LUGANO 🇨🇭 VLOG: Hometown Favorites, Swiss Chocolate, Vegan Restaurants, Lake Views & Hidden Gems!

Hello everyone, this is Liso and today we are in Lugano, Switzerland, which is actually my hometown. So we're gonna go around and see some stuff and try some really good food. Yeah, let's see a day in a life. So Lugano is actually the city I grew up in and studied. It's a city in Switzerland, it's very small, but it's considered the Monte Carlo of Switzerland. So right now it's Monday, so it's a weekday in Switzerland, but so many people are outside and just walking around. It's also lunch time, so I'm gonna go to a really famous place that I used to go to almost every day. It's a place that's vegan actually. It's a vegan store and everything they make is completely no milk, no eggs, and no meat. So I'll show you guys the first place that I think you should visit. As you can see, they have like the echo sign. Okay, so we have the vegan v-bob, they call it. This is honestly like one of my favorite things in Lugano, because also you feel like quite good about yourself. I'm not vegan, but this is so delicious. And a lot of my friends, they actually really like this alternative rather than the meat version of the burrito, which is interesting. It's like there's like a mixture, and basically it's like, I believe it's tofu mixed with like some kind of spice. It's really good. Also, the reason why I think this became really popular is because a lot of Swiss people are actually vegan. So a lot of Swiss people have a really healthy lifestyle, which is exactly why I think this store became super popular. The owner just came to us, since I told him like we really like the food. And he said for him, it's really important, like the whole message of the food being vegan. So passionate owners, good food. It's freezing out here, just freezing. In comparison, after from coming to from Hong Kong, this is freezing. Okay, so now we are at the Lugano Lake. And this lake is actually a division between Lake Como and Lake Maggiore. And it's located kind of like near the Switzerland and the Italian border. So it's a very famous lake, and it's very pretty here. And it kind of gets really cold. Usually you can take a boat, but as you can see, there's zero boats here. As you can see, there's a lot of mountains here. Although I'm not sure which mountain in particular is the division between like Como and Switzerland. But I do know that somewhere in the creek of there is the place where you usually drive to Como. Usually there's a road down along this line, and you can get to Como in like one hour, literally. This city of course has so many memories for me. I grew up here. So it's a very small town, honestly. And in the recent years, it's become so popular. To my surprise, there's been a lot of tourists. We can also see right there, there's a Christmas market setting up. And if we get a closer look, this is kind of like how the houses look for the Christmas market. They have like special owners for every store, and they will sell like specific local Lugano products or Swiss products. Sometimes even Italian products, but mostly Swiss. And always the food here is delicious. It's usually like local artisans that will sell the food to you. So it's always so good. This is a really famous coffee shop that I personally love going to. It's called Vanini, as you can see it's like from 1871, I believe. So it's a very old cafe. Okay, so we are now gonna take a look at the menu. It looks so old. But they have a menu usually for the desserts, and then this is for the salty, salty things. So let me see. I think the best thing that's here for sure is all the coffee, and they also have a hot chocolate and like a lot of pancakes, traditional French pancakes called crepe. I believe it's French. I'm sorry, our viewers, please correct me if I'm wrong. Here we are. They have so many delicious crepes here, as you can see. I'm definitely gonna get the banana chocolate crepe, because I think that's the most delicious. There's some birds in the cafe. They brought us the coffee now. It looks so pretty. Now we have our crepe, and this is with banana and chocolate, and then we also have a really good coffee. So let's try all of this now. I highly recommend this cafe especially because their coffee is so good. Okay, so now I'm gonna try the crepe. So the crepe is usually made with a technique where you put the pancake really really thin like this, and you will usually put some kind of sugar or some chocolate, but actually the most common is just pure sugar, but back in Italy you can get like sugary crepes. In Switzerland though, they have a lot of different types like fruits and chocolate and anything, anything you can think of. It's really good. This store during summer is also very popular for their chocolate and also their ice cream, gelato. So that's one thing that you should try here if you come here during the summer. Here is the famous gelato. So it's very big and delicious, yes. Highly recommend. So this came out a total of 20 francs, which is a little expensive for most people for coffee, but this is a normal price in Switzerland. Now we're heading to the a place that I always buy my breakfast in. So usually for breakfast people will eat something sweet, so we're heading to buy a pie. They also cook a lot of cookies for Christmas and will have like special treats that they make for each year. For example, of course, Switzerland is known for its chocolate, and they also have a bunch of really pretty cookies as you can see, and yeah, more cookies and more cookies and more cookies. This is the famous pie with a fruit called rhubarb, and it's really delicious and it's kind of special to Switzerland because Swiss people really like rhubarb. So I'm gonna get this pie as well. Here is the pie, and it was a total of around 10 francs, so it's not too bad, not too bad. Now we're going down to a grocery store in Manor, and usually you can buy like almost anything in this grocery store from bread to like, yeah, mostly anything. So let me show you the best things you can buy here and how good the grocery stores in Switzerland are. As you can see, they have a giant piece of pizza here, and they also make fresh bread all the time. As you can see, most of the bread is already sold out. The pizza here is delicious, and of course, desserts, more desserts. This is a very famous dessert in Switzerland called cannolo, which is actually, I think it's an Italian dessert, and all of the bread is fresh, usually like one or two days. It's always like freshly made. We are approaching to the best part, which is cheese. As you all know, Switzerland is known for its cows, which means that the milk here is so good, and which means all the milk products such as cheese and chocolate is delicious here. So let's take a look at some cheeses that I would recommend. This is all cheese. This whole cube area is for cheese. So this is all made with local cheese, I believe. A giant block of parmesan. The first cheese I would recommend would definitely be Asiago. This is one of my favorite cheeses. It's not very well known. It's very soft, and I really like that if you want a softer, mellow taste. There's another one which is called Emmental. I really love this cheese. This one I highly recommend. Also really soft, creamy taste. Yeah, please don't buy cheddar. Please buy this cheese in Switzerland. And we can see a giant block like this is cut from the big block of cheese, and it's about six francs. So it's quite affordable considering the quality of the cheese itself. Oh, so all the cheese in Switzerland, both Italy and Switzerland, have fresh mozzarella. So never buy the mozzarella from the grocery store. Always buy it like packaged near the cheese section, because that's the best. I promise you, you need to try all of this cheese. It is so good. I heard a lot of people really interested into fondue in Switzerland. So actually in the supermarket they sell this big packets of cheese. It's so heavy. It's like at least a kilogram, I think. Yeah, like 600 grams. And this is for three persons. You can melt it at home and literally have a fondue at your own house, which is great. They have all the different types like this. It's only about 14 francs for this giant pack of cheese, which is crazy. I also found some truffle. This is real truffle. Let's see how much it is. It's 16 francs per 10 grams and 75 for the white there's some with fish, also with mushroom, as well as truffle. And you can see like even the truffle, it's only 9 francs for 100 grams of the truffle. Swiss people love seasonal ingredients now. And since it's November, there is the pumpkin. I ended up getting a big amount of food. Oh god. They have a really good chocolate store, which is a local Swiss brand. The amount of chocolate here is crazy. It's so busy in there, but we got some chocolate as well, which is for my parents to enjoy later. Going upward, up the mountain. Hey, I have just finished my visit at the hospital and I will now be heading back home to unpack all the groceries I have bought. I hope you guys enjoyed today's vlog and hope to see you in the next one. And also hope that you visit Lugano very soon.