The Spicy Spatula

Happy Hump Day, vegans!

Today I’m not doing any vegan recipes but we are still talking about vegan food. Recently, to celebrate the release of my latest romance novel, Make Me Want To Love You, we went on a bit of a mini-vacation/road trip. This trip took us to Timișoara, which is in the western part of the country close to the Serbian border, to Orsova where we took a nice long ride on the Danube before we ended in Drobeta Turnu-Severin. I was anxious to visit this area for a few reasons and while I was researching the trip, I learned there was a vegetarian restaurant in town, BioFresh.

But before we arrived in Timișoara, we stopped in Sibiu to visit with some American friends who also recently moved to Romania. Small world, right? Anyway, we met up at a little cafe called Charlie’s Specialty Coffee & Brunch where we enjoyed a few vegan nibbles.

I wanted the vegan shakshuka but they were out of it so I pouted for three seconds and moved on to a falafel plate with two types of hummus (chickpea & beet), carrot noodles and bread. The Hubs ordered a creamy tofu scramble that was incredible.

Oh, and I had a delicious beer that I absolutely loved, and found out the brewery was located, guess where? Yep, Timișoara!

Timișoara 

BioFresh labels itself as vegetarian, probably because Romania is a very meat-centric nation and vegetarian meals would receive a much better reception. It was a very nice eatery with both indoor and outdoor seating, great music and friendly staff. Most of all, they had lots of all vegan options. In fact, aside from a few dishes and the entire dessert menu contained honey so we couldn’t enjoy any sweet treats.

Boo!

We ate here a couple of times while we were in town because it’s better to try multiple one things at a place that knows how to good vegan food than risk eating French fries, grilled veggies and salad after a long day of sightseeing.

So what did we have? A bit:

Fajitas
Szechuan Eggplant & rice
Grilled tofu & veggies with mamaliga (polenta)
Greek Salad
Veggie sticks
Spinach & Avocado Pea Pasta
Avocado soup

We ate good. Really good while sightseeing. There were a great many churches to be seen and we went for a boat ride along the Timiș River and we stopped at this really awesome place, I Giardina di Zoe, which held beautiful rose gardens. If you want to see more, check me out on TikTok.

We spent about 2 days in Timișoara before taking off for Orșova so that we can take a trip–okay another trip–along the Danube. However this isn’t the Delta section of the Danube that we did a few years ago. This part is literally the border between Romania and Serbia. In fact the middle of the Danube River is the border.

If you don’t know about the rock statue Decebalus, it’s the largest of it’s kind in Europe and it is quite magnificent to see up close. This was one on my list that i really needed to see desperately and hearing the history as I rolled along the Danube with a beer in my hand was the perfect reward for a lot of months of hard work and long hours. Here are some photos for you to enjoy!

Annnd, this post is much longer than I expected so come back soon and I’ll tell you all about what we ate and saw in Drobeta Turnu-Severin and here’s a hint…there are fortresses and a recently discovered Roman military settlement!!!