In a place where one of the staples of the local cuisine is Jamón, and you can typically find a shoulder of pork on the bar counter at any given restaurant, it's pretty difficult to find a variety of things to eat as a vegetarian. At least, in the more "traditional" restaurants, that is. I've put traditional in quotes, because what does traditional cuisine really even mean nowadays? We live in an age of pushing culinary boundaries, of "molecular gastronomy," of game-show style cooking on TV in which presentation plays as large a role as taste. According to The Diners Club® World’s 50 Best Restaurants Academy, the best restaurant in the world is in Girona, Spain, and the menu has no mention of the words "tapas," "tortilla," "bocadillo," "croquetas," "patatas bravas," or other items so frequently mentioned in a conversation about Spanish cuisine.
I took a trip to Barcelona with my boyfriend Warner this weekend, who came from New York to visit me in Madrid for his President's day break. He has been vegan for almost a year now, and I've been a vegetarian for about four years. We decided to do some research and eat our way from Madrid to Barcelona, vegetarian/vegan style. Therefore, I present to you: a modern food tour of Madrid and Barcelona!
Meal 1: Lunch at a 100% vegan restaurant, Rayen Vegano. We both ordered the "menú del día," which means a first plate, second plate, bread, a drink (water, juice, etc.), and either a coffee, tea, or dessert.
For the first plate, I chose the kale salad with a raspberry dressing, and he chose pea soup, garnished with a piece of toasted kale. For the next course, I chose a dish of steamed collard greens, filled with garbanzo beans and spices, covered in a gazpacho sauce with creamed avocado. He chose a dish of lentils, corn, quinoa, mushroom, shallots and a balsamic sauce. 
Lastly, we shared a coffee and a dessert of chocolate that had the texture somewhere between fudge and pudding, with peanut butter on the bottom.
Meal 2: Our next meal was one of my favorites so far. We found a vegan tapas restaurant, called Vega. We had mushroom croquettes, and a dish of green and kalamata olives, beetroot hummus, and cucumbers with fennel to start. It was so filling, we shared a main dish of spaghetti noodles, meatballs made of tofu, raisins, and probably fairy dust since it was so delicious, topped with what tasted like yogurt sauce, with pistachios, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, and micro-greens as a garnish. 
Meal 3: The next day, we took a 6:30 AM train to Barcelona. We had breakfast at a restaurant called Flax&Kale, where we ordered two cafe lattes with soy milk, an açai bowl to share topped with bananas, strawberries, blueberries, granola, hemp seeds, and goji berries, and two chia and flax seed bagels with tempeh, fake cheese, arugula, tomato, and fake cream cheese. Amazing.
That place also boast a variety of delicious looking juices, and we bought some green juices for the road. The one unique ingredient which I haven't seen in the typical green juice formula in the U.S., was grapes.
Meal 4: We found a vegan deli called Gopal, which is known for veggie burgers. I got a "Gopal" burger, which is their standard recipe, with fake cheese melted on top, in a salad. It came with a drink and a side of fries with a sauce that is a vegan version of the brava sauce on the popular dish of patatas bravas. Warner got a double burger, one patty being the "Gopal" recipe, and the other patty a Mexican chili recipe (and he thought I didn't notice that he ate most of the fries!).
Meal 5: We had a light dinner of olives and a vegan appetizer sampler at a place called Restaurante Vegetalia. It consisted of asian spring rolls, hummus and pita, butter lettuce salad with carrots, sprouts, and a mustard vinaigrette dressing, and falafel with tahini.
Meal 6: We had a lazy morning, and started the day with lunch. We went to Teresa Carles, named after the owner, who also owns the restaurant we went to the previous day, Flax&Kale. We shared vegan ceviche, with coconut meat, mushrooms, radishes, red bell pepper, avocado, onion, and a delicious sauce (which was blue-green?). Then, I ordered a kale salad with avocado, tomato, seaweed, sprouts, radish, and a lime dressing. He ordered vegan lasagna made of whole grain flour, filled with spinach, onion, masala-chai-style cooked pumpkin, cashew cheese, and a sauce of fresh and dried tomatoes. The salad was really good, but the lasagna was wow.
Meal 7: In between going to the Picasso Museum and Antonio Gaudí's architectural masterpiece La Sagrada Familia, we snacked on some empanadas from La Fabrica. (How many animals were harmed to make them? Empanada!) One of them was filled with eggplant, pumpkin, broccoli, smoked tofu, asparagus tips, and tahini; the other that I tried was filled with goat cheese, red pepper, and caramelized onion. 
Meal 8: The last meal we ate before boarding the train was actually just a random place that we happened to walk by, which is also an art gallery, called Cafe Blueproject. We had an appetizer of hummus with dehydrated bread, then I had mini pizzas with cashew cheese, and he had a tofu, eggplant, and sun dried tomato paste sandwich. We finished our culinary adventure with vegan tiramisu, with enough espresso powder sprinkled on top to keep us awake for a couple rounds of card games on the train ride back to Madrid. 
And now I am in a food coma until next week. That's a wrap! *takes bow*
