pumpkin, which tasted nothing at all like pumpkin, but more like honeycomb. It cam with sweet tahini sauce and a sprinkle of walnuts, and was one of the most perfect things I have ever tasted. I am actually considering writing to them to beg for the recipe.

The tomato sweet and the eggplant sweets were really nice too, with little of the vegetable flavour left, and plenty of sugar, but the olive sweet and the walnut sweet were a little harder to adjust to. Of course, the sweets were the only things I got a photo of

Clockwise from bottom left; eggplant, pumpkin, tomato, walnut, citrus, more tomato, olive, more citrus

Ciya Sofrasi was again a little on the pricey side, with a large plate of salads costing 18 Lira, but it was so good and filling, we weren’t complaining.

Vegan in Turkey Part 1 – Veg Restaurants

There are a few vegetarian restaurants in Istanbul, if you want to get an easy meal with no stress or confusion. We skipped the ultra-chic one attached to a club, because I didn’t know where it was, but we visited three others.

Parsifal

Parsifal was our first foray into Turkish vegetarian cuisine, and I have to say I had high hopes. I was really looking forward to a fuss0free vegan meal with Turkish flavour.

There were only a few vegan options on the menu, but they looked decent. The meal started off looking promising, with some on-the-house warm and delicious bread served with olive oil, to start us off while we waited for our meal. The bread was some of the best I’ve had while we’ve been away, which is saying something!

Best Bread

Our mains came next. I ordered the vegan patties, which came out fairly plain, with just a side salad. For me, the size was ok, but it would have disappointed most people, just three patties and some lettuce. The patties tasted good, if a little bland, but were too dry, and could really have used a sauce.

Patties

Mr ordered the eggplant dish (I cant remember the name). It was a disaster. It looked bad, all yellowy-green and mucus-like, and it tasted shockingly bland.  It may sound hard to believe that bland could get so sever as to cause shock, but this was the case. The only flavour was a slight tinge of smokeyness, but without salty, tangy, spicy or anything else to lift it into something you’d actually want to eat.

Eggplant thing

Based on the prices and the disappointing mains, we didn’t order dessert, but vegan travellers should note that there was a vegan brownie and a pumpkin sweet on the menu, and the tea was lovely.

The service was great, and the place is easy to find near to Taksim Square, and has a great atmosphere. Shame about the food.

Max Green Co.

Max Green Co is a little sandwhich and juice place in the food court at the Akmerkez shopping mall. Its a bit of a hike if you’re planning on checking out the city centre, but it was on my way home to our share-place. Actually, I found it by accident when I was sick and wandering around looking for Lysine – I went up the escalator and was confronted by a sign for raw and vegan food. Awesome.

I got a roasted zucchini and cashew cheese sandwich, and a kiwi fruit and pineapple smoothie. It was heaven. It was served up beautifully, with raw nuts and some salty olives on the side, and tasted great. I’m sure the smoothy filled with vitamin C goodness helped my cold, too.

The other downside, besides the location, was the prices. At 15 lira for a sandwhich, in a city where a cooked lunch can be 5 to 8 lira, it was pretty pricey. If you’re missing your vitamins or you’re into raw food though, this might be the place for you.

As with basically everywhere in Turkey, service was super friendly, and there was a menu in English.

Loving Hut

Everyone’s favourite international vegan cult has expanded once again, and there is now a Love Hut franchise in Istanbul.

The place is really small, so don’t plan on going with a part of more than four (and even then, you need to get thetable), but its has good food and ridiculously cheap prices. It is located a little ways from Taksim, about a 40 minute walk, or a 15 minute walk after a short ride on the 559 bus. You can find them at ıhlamurdere Cad. Şair Veysi Sok.no 4/B beşiktaş/İstanbul.

The menu here is unlike most Loving Hut locations in that it has no mock meat or tofu (because they aren’t really available in Turkey). Instead there is a soup, felafel, a burger and a roasted vegie roll, as well as salads and cakes. We tried everything they had in the time we were there, and I can recommend it all. It isn’t a classy, gourmet meal, but its decent and filling. The cake is really nice, too.

