The 10 best vegetarian meals we found in Canada
Guest post by my partner, Liz Lutgendorff
As a vegetarian, it can often be difficult while travelling to find food that isn’t either quiche, vegetarian burgers or plain ol’ salad. However, with planning, you can find some mighty fine vegetarian eats. So here are the top 10 things I ate (or drank) while driving from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Wasaga Beach, Ontario.
10) PEI blueberry ale at the Boardroom cafe
Our first night in Halifax, we went to the Boardroom Game Cafe to hang out with friends and stave off jet-lag. I had a lovely blueberry ale from PEI. It was just lovely, clean and light and a nice pint to unwind with after international travel. I wanted to have another but I was definitely going to fall asleep. Instead, I had the lovely hot chocolate pictured above.
I was amazed by the microbrew culture in the east coast and Quebec and I could have spent the entire 2 weeks sampling different microbrews but I’m pretty sure I would have then failed to share any of the driving.
9) BeaverTails at Blue Mountain
Not a real beaver tail — I’m a vegetarian, remember. No, BeaverTails are basically a flat donut with different toppings. They are delicious and so unhealthy. I had this at almost the end of our trip, going on rides and playing mini golf at Blue Mountain resort.
Mine was maple and banana which was so sweet — most people might find that too much sweet but it was alright in small doses. It’s becoming an emblematic thing you can get in Canada so if you’re ever there, go get one because they are a complete indulgence.
8) Cinnamon Buns at the Captain’s Inn in Alma.
There were quite a few early mornings on the road trip — getting up really early and driving 2 or so hours so we’d have the whole day to spend at our next destination. This was the case with the Captain’s Inn, we were driving all way to St. Andrew’s to go Whale Watching.
Not only were our hosts lovely, they made us breakfast even though we were up 30 minutes before they usually even switch on the oven. I had these delicious little cinnamon buns — there was an entire plate of them and I had to use all my willpower not to eat them all.
7) Breakfast pizza at Morris East
We were super jetlagged our second day in Halifax. We spent the morning driving to Peggy’s Cove and back and then felt all out of sorts. It was only about 11am but we were starving.
Right near our hotel was a place called Morris East and as I tweeted later, I never knew I needed breakfast pizza in my life until that moment. It was also good fuel for when we went Tidal Bore rafting later that afternoon. Breakfast pizza. I needs it.
6) Alcohol maple products at Domaine Acer
Another drink based favourite was at Domaine Acer which makes maple based alcoholic beverages. It was another early morning for the tour and hadn’t had any breakfast when we got to the tasting session. I tried 3 different drinks: a white wine, a tawny port and what they call an ‘acer’ which is latin for maple.
They were so good I bought bottles of all 3 types. I think it’s only available in Belgium outside Canada. I do recommend having a glass if you ever come across it, it’s not at all sweet like you’d expect but it’s got hints of maple and other lovely things.
5) Lovely salad at L’Innocent in Rivière-du-Loup
I had forgotten to find a place to eat for Rivière-du-Loup and so it was by pure chance that we ended up in this tiny cafe called L’innocent. There was lots of breakfast type things but I settled on a delicious warm salad with sesame encrusted tofu and lots of veggies.
It was the perfect thing to have after a really long drive, where we had been surviving on chips and Tim Horton’s. The only trying experience was parallel parking our SUV on a very, very steep street to get to it!
4) French toast at Miami Deli in Montreal.
Miami Deli was recommended by Reddit. It’s a 24-hour breakfast diner and it’s absolutely worth a trip to eat there. In our case, it was worth two trips. I had french toast both times — something I don’t regularly have in the UK.
The diner is lovely, with super friendly staff and all the breakfast items you could want. We hadn’t had many proper breakfasts, usually we ate something quickly and dashed, so it was nice to sit down, have some tea and a massive plate of French toast and maple syrup.
3) Pumpkin Pie at En Vie in Halifax
Our first proper meal in Halifax was in En Vie, a really wonderful vegan cafe. Not only was the salad I had super refreshing (even more so given the really terrible vegetarian fare you get on planes), but I had an amazing slice of pumpkin pie.
Oh man, pumpkin pie is not a thing that is very popular in the UK, the whole autumn menu has it conspicuously absent. So I was totally going to have pumpkin pie wherever I could. It was so super creamy and spicy and if I hadn’t been so full I probably would have had another slice.
2) Delicious things at Zen Kitchen in Ottawa.
Zen Kitchen is another proper vegetarian restaurant which does japanese fusion dishes. It was a bit of a walk from our hotel but was totally worth it. I wish I hadn’t eaten lunch or anything really that day as I wanted to eat everything on the menu.
I had black bean cakes with salsa, guacamole and salsa for a starter which was a tiny bit spicy but not overpowering for a wimp like me. This was followed by Pad Thai with tofu two ways. TOFU TWO WAYS? I know this probably doesn’t excite the non-vegetarian but I love tofu.
I couldn’t finish as I was too full and I still regret not being able to try dessert. The people at the next table had things that looked delicious. As well, the owner of Zen Kitchen was serving that night and was the nicest guy. Talk about wonderful service.
1) Chez Victor in Quebec City
Zen Kitchen was just narrowly pipped to the post by Chez Victor, a gourmet burger restaurant. I think there were at least 4 vegetarian options which was amazing. I had been looking forward to the maple-marinated-tofu burger since I found the menu. It did not disappoint.
I wish all restaurants could put this much effort into their veggie burgers — usually you end up with some sad, deep fried patty which is just about palatable. The burger also came with a massive portion of chips. Finally, I had a banana pie for dessert which just tipped me over to a slightly uncomfortable too full feeling BUT I REGRET NOTHING. Gosh. I want to go back to Canada just for that burger.
So in conclusion: Canada — beautiful place with many tasty things to eat wherever you are.
