Wholefood and fair trade shops in Santiago de Compostela

This is a continuation of my blog about moving to Santiago. I hope it will be useful for anyone looking for veggie/vegan/ethical food in Santiago.

- Setem Amarante
A fair trade shop on Rúa de San Pedro. As well as key cake making ingredients such as chocolate, cocoa and sugar, they have useful food too such as rice and wholegrain cous cous (which I didn't even know existed).

- Triskel
A wholefood shop on Rúa de San Pedro which has great tofu, much firmer than any I've found at home. Also the only soya cream I've seen anywhere.

- 'Entre Lusco e Fusco' (twilight) market
My flatmates told me about this market, which takes place on Tuesday evenings in Belvís park. It's quite small but has bread, fruit and vegetables, a wholefood stall, a fairtrade stall and various jams. I think there were some meats, too.

- 'Mercado de Abastos' market
This market is on the edge of the old town and has all kinds of fruit, vegetables, pulses and beans. It takes place every day 9-2 ish but is bigger on Saturdays. I've heard that it's a good place to buy tofu and seitan, but I haven't found any yet. There was a stall called EquiSol which was a fair trade stall we also saw at the market in Belvís park. It had a good mix of luxury foods/gifts and every day foods and drinks too.

- Equisol
They also have a shop which sells lots of different foods, gifts and really nice cards which I've seen in a few other places too.

- Ecocentro
A health food shop just round the corner from the cathedral. They have lots of cereals and dried pulses.

- Panxea
This shop sells local foods and fair trade things too. They had some really tasty looking dark chocolate coated orange.

- Comarca 54 shop
This is an eco-friendly shop which sells a very wide range of foods, including soya ice cream! Probably the biggest range of veggie/organic/health foods that I've seen. They have a little cafe in the front and there used to be a restaurant on the other side of town, but that closed down.

- Others 
There are also health food shops in the Area Central shopping centre (that one's quite small), on Rúa do Castro in the old town (even smaller) and on Rúa de El Salvador (that one's fairly big, although not as big as Comarca 54).

Alcampo (a giant supermarket in the Area Central shopping centre) also has a big range of organic/vegetarian/vegan/allergy suitable foods.

On Rúa das Galeras there's a shop called 'Eco Casa', although I've never been in so I don't know if they sell food.

Emma moves to Spain and writes a list

The narrow, winding streets of the old town

For a bit over a week now, I've been living in Santiago de Compostela in Galicia where I'll be studying at the university for a year. I have a few friends with year abroad blogs, which I've really enjoyed reading, but for me, I'd rather focus on food. Or more specifically, cake. I haven't yet got round to making one yet, although I have bought a cake tin (my flatmates have giant pots and pans for cooking all the vegetables they grow, and a jam maker, but no cake tins... til now).

I took a boat to Santander, then a train to Palencia and another train the next day to Santiago (it was a long journey, but a good way to avoid flying and see some beautiful countryside on the way). When I first arrived, I stayed in a hostel for 5 nights whilst I looked for a flat. The hostel didn't have a kitchen, so I ended up eating out a lot. These are some of my favourite places and foods that I had:

- Vegan Spanish omlette (tortilla) at Rúa Restaurante
This restaurant is on Rúa de San Pedro, a creative area just outside of the old town, and about 5 minutes away from my flat, and has a few vegetarian and vegan options. The omlette was amazing! I've had vegan tortilla before at El Piano in York, and tried to make it myself, but this was even better.

- Falafel with rice and salad at Newroz Döner Kebap
More yummy food. I had it without the mayonaise option, or at least I did second time round (oops). Unfortunately I didn't have a camera with me to take photos of any of these foods, so you'll just have to imagine.

- Seitan/lentil and vegetable burger at O Elefante
This is a vegetarian restaurant (although it does have a few meat options too) in the old town, full of elephant statues and models. The food was really lovely.

- Iced chocolate (granizado) and churros at Valor Chocolate
This is like a slushy drink, but made with pure chocolate. Yum! They also have a seasonal fruit one which is also really good. Churros are like long, thin, sugary donuts and they're vegan! Wahey!

