vegetarian and vegan offerings around Taipei, Taiwan

Taipei is paradise for vegans. I just had to say it and felt it appropriate to start this post with that one line for vegan and vegetarian (and sometimes, pescetarian), super picky foodies like yours truly.

Taipei has vegetarian and vegan restaurants that host buffets on an almost daily basis. Their meat-heavy restaurants now carry some vegetarian and vegan options in their menus. They also have a grocery store that carries only vegan and vegetarian items called iVegan. Needless to say, I'm itching to go back there so much and explore more of their vegetarian and vegan offerings. One day SOON again, yes.

I promised a post of everything vegan and vegetarian I got to eat around Taipei way back October 2019 so here's a rundown of 'em. They may not totally vegan or vegetarian but at least they're places you can bring even non-vegan friends in and eat and hang out in. Well, ain't that really cool now?

1. Universe Cafe at Taipei City Hall Station

The ones on the pictures are those you can get from here. Sorry, I wasn't able to take a better photo of this humble food stall. Universe Cafe is in the Taipei City Hall station. They mostly serve fresh-pressed juices and some coffee (cold brews, I think?) and raw vegan and ketogenic cakes to-go.
Story time: I abused Google as much as I could while in the hotel room to look for vegan and vegetarian restaurants to eat in and Universe Cafe was one that kept cropping up because it was nearest my homebase. So I kept looking for this one but could not find it anywhere. I lived on Family Mart's fruit slices for dinner and lunch because of this handicap. So, hmn... Stupid me found it later, when I was on my way to Taipei Main Station for a last bout of shopping for food and souvenirs to bring home. Universe Cafe was just there, waiting for me to pounce right after the last of the staircase down the Taipei City Hall station. It's literally right beside the staircase, yes. Also, Taipei City Hall train station was literally just steps away from my accommodation. End of story, still? I gleefully made my way to their stall to get I could get a slice of their raw vegan chocolate and strawberries cake and a bottle of their G5---fresh pressed juice comprising of 5 greens and more---to go to take with me on the sojourn to Taipei Main Station. I ate the cake much later, when I was already at the Taoyuan Airport, waiting for the check-in counter to open for my flight home.
Anyway, I found on some posts that some of their products have meat produces on there so they're not entirely vegan. This post here says so and it takes a more disappointing tone. Not so disappointing for me who's used to some organic restaurants and marts here that offer a combination of produces that still are fresh from the local farms here. Instead, for me who had been living on Family Mart's fruit slices, this was such a GOOD FIND already. Definitely such a relief to find a food stall that offers healthy options that allows me to practice my chosen diet and lifestyle. It's actually only natural for some stalls like this to offer some products with meat produces in them like milk or ghee and some other. They aren't a fully vegan, vegetarian only stall. They also offer some items for those that follow the keto diet. Keto diet is protein heavy and therefore relies a lot on meat and other meat produces.
Still though, advice to vegans especially? Always read labels and ask if you're not sure whether these are vegan or not. One can never be too sure, still, especially when all you see is the presentation, pictures and more of the said products they offer. 

2. Vegan options at Taipei Main Station

This stall offers vegan options. Their two kinds of vegan buns are seriously good and they look pretty too!

I bought one of each and only ate them when I made it to NAIA, the Manila airport, because I had found a restaurant at the second floor the place, Taipei Main Station that had some vegan offerings on their menu for a super late lunch-early dinner meal. I actually left Taipei City Hall area hungry. Haha.
This same stall is featured on this post here. The first one. I didn't know they had mushroom and radish cakes that were vegan too. I should've checked. Ugh. Next time then...

This restaurant a few steps from the elevator I went up to the second floor to had some decent vegan and vegetarian offerings. I think the dumplings weren't entirely vegan but close. The fillings are vegetables though. Their menu says which are vegan, which are vegetarian and which aren't both. The faux beef in tomato noodle soup is definitely vegan. The lady that served me this one warned me it doesn't taste as good because there isn't any umami in it but I'm vegetarian, borderline vegan so, well, this was IT and more than good enough for me.

Ah, I didn't catch the name of the restaurant, sorry. But the bottom line is, vegan and vegetarian restaurants are everywhere in Taipei and where one can only find meat options, one can also find vegan and vegetarian ones. Living as a vegan is quite easy in Taipei. Even easier as a vegetarian.

If there's any regret that I had for this trip, it's not being able to go around some more and explore more restaurants and food stalls that offer vegan and vegetarian options. I want to go back there so bad now. I'm even down to explore iVegan for stuff to bring home and cook for myself and others. Sadly, not a lot of my folks here yet appreciate vegan food. They're too hooked on anything with meat and I'm avoiding those now. And yes! I do cook some vegan stuff now, too! Especially when I get inspired by some recipes I see on instagram---I follow @veganmamaph on there and a few others---and on back issues of Vegan and Gluten-Free magazines I randomly get from the Booksale branches here! The kitchen can be a happy place for me, yes, apart from my room and a few others. So...hmn...I'd especially go back for vegan milk tea. I'm very curious about Nuttea at this time.

