I'm in San Francisco right now but today I'll be taking you on a virtual tour of Zagreb's vegan eateries for Travel Tip Tuesday.
I was in Zagreb in late June with my friends Melanie and Carmen who both live in Vienna. We met up in Barcelona last year and I'm loving our fairly new tradition of meeting up in different European cities.
Or first dinner destination was vegetarian restaurant Vegehop.
Vegehop have a large menu with a lot of vegan options but it didn't take me long to hone in on the Moussaka...
...which I ordered with a side of Greek Salad.
Honestly this tofu, chickpea and olive stuffed salad was so huge that it could have been a meal in itself but I had no issue polishing off both plates of food. The moussaka was filled with tofu, kale, mushrooms and zucchini and there's no doubt in my mind that I'd order it again.
On our second visit I ordered the Seitan Burger which I loved. It came in a seeded bun with plenty of mayo, some lettuce and a gherkin which I removed.
This burger was huge, filling, flavourful and only cost £2.20, what more could you ask for?!
The real highlight of Vegehop's vegan offerings are their cakes, specifically the Danube Waves. We ordered a slice to share on the first night and if I didn't love these ladies so much I may have stabbed them with the dessert fork and run away with the whole thing. Luckily I'm learning to share food but on our second visit I did the sensible thing and took home two pieces just for me.
The base of this insanely delicious cake is a vanilla sponge, like a pound cake in texture, interspaced with waves of chocolate batter and filled with sour cherries, next comes a not-too-sweet mousse-like layer and then the cake is topped off with a semi-sweet chocolate icing. It was crazy good and I love being surprised by unexpectedly brilliant desserts.
It took us until the third day of our trip to check out Zrno's brand new Bio Bistro on Meduliceva which only opened the day after we arrived. We discovered their fresh, healthy, lunch menu thanks to a recommendation from a friendly vegan chap at the health food store and we loved this place so much that we ended up visiting three times in three days.
On day one I ordered the Greenpeace Pasta which came with wholewheat pasta, seasonal leafy greens, and smoked tofu with vegan cheese and fresh basil.
I enjoyed this but I need to try to remember that I don't love wholewheat pasta, aside from that this dish was fresh and delicious and I loved the pesto.
On day two I opted for the Brown Rice Gomoku. I love brown rice and this short grain rice dish with mixed vegetables, seitan, tofu and a side of steamed greens was fantastic, filling and healthy.
I went a little fancier for our final meal and ordered the Seitan Cordon Bleu which was unlike any I'd had before.
The crisp coating around this seitan steak was perfect and the steaks themselves went wonderfully with the steamed greens, tomatoey barbecue sauce and creamy tofu mayonnaise. This was definitely my favourite meal out of the three and if I lived near Zrno I would find myself ordering it again and again.
Something else I'd love to be able to order again is their Chocolate Temptation cake. This dense but moist cake was filled with perfectly fluffy chocolate mousse and toped with chocolate ganache and a chocolate drizzle.
We were all super impressed with how delicious this cake was, rich but not too sweet, and then we were really surprised to find out that it's sweetened with agave. I wish I was eating a slice of this right now.
Our final dine-out destination in Zagreb was Green Point, a veggie fast food spot located right in the centre of the city. I ordered the Grilled Seitan Burger which was totally delicious.
I love seitan and I love burgers so a seitan burger is always a winner in my mind. This one was especially delicious as it was well seasoned and came with a really delicious soya mayonnaise. It was also about £2.35 which is a ridiculous bargain.
We all had a wonderful time in Zagreb and I'll be back next tuesday to show you what else we loved so stay tuned.