Travel

ROAD TRIP ALONG THE GREAT OCEAN ROAD, AUSTRALIA

November 16, 2015Jade Green Vegan2 Comments

One of the coolest parts of our trip to Australia was hiring a camper van and going on a road trip along the Great Ocean Road. Despite the rainy weather and having more than our fair share of back-of-the-van cooker mishaps, we had so many amazing experiences including…

▹▸▹▸ Seeing the 12 Apostles

▹▸▹▸ Rock climbing by a beautiful waterfall

▹▸▹▸Making a pebble tower on this cute little beach

And finally the most awesome of all ▹▸▹▸

▹▸▹▸ Seeing an adorable little Koala in the wild!!!

Check out the latest video in my Australian Adventures series to see our wild Koala encounter:

Top 5 tips for a vegan traveling in Italy

September 1, 2015Jade Green Vegan5 Comments

As you guys probably already know if you read my Berlin Vegan Guide, earlier this summer my mum and I went traveling around Europe. After our amazing time in Berlin, we headed to Venice and then to Lake Garda.

We had some incredible experiences in Italy, from sitting on the rocks feeding swans in Lake Garda to Gondola rides in Venice.

We also ate a lot of pizza and pasta. In fact, for our entire time in Italy, aside from fruit filled breakfasts, we ate exclusively pasta and pizza for lunch and dinner!

During our time in Italy, I picked up some tips that I think will be really useful for any other vegans/vegetarians traveling in Italy. You can check them out in the video below as well as some footage of our amazing trip!

▹▸▹▸ ITALY VLOG & TOP 5 VEGAN TRAVEL TIPS

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on my video and any ideas of videos you guys would like me to film.

Lots of Love, Jade xoxo

#bloggerlife

Berlin vegan guide

August 24, 2015Jade Green Vegan5 Comments

This summer, instead of our typical beach holiday, my mum and I decided to do something we’d wanted to do since I was in High School: travel around Europe! Our first stop was Berlin – voted the most vegan-friendly city in the world here, and with a wide range of vegan restaurants, a veggie/vegan hotel in its centre, and an entirely vegan supermarket, it’s not hard to see why.

Throughout our 3 day stay, we visited so many cool vegan places and I’m really excited to share those that we loved the most with you guys. Not only were the vegan options abundant, the city had so much culture and all of the people we met were really friendly and helpful, making our entire experience amazing. I can’t wait to go back and am already dreaming about my next trip!

▹▸HOTEL▹▸

We stayed in Almódovar Hotel, an organic, vegetarian spa hotel. It is located a short walk from Ostkreuz train station, from where the main tourist attractions are easily accessible.

The beautifully decorated modern rooms are extremely comfortable and spacious. The rooftop spa is equally stunning with a big relaxation area, a lush balcony and a glass-walled sauna overlooking the city. As part of our spa in the city package, my mum and I both had a full body massage and agreed that it was the most relaxing massage we’d ever had.

In addition to the beautiful facilities, the hotel also offered delicious breakfast, lunch and dinner menus. The buffet breakfast at the hotel was 100% vegetarian and mainly vegan, meaning we were spoilt for choice.

There were delicious cakes, fruit salads, and my personal favourite: a vegan twist on traditional german cuisine. The staff were all so friendly and helpful, and our waitress recommended lots of vegan restaurants/cafes for us to visit during our trip.

My mum and I both loved our experience at Almodovar Hotel and next time I visit Berlin, I will definitely be staying here again!

▹▸RESTAURANTS▹▸

Almodovar Hotel Restaurant

On our first evening in Berlin, we were feeling super tired as we’d been up since 2am, so decided to eat in the restaurant in our hotel. We ordered bread with a red pepper almond dip to start and paella to share for our main. Both dishes were amazing!!!! Unfortunately I didn’t manage to snap a picture of the paella, but it was filled with veggies and faux meat sausages and was by far one of the best paellas I’ve ever had. The red pepper almond dip was also delicious – I am definitely going to try to recreate it at home and if it turns out well I’ll be sure to share the recipe with you guys.