I'm quite envious that Taipei has a wide array of vegan and vegetarian food to choose from while Philippines, especially my city of Cagayan de Oro, only has so few joints to get these from yet. Hmn...I'll post more on vegan and vegetarian options in my locale on here one day soon. I found a few more recently which is good. There are about two restaurants, one doubles also as a mart of sorts, that offer some decent vegan stuff on their menu. One of these restaurants I'm very thrilled to talk about here serves a mix of Middle Eastern and Filipino and Italian (they serve some pizza now?) food. Their falafels are good. They may come off dry but I haven't had a lot of these so I can't really tell. Haha. Anyway, so yay! Yes, watch out for those incoming posts. There'll also be a few others, yes!

going vegetarian in cagayan de oro: Pili-an Cafe and Restaurant

I'm SO behind a lot of posts but I'm still alive, yes. Just drowning in a ton of work and because I'm saving for a laptop for blogging and everything right now so yaaayyy! Soon! The posts will come in droves the SOONEST, late into this year. Or early next year. I have a ton of posts to catch up on including a quick trip to Taipei I had last week for something and another one I had to Davao for close friends' wedding there from a month or more ago or so. 

Anyway, let me preface this one by saying I've had a long history with being vegetarian. I am mostly pescetarian and I don't think I can ever go full vegan because honey is heavenly in my salads, smoothies and some juices. But if I ever do go vegan successfully...hmn...I guess I can always live on coconut nectar, stevia and other plant-based sweetener alternates. I can't say where this history with the obsession with being vegeterian of mine started but I remember being a Carrie Underwood fan during American Idol. She's vegetarian, probably vegan now, so I learned, idolised her then and still now and therefore wanted to go the same way. I never followed other American Idol seasons as faithfully as I've ever had Season 4 with her, Bo Bice and more on it since. Anyway, on a more serious note, I've later realized that I've always wanted to be vegetarian for health, primarily, and environmental purposes.

Aside from wanting to be vegetarian for good health and the environment, I'm also an avid fan of clean skin care and beauty products particularly from those of Human Heart Nature. So since this is mostly my case now, or MY LIFE now, I've recently decided to just go and be pescetarian->90% vegetarian. Hmn, I think I'm about done with being a yoyo dieter. 

And onto the point of this post: Pili-An Cafe and Restaurant. I've been frequenting this place after every payday at work as of late. Nothing else comes close as a favorite right after it, here, in downtown Cagayan de Oro City. The other vegan restaurant I'm curious about, Buen Provecho, is in the uptown and quite far from here. I haven't been uptown in sooo long a time although it's my favorite place to shoot photos for this blog for with friends. Err...among other crazy activities I get myself and friends into when our free times jive with each others'.  

Pili-an Cafe and Restaurant offers a lot of fun things and when I mean 'a lot', I mean A LOT. For one, it's a cafe where you can get sikwate or tsokolate (local or homemade hot chocolate) and suman (local sticky rice dessert and/or snack) while just hanging out and watching the world pass by outside the window on any random day of the week. Just watch out when they're closed for whatever reason like rest day of their staff. Then they're just inaccessible for that day. This does not happen often though, thankfully.

Two, it's a restaurant, of course. You can get both vegetarian and vegan food here. Below are my favorites from them and those they offer in their menu.

The huge bowl of Veggie Bibimbap is HEAVEN. I've had this twice now. The most recent just being last week because the last payday was last week. Their Fresh Tomato Herbed pasta is also really super good. If vegan, you can just opt without the bread.

It's not THAT clear but this is their menu. I have other things I'm curious about from this one too so I may as well try some of these some other time...SOON. I predict I'll be more frequent here anyway. (Sometimes, I just wish there were more vegetarian and vegan haunts around here but there really aren't much so...)

And three (lastly), they are also a mart of sorts where you can get something like this vegetarian snack. It's the vegetarian version of the chicharon (cracklings frequently made of pork or pork rinds). 

My other favorites to get there are a bottle of laing (a local Bicol-area vegetable-only, coconut milk-based dish) in mild spicy variant and I'm still thinking of getting their soy sauce-like dip of sorts. A bottle is Php 150 so good luck to my budget this week and next week...hmn... They also have muffins-cookies hybrid that I like: Mookies. A box is now 145 Php or so but trust me when I say it's worth it because it is! These are really good, heaven-sent protein-, energy-heavy not-so-tiny, tasty things!

For more about them, you may check to their facebook page here: Pili-an Cafe and Restaurant.

Their Limketkai Mall-Robinsons Shopping Center branch used to be my go-to for late lunches way back. They served 3 kinds of rice toppings, all three use brown rice. Plus they're really not that heavy on the pockets compared to when eating at fast food restaurants here. But last week, I found out they had just closed. I guess the rent there is really high now so they couldn't afford to keep said branch. This is the saddest for me because I frequent that branch as it's quite close to my current workplace.

I predict I'll be here again sometime next week, maybe over the weekend. Friday is payday at work, after all! Yay!