- Horchata
In Spain, this is made with tigernuts and sugar, although there are other versions in other countries (I've had a Mexican version before, made with rice). It's really a Valencian drink, but you can find it here in supermarkets and occasional cafes.

- Vive Soy soya/fruit juice drinks
Milk mixed with fruit juice seems to be quite popular here, as does soya milk, and this is a tasty combination. Although there are less on-purpose vegan foods in Spain, there are more by-accident ones. (I haven't seen any vegan ice cream, for example, but there are loads of different flavoured soya drinks and yogurts and you don't have to go to any special shops to find them.)

I've also found a few wholefood and fair trade shops which is a less interesting list, but a very useful one for anyone reading this more with the intention of visiting Santiago than hearing what I had for my dinner the other night... Click here if you're interested.

 There are lots of street musicians here and my favourite is this sitar player

Anyway, Santiago is an amazing place, a bit like York or Edinburgh (two of my favourite UK cities) and I've found some great flatmates. They're really friendly and as well as helping me with my Spanish, they're going to teach me some Galician. They're not veggie themselves, but they enjoy veggie food such as tofu and home made seitan. They're also curious to try vegan cake, so I should get baking soon...

Trip to Ireland

This summer, I went to Ireland. (It was actually a couple of months ago now, which shows how behind I am with blogging...) Anyway, I'd always wanted to go, so it was pretty exciting, and it involved cake, so even better! We spent some time in Killarney, at one of the National Parks...

Uprooted trees in Killarney National Park

Ross castle, full of steep stairs and old furniture, on the shores of Lough Leane

We then went to Caherciveen and camped in the coolest campsite I've ever been to which was right by the sea and had a kitchen, dining room and living room with a fire and everything. The people who ran it were also really friendly, and they had two really cool cats.

View of Mannix Point campsite... One day when it wasn't raining!

I'm sure this is nicer than the kitchen in the house I lived in last year!

We went on walks to see ruined castles, stone forts and were right near the Skellig islands, famous for the 6th century monastery, vast amounts of wildlife and lighthouses.

Ballycarberry castle

Inside Cahergall stone fort

View from Skellig Michael. See how white Little Skellig looks- they're birds!

Then lastly we went back to Dublin to catch the ferry home again and whilst there, finally had some cake.

Chocolate/lime and lemon/cashew cake. It was delicious!

The cake was from a vegetarian wholefood restaurant called Cornucopia, which looked a bit expensive, but their cake was excellent.

I had so many great photos from Ireland, that I thought it'd be nice to share those too, hence the increase in the number of photos from normal. What a surprise; it turns out that I do take photos of something other than cake after all!

An expedition to Kirkstall

I haven't made any cake for aaaaages... I blame essay deadlines and exams! But they're all over now, and I'm back home at my parents' house, so I'm sure I'll be baking something tasty soon with Mum. When she came up to Leeds to help me bring things home from university, we had a little expedition to Kirkstall to a cafe called Urban Bean. I had a spicy chickpea panini, forest fruit smoothie and some chocolate and ginger tiffin. They had a great selection of vegan food and drink, and the cake was from That Old Chestnut. Yum!! I'll definitely be going back and next time there'll be time to visit nearby Kirkstall Abbey.

The courtyard round the back of Urban Bean

Vegan cake quest

So in case you hadn't noticed by now, I quite like cake; baking cake, eating cake, talking about cake, blogging about cake, dreaming about cake, seeking out places to eat cake... And the last one is exactly what this post is about.

The first such place is the Peach and Pear café in Leeds (Hyde Park). As well as having a wide array of super tasty and well priced vegan (and non-vegan) burgers, delicious smoothies and being run by a really genuine, friendly guy, they also sometimes have vegan cake from That Old Chestnut. In case I've not mentioned before, I love their cake! Especially the liquorice one. Nyom nyom nyom.

Coffee and walnut cake (I forgot to take a picture til it was nearly gone...)

The second place is the Flying Goose café in Nottingham (Beeston). The Flying Goose café is friendly, vegetarian, and they make their own cake, some of which is vegan! And super tasty!