Sfizy Veg Pizzeria

On our second evening we visited Sfizy veg, a vegan pizzeria recommended by one of the lovely waitresses in our hotel. It was a little far from the centre and was so busy that we had to wait a while for a table but the food was so delicious that it was definitely worth the trip. Once again dark lighting + iPhone camera made for very bad photos, so I unfortunately don’t have any to show you guys but rest assured that my pizza and my mum’s spaghetti pomodoro both went down very well. The cheese on my pizza was extremely dairy-like so if you’re newly vegan/missing the taste of dairy then you would absolutely love it! Whilst I really enjoyed the pizza, this meal confirmed to me that after just over a year as a vegan I do not miss dairy at all!

▹▸SUPERMARKET/CAFE▹▸

Veganz aka vegan heaven, is an entirely vegan supermarket chain that stocks everything from fresh fruits and veggies, to vegan cheese and mayo, to vegan pizzas, to vegan dog food. How freaking cool is that!? Oh, and as if that’s not enough, the branch we visited also has a vegan cafe annnd on the second level, there is a vegan shoe shop and a vegan restaurant! Basically, I never wanted to leave.

We bought lots of treats for ourselves like vegan ice cream and yoghurts, and also decided to get some vegan dog treats for Poppy, Panda, Teddy and Kitty. Like all dog treats, they look kinda gross but I’m sure the dogs will love them.

On our last day in Berlin, we had veggie burgers and green juices for lunch in the Veganz cafe and they were so yummy! I really wish we had a Veganz in the UK as it would be amazing to have somewhere where you can eat delicious vegan food and do your weekly shopping. Veganz – come to the UK!!!

Overall, my mum and I had an amazing time in Berlin. I’m already planning my next trip there as I can’t wait to take my boyfriend and all of my veggie/vegan best friends to all of the cool vegan places we explored.

Have any of you guys been to Berlin? I’d love to hear if you guys have any cool vegan finds to add to this list!

Vegan eats in Mexico

September 27, 2014Jade Green Vegan2 Comments

On our way to Mexico from Vegas we had a short stop over in San Francisco, and all I can say is I’m a huge fan of the vegan food selection at the airport. The Plant Cafe Organic had so many great options including these amazing chocolate chip cookies. Yum.

After a jam-packed 8 days in NYC & Vegas, it was so nice to have 8 days to chill out in our beautiful all inclusive hotel in Cancun: The Now Sapphire Riviera waking up to this incredible view every morning.

As we didn’t venture out of our hotel on this part of the trip, the majority of my meals consisted of chips, spaghetti, salad & vegetables so I unfortunately don’t have any great restaurants to share with you like in NYC and Vegas. However, I did make the most of the huge fresh fruit selection in our hotel, and took it upon myself to arrange the fruit into lot of different shapes each morning before eating it. The desire to make my food look pretty is definitely something I inherited from my mum, as when I was younger (and even sometimes now) she’d arrange my food into smiley faces/ animals/ other cute shapes. What a babe. I didn’t realise how much this had rubbed off on me until one evening in Mexico we were playing pool with some Canadian guys and we got chatting about veganism. One of them said he thought I must be vegan as he’d seen me that morning with a huge plate of fruit, spending ages arranging it into shapes then taking lots of pictures of it… how embarrassing! At least I was enjoying myself, right?! Anyway, here are some of my favourite fruity creations ( I think the last one looks like a bunny cross butterfly… a bunnerfly maybe?!) Either way, they were all delicious!

Fruity breakfast creations aside, there was one meal we had in Mexico that was amazing: a private vegan dinner on the beach. Wow. It was by far the most beautiful dinner setting I’ve ever seen, and the food was equally amazing. To start, we had a cauliflower, tomato and onion salad; followed by melon soup (weird but good)! For main we had courgette ravioli filled with mushrooms and tomato sauce – a great, healthy alternative to traditional ravioli. And finally, for desert we had a delicious orange sorbet – so yummy!

So that concludes my posts about our amazing trip to North America; I absolutely loved every place we visited and the incredible variety of vegan food we tried in each of them. Aside from the beautiful memories, the main thing I have taken from this trip is that although it may include a little more planning/ research/ awkward conversations using google translate to explain what being vegan means, maintaing a vegan lifestyle whilst travelling is totally do-able. After two fun-packed weeks, it was so nice to get home to my gorgeous dogs & give them their presents – judging by that smile, I think Poppy likes her sombrero!

cockapoo in sombrero

I’d love to hear if you have any tips for eating vegan whilst travelling? Also, if any of you are weird like me and play with your food too?

