vegan columbus: vegan living in central ohio

So my dear readers might wonder where I've been, and whether I've abandoned them. Nay, I say! I was just on holiday in Munich, Germany and Zurich, Switzerland. Here are some of the vegan highlights of my trip:

Munich

• Vegetarian buffet called Bux's very close to the famous Viktualienmarkt – delicious food, but super expensive, charged by weight. Not everything is vegan but many things are, including some of the creamy desserts. Everything has ingredients listed, albeit in German only. Frauenstr. 9  089-2919550
• Vegan cafe called King's Cafe – Much better prices than Bux's. Great foods, desserts, coffee, etc. Small, comfortable atmosphere. I really liked the mellow brand of techno/electro music they were playing, too. Even my non-vegan dad totally loved it. Also the people there are much more patient and flexible than most German servers. Muellerstr. 3 (80469) 089-85636800
• Prinz Myshkin vegetarian restaurant – not all that great as far as vegan options go, surprisingly. The vegan options are clearly marked on the menu with leaf icons, but there are only like 2 of them. I got a vegan pizza and a soy cuppucino for dessert. It was okay. The atmosphere and decor are great.
  
• Bärlauch pesto – this is not a restaurant, rather, a type of garlic pesto that you can buy as a tasty souvenir from a little shop at the south end of the Viktualienmarkt. Most of the foods for sale in this famous market are of the cheese and/or sausage variety, but bärlauch (translates to "bear leeks", a type of wild garlic with a unique taste) is delicious and vegan. If you plan to take some home, either ship it to yourself or have a few 3-ounce bottles to spoon it into. My 6-ounce jar of it was confiscated at airport security :(
• Beer – Did you know that all authentic German beer is vegan? German beers are subject to strict purity laws that stringently regulate the ingredients allowed, restricting the recipe to pretty much only grains, yeast, and water. Some of my favorites local to Munich are wheat beers (called weissbiere [vice-beer-ah] in Bavaria) such as Franziskaner and Andachser Klosterbrau. The andachser restaurant/brewery is right off the Marienplatz. Franziskaner, you'll find all over the city. It's possible to get Franziskaner a few places in the USA, but it'll cost you about 4 times as much in the States as it will in Germany.

Zurich

• Hiltl – according to the Rick Steves guidebook, this is the worlds oldest continuously operating vegetarian restaurant. It has both buffet and menu options. The buffet lists ingredients for each item, but only in German. Swiss people are friendlier than Germans, though, so if you ask for help reading things you'll probably not regret it. Sihlstrasse 28
  8001 Zürich
  Telefon 044 227 70 00
  Telefax 044 227 70 07

  info@hiltl.ch

• Heisse Maroni – the German word for roasted chestnuts. Available at stands on the street all over the place in both southern Germany and Switzerland, these are a traditional fall/winter snack. They come in the shell, but the shell is scored before roasting so they're pretty easy to get out.
• Suuser – A good thing to get at the Puuremärkt (sort of a local indoor farmer's market sort of thing), only available in the fall. It's halfway between wine and grape juice, and the name means "sweet". I tasted both the white and the red varieties at the Puuremärkt in Schaffhausen (home of the famous Rhine falls) and enjoyed both thoroughly. A great vegan way to experience local, seasonal specialties.

There are other vegan and vegetarian restaurants and I'm sure other vegan-compatible local specialties in both Munich and Zurich, but I didn't have time to check them all out. In Switzerland, you'll have much more luck asking for custom-made dishes in non-vegan restaurants than in Germany, since Germans seem to get irritated by departure from the norms, whereas Swiss people are more patient and understanding.