Cake and crumble

Emma and Emma go to Belgium

Over Easter, I went to Brussels with my Swedish friend Emma. Mostly we're friends after bonding over thinking each other's name is amazing, but we also have a shared love of houmous and carrots. Belgium is well known for beer, chips and chocolate, so we were pretty excited, mostly about the chocolate. But then I remembered... I'm vegan! So no chocolate for me... Nooo! But it turned out that I needn't have worried; there was plenty that was vegan...

It's not all for me... Honestly!

As well as chocolate, you'll also see Speculoos spread (like peanut butter but with biscuits instead of peanuts) and a leaflet from the Chocolate Museum.

In our adventures around Belgium, we also found a Scandinavian shop where we bought chocolate and oat snacks like I made for Veggie Soc last term.

We couchsurfed whilst we were there and for the second half of our stay were hosted by our new friends Brieuc and Heloise. We had great fun with them, eating tasty food, baking cakes, playing card games and getting a tour round their town Nouvain-la-Neuve, a really interesting place. It's by a lake, was founded by students and is built on a platform in a valley. There are no cars there, though there is a car park under the whole city.

Basically, our trip to Belgium was amazing...!

Emma finally updates her blog (part four)

Last stop for today's series is the Yaffle Cafe in Derby, which is a cafe/radical library situated above the Soundbites health food shop. During the day, they serve pasties and salads and so on, but every Thursday evening they serve international themed vegan meals from £4.50, which are thoroughly delicious. Me and Charlotte really enjoyed our meal and tea (they have an amazing selection!) and decided to share some cake, too. Chocolate brownie and sparkly(!) grape cupcake. Mmm...

Edible glitter!!

That's all for now, but I'll be back soon with plenty of cake and exclamation marks! Hmm, sometimes I joke that, in my quest to break stereotypes, I'm going to become a fat vegan, but reading through the last few posts, I wonder whether that might soon turn out to be the truth...!

Emma finally updates her blog (part two)

Next stop in my quest for vegan cake was Matlock. For my Dad's birthday, I went for a long awaited expedition with him on the TransPeak bus. We stopped at the Green Way, a veggie cafe, for lunch. The food was lovely, especially the chocolate cake. It was about the size of a mountain, too, so I had lots to take home with me for later. Nyom nyom nyom...

A mountain of cake

Emma finally updates her blog (part one)

It's been a while since my last post, and it really is high time I updated again! I've been so busy eating cake, I just haven't had time to write about it, you see. So, without further ado, onto the cake...

My first stop, on returning again to Nottingham, was Screaming Carrot, a vegan bakery in Forest Fields. As well as always being up for a good chat about soya milk, they make amazing pasties, nut rolls and sosmix rolls, but most importantly, they make cake. They supply these delights, through Lembas, a wholefood wholesaling cooperative, around the country. All except one, that is. I'd heard rumours about their No Name Bar for a while, but every time I asked about it, they told me they hadn't made any in ages. I even began to doubt its existence. Until, finally, last week, I got to try some for myself... A chocolate tiffin base covered in custard flavoured icing and a chocolate coating, suffused with a coconutty flavour made for a very rich, but also super-yummy, treat. It was definitely worth the wait!

Finally!

Emma has some more adventures in Nottingham

Whilst I was back in Nottingham, I met up with Anna and her friend Katy in the city centre. Oddly enough, seeing Anna in Nottingham wasn't strange at all; it was far stranger when I saw her new house in Leeds. I mean, I'm allowed to move out of halls and into a house, but my flat mates can't! That's just too weird. But anyway, back to Nottingham... We went to the Alley Cafe, which is just off Market Square (down an alley way, if you'd believe it) and is one of the coolest places ever. Not only are their toilets labelled 'brothers' and 'sisters', but they also make some really yummy veggie food (and they have a recipe section on their website, if you're interested). The best of all was the chocolate biscuit cake. Yes, I'll say that again; (vegan) chocolate+biscuit+cake with Swedish Glace ice cream. Mmm, I think it might actually have been a little slice of heaven.

Super-yummy Alley Cafe cake

Also, later that day, I went to listen to my friend Gerrard play at an open mic night. If truth be told, this doesn't have a whole lot to do with cake. However, if you've ever seen 'Scott Pilgrim', you'll know that all vegans have super powers. Well, Gerrard's are guitar-related. He's amazing! And you should definitely listen to him.