Vegan sweets at Loving Hut Istanbul

In all, I was way more impressed by the meals we got at non-veg places, and I’ll post them soon.

 

 

How to Stay Vegan When you Travel

In an earlier post I covered our tips for traveling on the cheap while vegan. However based on some of the things I find across the net (sad stories of how so-and-so had to start eating fish, or gave up veganism because of travel) I decided it was time to give our tips for staying vegan.

• Try. This sounds condescending, but I came across so many stories about how people “just couldn’t” stay vegetarian in situation x, y or z, in places we cruised through. Each to their own and I’m not judging these people (well, a little, maybe), but if you really want to stay veg, it is probably possible in most situations. Try, think outside the box, and plan. No, you can’t get vegan cheese and sausages everywhere, but there’s usually enough to get by with if you look. (Please note I am thinking about urban areas here – in less populated areas, or very poor areas, having control over your food is a way bigger issue for the traveler and the locals).

• Ask. If there is nothing on the menu, ask what can be done. We found tofu and three vegan dishes at a seafood restaurant in Micronesia. It was always there (the owner makes it for Japanese tourists) but not on the menu, and no vegetarian had ever asked.

• As per the cheapo tips, take peanut butter if you’re not allergic. It adds protein and fat to your diet when other sources are thin on the ground, its often easy to find, they let you take it through customs (though not into the cabin of the plane – its a gel) and can supplement whatever you find in restaurants.

• Learn the words for eggs, milk, dairy, butter, cheese, margarine, whey, meat, animal fat, chicken, beef, pork, bacon, and gelatine in the languages of your destinations. Or just write them down, especially if they are in a non-roman alphabet. This is invaluable for reading labels in supermarkets and avoiding yucky surprises – such as chicken fat in your lentils, or butter in your biscuits. It doesn’t matter if you can’t read the rest of the ingredients – you care what isn’t there, not what is.

• Understand that global brands change their recipes in different markets. For example, McVities Digestives are generally vegan in Australia, France and Italy, but were not vegan in the UK. This means reading the labels even for things that are familiar.

• Use the power of the Google map. If you are looking for a restaurant in walking distance, pop your location into a Google map, then state the destination as “vegan”.  Then click the “did you mean another vegan” link for a list of options. It searches restaurant info as well as reviews, so have a quick read through to make sure it didn’t give you “Beef Shack” because of a review that said they had no vegan food.  If that doesn’t work, try Indian food, or felafel. Google knows nearly all.

• Ask ahead. Get involved in an online forum, such a Veggie Boards, Thorn Tree or Couch Surfing, and either ask the board or send an individual email to another vegan, asking about good places to eat. They will know what is good, and what is actually closed, where ancient Happy Cow references don’t.

• Read up on the local food. It’s easier not to get duped if you know in advance that “cuisines” on the label in Paris means the lentils have chicken fat, that Ma Po Tofu usually has pork, and all the potato soups of the word have animal-based stock.

• Make a list of local foods that are usually vegan in the place you are visiting, and keep on the look out for them.

• Try to find places to stay where you can access a kitchen. Where you can’t, find out what you have access to and shop accordingly. Lots of hotels and hostels have a kettle, a microwave and/or a toaster, either in your room or in a central kitchen. Also night staff frequently let you use the staff one if you ask nicely. Veggies are microwaveable in a freezer bag with a sprinkle of water, and there’s often a veg noodle soup packet, or a tin of beans that can be reheated, available in the supermarket. Add some bread and hommus or some chips and salsa, and some chocolate for dessert, and dinner can be had just about anywhere.

• Carry your own breakfast materials. Vegan breaky is hard to come by, and is usually proteinless. We take our own cereal and soy milk, and oats in particular make a good, filling breakfast. Add a scoop of peanut butter, some chopped fruit, and you’ll be set.

• Always have a plan B, such as a close-by felafel place, some bread and dip in you room, or just some chocolate in your handbag – because no matter how often you explain, or how much you research, things will be closed and new friends will try to feed you fish.

