Barcelona Friday- Day 3

Our last day in Barcelona, or the day of many desserts as I like to call it started off with a failed hunt for breakfast pastries.  Eventually I gave up and decided I could hang on until lunch so we made our way to Veganotecha to pick up some treats for the journey home.

As the name suggests, this is a 100% vegan shop selling lots of different mock meats and cheeses amongst other things.  If I wasn't so spoilt working in Manchester City Centre and therefore having easy access to shops like Eighth Day, V Revolution and Unicorn, I probably would have been more excited. I did end up getting a croissant and some amazing biscuits with a chocolate centre, but I missed out on getting some Jeez as I’d convinced myself it was what we call Violife!

We were originally going to go to a hotdog place called The Dog Is Hot for lunch as they sold vegan hotdogs, however they were closed so we headed back to Gopal.

Being disappointed about not being able to get a vegan hotdog, I went for their frankfurter sandwich, and I spotted a delicious looking chocolate cake that I couldn't pass up. Besides, I’d had no breakfast so it was fine.

This picture really doesn't tell you much!

The frankfurter sandwich was lovely, however either I didn't spot or they failed to mention that the sandwich comes with mustard, I was relieved it was Dijon mustard (I think?) because I just can’t handle English mustard and it would have totally ruined the sandwich.  I took the cake back to the hotel  to eat after we had done some souvenir shopping.

I was so glad that this cake lived up to expectations, I’d heard so much about Gopal and their amazing cakes but when we had cake from there before the cinnamon roll and carrot cake didn't really blow me away. But this was everything you would ever want in a chocolate cake- it was light and chocolaty with a mousse-like buttercream. It was a huge slice as well, and my cake belly was very satisfied afterwards.

Most of the day was spent looking for souvenirs and visiting a couple of more places before heading to Vegetalia for tea.  Vegetalia is situated a couple of doors down from Gopal in George Orwell square and does vegetarian and vegan food. 

We went for a sharer plate to start which came with hummus, pittas, tofu and mushroom nuggets and vegetable spring rolls- basically every starter they serve!

I loved the pittas and the hummus, the pittas were so soft, but the rest of the starters were just OK, I wasn't wild about the tofu nuggets.

For drinks, we spotted that they sold Sangria (when in Spain..!) and after confirming that it was vegan (they looked very bemused by the question) we ordered a jug, which was lovely.

For mains, I decided to be healthy and stick to tradition, so I ordered the brown rice paella despite the fact the burgers were calling to me!

The paella was OK, it was a bit too dry and I would have liked some more slices of lemon to drizzle over it although they did given me some flavoured oil which I used a bit of.  I was a bit disappointed, however on reflection the fact I ate a healthy and light tea was probably a good thing given what I ended up eating later on!

We decided to skip the dessert at Vegetalia as the only vegan dessert was carrot cake, and I was a bit sick of eating carrot cake, so we went for a wonder around the area near Cat Bar.

I’d read about a traditional European bakery in Barcelona that some vegan items, but I never took an address or details of where it was, so I was very excited when I happen to stumble across it!  They were selling vegan carob cake and gingerbread, and after a bit of deliberation, I opted for the gingerbread.

This was very erm, gingery! It was very different to the gingerbread you usually see around and was not as sweet, however I did like it, but it just didn't satisfy my need for dessert. So I was very excited and surprised when I was walking around and spotted a gluten free ice cream shop called Gocce Di Latte. This caught my eye at first because I didn't really consider that ice cream had gluten in! Then I noticed as well as saying gluten free on the shop window, it said lactose free and vegan!!!

The lady behind the counter seems quite bemused!

Not believing my eyes that I’d found an ice cream shop other that Gelaati Di Marco that potentially sold ALL vegan ice cream I went in to check that what I read was true.  I was ecstatic when the lady behind the counter confirmed that all flavours were vegan.

Ice cream modelled by The Boy

I went for a scoop of salted chocolate with almonds and a scoop of pistachio. And OMG! The pistachio was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.

I tried the check this place out since coming back and it isn’t on Happy Cow, I did find out that they have a main shop just round the corner which sells ‘normal’ ice cream and this is branch out of the main shop.  I didn't find any kind of reference to this place being specifically vegan, but I did find reference to it being lactose free. I'm just hoping that the lady in the shop was right, and I’ve not accidentally eaten lactose free dairy ice cream!!

We ended the night by visiting some monuments around Barcelona at night, and also discovered this beautiful train station- I wish we had some more stations as stunning as this.