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.