• Check and re-chek the meal on the flight, and then call again the night before and ask at the counter. They always lose your VGML preference, and then they don’t have anything to replace it with. Add to that sparse pickings in airports, and the fact that you cant get hommus onto a plane (also considered a gel), and this becomes very important. We have a situation with our tickets (Fuck you, United Airlines) that means we always have to re-book our whole ticket AT THE AIRPORT just before the flight, so we haven’t gotten our vegan meal since New York. We mostly eat biscuits, bread, nuts, and fruit instead, which we take with us.

• Ask about ingredients – if you don’t want to “slip up” and have the lovely lactose-intolerant-by-lack-of-practice gastro fun that abounds, check, and check again. Ask if milk is in the pizza base, ask if egg is in the glaze on the pastry, ask if the soup has beef stock.

• Try to ask questions where the right answer is “no” – lots of cultures  have an emphasis on hospitality and service and people want to make you happy. Frequently you’ll get a “yes yes” from someone who doesn’t understand what you said but wants to make you happy. If you ask, “does this have milk?”, or “is this real leather?” you’re more likely to get a truthful answer, than if you ask “is this dairy free?”.

• Realise that you will slip up, and that icky animal foods will get in to your diet one way or another. Then let it go. I accidentally poisoned Mr with butter (lactose makes us both sick now) because I didn’t notice it in the Italian ingredients list. A restaurant once gave me turkey bacon in Singapore, and told me it was vegan (they got confused about no meat versus no pork) – I was exhausted and just picked it out. We’re pretty sure that at some point we were fed some non-veg ramen noodle falvouring, more than once there was yoghurt on our felafel even though we said no (we wiped it off), and we don’t concern ourselves with what emulsifiers might be in otherwise vegan bread in foreign bakeries (unless there’s an ingredients list). Its hard work, and no one is perfect, but you can get close.

What are your tips for staying vegan (or vegetarian) during your travels? Leave me a comment if you have ideas – I always love to hear them

Ease of being vegan around the world (in order of easiest to most difficult place to be vegan based on my totally subjective experience of being an English-speaking, relatively wealthy, white, traveler):

1. USA – there is vegan food absolutely everywhere here, available 24/7. Corner stores, supermarkets, cafes, restaurants, aeroplanes, everywhere. A traveler could easily stay vegan here, and food is much cheaper than in Australia.
2. Georgia – Once you know what to ask for, ready made vegan food is plentiful in Georgia, despite the severe lack of tofu.
3. Italy – Italy would tie with Georgia for the availability of accidentally vegan food, and it has more tofu (barely), but the vegan options aren’t as calorific or proteiny (even awesome pasta can’t beat eggplant stuffed with walnuts for nutrition).
4. Singapore – Similar to Malaysia, easier only because English is a lot more common (being the official language and all).
5. Malaysia – Between the Buddhist restaurants and Indian restaurants, Malaysia has got you covered. Add lots of fresh fruit, supermarkets sporting tofu-desserts, and soy bean drink available everywhere, and this is a pretty easy to place to be vegan. Please note that the islands are an exception – Tioman had no vegetarian protein at all, so keep your stay short.
6. France – The hardest thing about being vegan in France is the price, followed by the fact that there is pastry everywhere and you can’t have any. Vegan food is available though, and the shops cater well for us.
7. Australia – Yes, its dead easy to be vegan in Melbourne or Sydney, but have you traveled/lived in smaller places? If you are traveling vegan in non-city Oz, make sure you have access to a knife, because you’ll be bringing your own supermarket-bought tofu to add protein to the pasta with tomato, chef salad, stir fried vegies, and avacado sandwiches you’ll be eating.
8. UK – The cities have veg restaurants and shops, and across Scotland you can find vegan sausages and soy milk in supermarkets. It is very difficult to find tofu, or a veg meal once you get outside the big cities though, and the variety of vegetables in not what we lucky Aussies are used to.
9. Micronesia – it is easy to live vegan in Micronesia, but as a traveler it would be more difficult with limited options to eat out, and very little protein. Pack your peanut butter, turn down meals at the houses of new friends, and learn to enjoy cold tofu.
10. Denmark – difficult, difficult, lemon difficult (which only makes sense if you’ve seen In The Loop). Unfortunately vegans are not very well catered for in Copenhagen, so make sure you have access to a kitchen.

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.