Vegan in Vegas Baby!

September 22, 2014Jade Green Vegan2 Comments

Part two of our trip around North American was in LAS VEGAS!!!! We had so much fun & crammed a crazy amount into our 4 days there; from pool parties, to burlesque shows, to a helicopter ride, to gambling (and losing) a ton of money, to of course, eating lots of yummy vegan food! It was an amazing 4 days and now I can’t wait to go back. Here are some of the food and other highlights of our trip ♥

Helicopter Ride over the Grand Canyon (coolest thing ever!)

We had some big wins on the slots 😉

Veggie noodles whilst chilling by the pool

Night at Hakkassan

Slice of Vegas

The food highlight of our time in Vegas was checking out an awesome vegan-friendly restaurant: Slice of Vegas. They have an extensive vegan menu, with too much to try in one sitting, so of course we went their twice in our 4 day visit!

For appetisers, we had the ‘Not Your Mama’s Garlic Bread’ as well as the ‘House Shoestring Fries’. Both were great choices & so filling!

For main course they have a varied vegan menu, including but not limited to, lots of Daiya Mozzarella pizzas. We seriously need to find a way to get Daiya cheese to the UK as it’s just insanely good. There must be a petition or something? If not, I’m starting one. Anyway…

Enough of my rambling, back to the Pizza. We decided share a half and half; Matt had the meatless meatballs (that’s a whole lot of alliteration there!) and I had mushroom and onion. Both were a-m-a-zing.

Finally, for desert we had the best, and i mean BEST dessert I’ve eaten in my entire life: these yummy zeppolis! I am so excited to try to recreate these now I’m home, as I have been majorly craving them since we left Vegas.

In summary, Slice of Vegas rocked my world. If you’re in Vegas, you have to go check it out, you won’t regret it!

Cruelty-free in NYC

September 11, 2014Jade Green Vegan2 Comments

In the past month, Matt & I have both turned 21 and to celebrate we decided to go on a 2 week trip around North America! First stop was New York City, and to say I was excited to try out the vegan food scene in one of the vegan food capitals of the world would be an understatement!

The trip got off to a great start with this yummy vegan plane food courtesy of Virgin Atlantic. I get way too excited about plane food, and this vegan curry and potato salad did not disappoint!

Moving on from my weird plane food fetish, let’s get down to all of the amazing food we ate in NYC. On our first morning we found an awesome bagel shop right around the corner from our hotel. They had a varierty of delicious tofu cream cheeses that were so good that we found ourselves there every morning of our entire trip!!

Turns out tofu cream cheese bagels also make the perfect picnic snack in Central Park alongside a fresh fruit smoothie from a street vendor.

As well as eating a lot of bagels, we also visited some cool vegan/ vegan-friendly restaurants. Candle 79 – an entirely vegan restaurant – was my absolute favourite, so much so that we went their twice in our short visit. The servers were so friendly and helpful, the atmosphere was chilled and elegant, and the food was insanely good! We ordered way too many dishes both times we visited, but somehow managed to eat it all! Below are pictures of our favourite dishes…

Angel’s Nachos

Grilled Portobello Steak

Seitan Piccata

Black bean-pumpkin seed burger (my favourite meal of the trip!)

Another great restaurant that we visited with a varied vegan menu was Pala Pizza.

We both ordered the Funghi E Salsiccia Pizza and it was definitely a great choice (sorry for the poor quality photo – it was really dark in there!!) The veggie sausage had such a great flavour, and Matt & I fell in love with daiya cheese. I really wish we could get it in the UK as it is the best cheese alternative I’ve tried.

Despite being full, when we saw the table next to us eating this delicious chocolate cake we decided we could make a little more room for it. And boy am I glad we did, as it was one of the nicest vegan deserts I’ve ever had.

On the last night we found an awesome juice place, Juice Generation, on the way to Times Square. Their mango juice made a perfectly refreshing snack on a warm NYC evening.

