BEST Part of Being VEGAN in PARIS France

This is all about the best part of being vegan in Paris because you know what I bet it's a lot better than you think or maybe it's at least different than you think. So I'm also going to tell you the worst part because I don't want to oversell it. I don't want to mislead you okay because it's a journey. It's been a process. I've lived in Paris for over eight years. I've been a vegan the whole time and the vegan scene has definitely changed and evolved. Lots of restaurants have closed. Of course I think that's the case with any type of cuisine in place but let's talk about it because it's actually it's better in certain ways than I think you could ever imagine right because Paris and France in general is known for the butter. It's known for the cheese. It's known for the meat. It's known for even like things like snails and foie gras right but the pastries are really special in Paris and luckily it's special for the vegans too right. That's one area where if you are a vegan if you come to Paris there are no compromises when it comes to the desserts. There are plenty of bakeries. There are bakeries that are pure vegan. There are bakeries that have vegan even actually vegan croissants are fairly normal. What they'll do is they'll just make them like with margarine which not the most healthy thing. I'm not recommending it necessarily but they do have it and so that's fairly common in a lot of bakeries. Lots of the chocolate shops even they'll have like one or two vegan options that's growing. There's a whole shop that just does vegan macarons. You know the cute little macarons. So there's a shop that just does vegan ones. Even La Dorée which is a popular brand they have vegan macarons. Not all locations have it but right but so the vegan pastry scene in Paris if you know where to go like VG Patisserie and other places the desserts are top notch for sure top notch. Now when you start moving into the savory foods we can start to run into some issues. Now when I first got here I definitely struggled with finding vegan restaurants that I liked but when I moved here like I was accustomed to eating Indian food, Thai food all the time. Very flavorful very heavily spiced foods. Here the food the flavors it's much more like for a non-vegan it's much more buttery rich cream and so when French restaurants were kind of trying to translate that into vegan options it was a lot of things that I didn't like right like a lot of bowls that felt sort of bland. Now by the way this has evolved so we're still getting into the best parts but it was a lot of like lentil salad you know beet salad which that can be good but like I was coming from having a bunch of real authentic Indian food like curries and whatever so like to get some lentil salad did not feel fulfilling right it was not it. Now luckily there are French foods that are vegan like ratatouille that is so delicious it can be hard to find right so that can be a challenge but there are places that have it and by the way I don't want to just run through a bunch of restaurants but like if you want to know what some of the restaurants are let me know I'll put it in the comments but there are there are good options right but the thing is is that a lot of even the French people that are interested in vegetarian diets I'm seeing I've changed the word from vegan vegetarian which lets you know kind of where we're going there are a lot of them are vegetarian and not vegan so some of the best restaurants are vegetarian restaurants so they will have cheese and they will have dairy and egg possibly even on the menu but they'll have some vegan options so that's something to look out for and something that you know kind of surprised me when I first got here I didn't expect so many vegetarian as opposed to vegan restaurants but the main main way it's like a backhanded compliment for Paris but the main main way that being vegan here has surprised me and benefited me was that when I first moved here there weren't that many vegan and vegetarian restaurants that I really loved and so it forced me to learn how to cook right like I was like oh I need to make some curries for myself like I need to figure out how to make some Thai food although I eventually did find a Thai restaurant that did some vegan curries so that's okay but I still like to make it myself now sometimes too and my Indian food is it's getting better but you know it's not all the way there but um do you want to hear about some of the good positives still or do you want to hear some of the negative parts yes or is the the fact that I had to learn how to cook is that also a negative I'm taking it as a positive but you know some of the negative parts I'm just going to jump into it and I might circle back to another positive but one of the biggest negatives is that people really still don't know what vegan is or what it means. I will literally still see restaurants that might say there's a vegan section of a menu and there's fish on it or something is labeled vegan and there's dairy in it right like this really happens and and it's not like where when you call it out they realize oh you know my bad oh did we label that vegan they're kind of like yeah right vegan so the fish yeah and it's like so then how can you trust and then another issue is that um this might be a worldwide issue but I guess some vegans are pretty militant and so sometimes people are really defensive like I'll ask this has happened to me a few times where I ask if something is vegan and I'm just asking about an ingredient right and they come back with this whole spiel about how they don't feel the need to make things vegan or I don't know there's like this weird defensiveness that I get and sometimes in reactions and I'm like dude I'm just asking if there's butter in it like I'm not trying to have a whole conversation about the environment or whatever like I'm not asking about your moral philosophy actually I'm actually not an ethical vegan I'm happy to help animals I love animals but I became a vegan for myself for my personal health and so I don't feel angry at other people because of what they eat or because of what they put in their soup um I feel like that's for them to work out uh so I'm sometimes surprised when people take that approach and they're kind of like getting defensive with me and I'm like dude I'm just trying to get some soup like it's not like does the butternut squash soup has butter in it I'm not trying to have a debate with you you know like it's fine um and so so that can be a bit of a challenge so it's like so that can be a bit of a challenge dealing with restaurants talking with people it's hard when people don't even have the baseline of knowing and then have to check in the kitchen because also quite a few times people don't know if something is vegan and they're hesitant to even ask right like I usually have to say like is this vegan and they're like yeah I don't know and then they just stand there looking at me waiting for my order and I'm like can you ask the kitchen okay but I feel like this is kind of common service is not always great in different places um but overall there are still good places so I do still have a fate my favorite vegan place in Paris is a Caribbean place it's kind of like Caribbean African vibes right and then there are some of the high-end places that are nice that have good food but you know some of the places are really just kind of um if you're talking about savory food because sometimes Paris ranks high on this list of like vegan cities and I'm gonna be honest I don't think for vegan cities Paris should be beyond the top 15 right I fit there have to be at least 14 better cities out there for vegans than Paris simply because of the savory food um there's really good vegan Indian actually up by Gare du Nord Petit Veg okay that's one name I'll throw out but it's not really a restaurant it's kind of like a small takeout place but you can sit there um but you know it's not the best you know but so the ethnic food is where you'll find it but I feel like if people come here and you want to try vegan French food it's going to be a little bit hit and miss it might not be as good as you might hope it's going to be um but if you're open to ethnic food if you're open to just stuffing your face with desserts which by the way not the worst thing to do on vacation um I think it can be great you know and um I guess if you're a vegan if you've been to Paris how did you like the food scene am I being hard on it because I live here I did move here from you know as I said from Asia and um so I was accustomed to just like heavier flavors and maybe I'm being hard on it too because I just live here I'm used to everything and you know it's like uh yeah whatever but I like that being a vegan here has taught me how to cook I like that there are still good ethnic options but for the vegan French scene we have a ways to go we have a ways to go so tell me is the scene kind of the way you expected it to be is it what you thought does any part of this surprise you and um would you come here is this place you want to eat all right I'll catch you in the next one