Whilst there is no evidence to prove that Marie Antoinette ever said that on learning that the peasants had no bread (and being obliviousness to the nature of a famine as she was), she is nevertheless attributed to the quote.

Well this weekend I was in Paris and I too was offered cake.  We’d planned this short break a few weeks back and duly ordered a ‘Vegetarian Paris’ http://www.buenosbooks.ws  2008 version, which was the latest we could find and I’ll come back to the guide later.

The break was about meeting friends, eating veggie food (which we can’t get in rural north west France) and topping it off with seeing England play France in the Six Nations Ruby final.  Of course, if we’d know how badly England was going to play in the preceding weeks, we may have saved our hard earned cash for another occasion – they were rubbish most of the season, so it was hardly a surprise that France won and deservedly so.

Anyway, the previous night to the rugby saw us meeting French friends for dinner (carnivores – say no more) who were actually good enough to book a vegan restaurant for us which was a lovely surprise.  We met at a rather plain looking cafe at 9pm (rather late for us, but early by French standards) called the Loving Hut www.lovinghutcuisine.com/default.asp.  Well, we had a wonderful evening.  The waiting staff were bi-lingual, as were the menus and there was something for all are tastes.  We all started with smoothies, then the boys sampled a couple of courses of soya based dishes, while we girls had a range of salads, finally topped off with vegan cakes, ice-cream and fruits – it was bliss knowing we could safely eat anything and everything on the menu

The Loving Hut was created by an Asian gentleman with a vision that all beings could live in peace, love and harmony with each other and the planet. It’s the fasted chain of vegan restaurants newly opening around the world. Cuisine is international at great prices (the  4 of us had 4 courses each for a total of 135E – so roughly £30 a head).  Food is 100% animal-free made with wholesome ingredients thus offering an accessible starting point for those who want to make the noble transition to a plant-based diet. Lovingly served, the environment was peaceful.  Admirably, Loving Hut aims to become a beacon of light for an alternative way of living. It’s healthier, it’s compassionate, it’s peaceful and it’s the only way to a sustainable planet, they say, 
Be Veg! Go Green! Save the Planet!! amen to that

The next day refreshed after using the hotel facilities, we set off with our new vegetarian guide book excitedly looking forward to another vegan meal at one of the oldest veggies restaurants at the Notre Dame.  Sadly, it looked like it had been closed for 10 year when we got there!  So we set off again. Luckily, we came across some Chinese girls on a veggie stall promoting vegetarianism so we had a chat and a few nibbles before setting off for choice number two.  An hours walk later, that too was closed.  By now we were famished having skipped the hotel breakfast.  We set off for choice number three, just making it before they closed at 3pm (which is acutally late in France, normally it’s 2pm).

I admit i was a bit disappointed because it was another Asian restaurant as we’d eaten Asian the night before.  However, the food at Tien Hiang was fantastic and boy was it popular.  Again, I was lucky and had a wonderful spicy salad – so good in fact, I had the same for both courses and Robert was able to indulge in a another assortment of soya dishes.

Having walked miles and seen hundreds of eateries, I was disappointed how little choice there still is in this day and age for vegetarians, vegans and raw or green fooders like us.  Even with a guide book it was nigh on impossible. Frankly, we were simply too tired to walk out and find somewhere in the evening. Thank goodness I’m always equipped with my Jason Vale raw veggie juice bars (see http://www.juicemaster.com/product.php?id=127) so never really go hungry but even so, I thought we would have faired better than that in a city like Paris!  So armed with juice bars and a flask of roobosh tree, we set off for the match – enough said.

So if you’re planning a trip to Paris, or any of it’s French cities, be warned you will still find things difficult if you want to eat healthy veggie, vegan or raw plant based food.  I suggest you ring ahead and check restaurants are actually open despite the date of the guide book you’re using.  Don’t be fooled by the locations being in the same quarter either, unless it’s a sunny day which it wasn’t for us, the districts are huge to navigate and can take hours to walk around so save your legs and hop in a taxi because lunch times are short in France, finally, always have a back up plan.  If we can help you plan your trip in any way, please do ask

You may even want to pop in and see us en-route or just play safe and stay with us.  We’ll look after you as B&B guests or we could even tailor a retreat to suit your needs – can’t say fairer than that can we!

Dawn

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