They also had a great selection of vegan muffins; my personal fave was the pineapple + coco one. I wish we’d found this place sooner as I’m sure we would have been back to sample the rest of the gluten free, vegan bakery.

We had an amazing 4 and a half days in NYC, and the vegan food scene definitely lived up to my expectations. Until next time NYC xo

P.S. A BIG thanks to Matt for all of the arty photos for this post ♥, the rest of the sub par phone photos are courtesy of me – sorry guys!

Amsterdam Vegan Guide

August 14, 2014October 16, 2019Jade Green Vegan8 Comments

Wandering around the streets of Amsterdam city centre on a hot Saturday afternoon, my Pret fruit salad and Hotel Chocolat airplane snacks seemed like a distant memory and the hanger was starting to set in. This is why I was so excited when we stumbled across Maoz Vegetarian, an international food chain serving falafel and other freshly made veggie food – yum yum yum! I ordered the whole wheat falafel pita topped with lots of yummy salad from the self-service salad bar and a shared a side of chips with my mum. It looked and smelt so good that I couldn’t resist taking a quick bite before snapping a picture – sorry guys! With numerous locations across Europe and the USA, this is the perfect on-the-go lunch for a travelling vegan; I know I will definitely be hitting up Maoz when I visit NYC later this summer.

Maoz vegetarian Amsterdam

After seeing the 2 hour queue outside Anne Frank’s house on Sunday afternoon, we decided to have a wander along the canal and find somewhere to eat lunch. We stumbled across a little pub overlooking the water and I ordered this delicious humus and roasted veggie sandwich. It was one of the best sandwiches I’ve ever had and I will definitely be trying to recreate this sandwich in the near future. Side note: Anne Frank’s house is such a moving experience and well worth a visit; we went back at 7 in the evening and the queue was much shorter so avoiding peak times seems to be the way to go!

humus and roasted veg sandwich

Last but not least of my vegan Amsterdam eats was my Sunday night dinner. The Tempura of vegetable spaghetti from the Skyy Bar at the top of our hotel was my favourite meal of the trip. Just looking at this picture is making my mouth water! The dish was crispy on the outside but soft on the inside and perfectly complemented by the bed of seaweed on which is was served, just yum.

vegan tempura vegetable spaghetti

Not only was the food amazing but like the rest of our hotel, the bar atmosphere and decor were uber cool too. If you’re planning a trip to Amsterdam, I would definitely recommend staying in our hotel, or at the very least a visit to the Skyy Bar! How freaking cool is that ceiling?!

Skyy bar amsterdam

On top of lots of yummy food, we also had an awesome time exploring Amsterdam. We were really lucky as we visited on gay pride weekend which meant that there was even more atmosphere and activity than usual! Here are a few of my favourite pics from our trip…

Lemon water in Amsterdam

THE AWESOME MARKET STOOLS

Lunch by the river

Gay pride

Inside my vegan hand luggage

August 5, 2014Jade Green Vegan9 Comments

Yesterday morning my mum and I got back from our awesome weekend trip to Amsterdam. Our flight was at 7am, so we had to get up at half 4 and now I am feeling majorly jet-lagged (can you even get jet lag from a one hour time-difference? I thinks so!)

This was my first trip abroad as a vegan so I was a little unsure how the food situation would be. However, I decided that if worst came to worst, I’d have lots of fresh fruit and veggies – YUM!

As we only went away for the weekend, we didn’t check in any bags and packed everything in our hand luggage, *gulp*! I used to find this such a struggle but since I’ve been travelling more for work, I’ve got pretty good at cramming a few day’s worth of stuff into a small bag!

I thought it’d be fun to give you a peek inside my bag to see my travel essentials for a weekend away and check out the cute tiny toiletries I took with me (I love tiny toiletries) – everything is cruelty free of course.

Bag: Cath Kidston

Shampoo & conditioner: Tara Smith at M&S

Make up wipes: Formula at M&S

Tooth paste: Dr Organic at Holland and Barrett

Snacks: Evian (which I had to throw away at the airport -oops!)

+ Gianduja chocolate bombs from Hotel Chocolat (YUM!)

Book for the flight: I can do it by Louise Hay

Lightweight PJs: Forever 21

♥

P.s. My vegan eats in Amsterdam post will be up soon, stay tuned because there were some yummies!