What I ate Vegan in Budapest, Hungary
The last leg of our European city trip was Budapest, yet another beautiful city filled with millions of vegan options!
Kozmosz
We spent our first meal at Kozmosz as it was very close to our hotel. Kosmosz is an all vegan restaurant offering traditional hungarian dishes veganised including seitan stew, pasta with 'vegan cottage cheese' and mushroom ragout. However, on this occasion I decided to stick with the familiar and go for Penne Arrabiata with tomato and aubergine sauce and vegan cheese.
It was really tasty and the vegan cheese (throughout the whole trip) was definitely superior to any I've found in Italy or the UK.
Tik Tak Hummus
Tik Tak Hummus is a small scale family restaurant, they offer a small menu of hummus based dishes. Myself and my friends all opted for 'the complete plate' of hummus, salad and falafel.
Although we had to wait a while for our food, it was worth it. Every aspect of the dish worked wonderfully together and I finished it all, it was deliciously fresh and I would definitely recommend it.
Edeni Vegan
Edeni vegan offers many hot dishes at a hot food counter, you can choose to have one as a main dish, have a tasting plate or make a combination of your own.
My friends opted for stuffed peppers and salad (above) and I had a tasting plate which included soy stew, tofu scramble, potatoes, rice and caramelised onions with seitan. We all really enjoyed our food and it was nice to have so much choice.
For dessert, we shared three of the many cheesecakes on offer- salted caramel, chocolate orange and bounty.
The texture of the cheesecakes was great- light and fluffy. The bounty cheesecake was layered with a sponge but the others were like traditional cheesecake. The chocolate orange cheesecake was my personal favourite.
Gelarto Rosa
We came across Gelarto Rosa completely by accident and were drawn in by the amazing rose shaped ice creams. We then noticed that they had a completely vegan lunch menu of sandwiches, salads and mezzes and a breakfast menu too.
My friend and I decided to share two the sandwiches- the Mddl'e and the Scly. They also have a Bdpst sandwich with chickpea omelette.
The Mddl'e had baba ganoush, veggie balls, grilled aubergine, date and onion jam, tahini, grilled cashew mozzarella and spinach. It was really nice, the veggie balls were like falafel and the cashew mozzerella was the best vegan cheese I've ever eaten!
The Scly sandwich was vegan pesto, tomatoes, grilled cashew mozzarella, basil and pistachio cream and was also amazing. Both sandwiches were very generously filled.
The cafe also offered many vegan cakes and cheesecakes. My friend ordered a raspberry and almond cake. It was an almond sponge with a topping that tasted like raspberry and white chocolate!
However, myself and my friend decided to have an ice cream instead. Most of the flavours were vegan with the exception of one or two. I had chocolate raspberry, pear and dark chocolate strawberry and elderflower. All of the flavours were delicious.
I couldn't go home without another visit! This time I had Mango, chocolate raspberry and the pear and chocolate flavour again. You should definitely check Gelarto Rosa if you are in Budapest.
Vegan Love
After a day at a thermal bath in Budapest we went to Vegan Love street food, they have burgers, not dogs and salad and gyros. I went for the vegan chick'n burger which was crispy fried seitan and bbq sauce.
Although it's not particularly photogenic, I must say, this burger was incredible! The texture was so close to southern fried chicken (one of my old favourites), it even had tough bits like the chicken skin. I don't know how they did it, I've never had anything quite like it before and I've been craving it ever since! Must be magic...
Both my friends went for the Philly cheese steak sandwich which was steak spiced seitan with vegan cheddar sauce. They were both very impressed with it and said it was delicious and the cheese sauce was really realistic.
We had our meals with chips and sweet potato fries and ketchup with basil, soy yoghurt garlic sauce, veganaise and bbq sauce. The whole experience was great and the bbq chick'n burger is a must!
Hideg Nyalat
Budapest has a vegan street food garden, there is a seating area offering tasty vegan food from a few different food trucks. Hideg Nyalat make ice cream from coconut milk and coconut yoghurt so it's soy free too.
They had many flavours, I had chocolate brownie and salted caramel. The texture of the ice cream was different and more like mousse. The flavours were subtle but the brownie pieces were really good.
My friend got salted caramel too and hazelnut, the hazelnut was the strongest in flavour and was really good.
Hideg Nyalat is also available at Budapest airport. There was a smoothie stand that had their ice cream and some of their cakes. I picked up a brownie as I'd liked the brownie pieces in the gelato so much. It was amazing, very rich and chocolatey. A great last treat on the trip.
Las Vegans
Las Vegans is also in the vegan street food garden and had four different pizzas. We got a gyros pizza with vegan cheese, vegan seitan gyros and tzatziki. The pizza was delicious and I loved it, the base was freshly baked and the toppings worked well together.
Great Bistrot
Last but not least, I tried Great Bistro. They have two or three lunch time specials on offer with a choice of sides. I asked to try both specials of the day- zucchini fritters with tomato salsa and peanut butter tofu with turmeric sauce with a side of sweet potato mash.
Both specials were really tasty, I particularly liked the peanut butter tofu and might have to try and make this at home.
As you can see, Budapest is bursting with vegan options, It's definitely worth a visit.