{"id":15539,"date":"2020-05-27T09:00:42","date_gmt":"2020-05-27T13:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/?p=15539"},"modified":"2020-05-12T13:42:52","modified_gmt":"2020-05-12T17:42:52","slug":"eating-vegan-in-abu-dhabi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2020\/05\/27\/eating-vegan-in-abu-dhabi\/","title":{"rendered":"Eating Vegan in Abu Dhabi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Luqaimat, which are \u201cessentially mini donut holes in date syrup <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

By Lucia Rivera, Vegetarian Resource Group Intern<\/p>\n

In the capital of the United Arab Emirates, Hannah Greene has discovered a plentiful variety of vegan foods to enjoy and restaurants to visit. After nearly 2 years vegan in Abu Dhabi as a university student, Greene has discovered \u201chow universal veganism can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Beginning at her campus dining hall, Greene has been able to try dishes at a vegan lunch counter and also has vegan food offered at \u201ca salad bar, a grill, and a rotating meal counter\u201d on campus, along with pasta and pizza.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cFrom the dining hall, I rely mostly on colorful combinations of roasted vegetables, salad bar ingredients, dal curry, and endless amounts of hummus. The dining hall vegetable selection changes enough to keep it interesting, and I made several easy dorm-room recipes that I relied on quite often with a microwave and blender (lots of steamed vegetables, homemade hummus, vegetable lasagna, peanut butter sandwiches, oats, chia pudding, and delicious smoothies),\u201d Greene explained.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But it is beyond her dining hall where Greene has enjoyed her favorite vegan meal in Abu Dhabi and experienced the diversity in cuisines that the city offers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThe most common restaurants are probably South Asian cafeterias and Arabic\/Lebanese restaurants, which offer so many amazing vegan options. The complexity of the population means you could find cuisine from literally anywhere in the world, so there are always amazing vegan options nearby!\u201d Green said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For vegans in Abu Dhabi — whether visiting or living there– there are many vegan options for eating out. From Ethiopian food, to Japanese food, to Afghani food, vegans like Greene have no problem finding enjoyable and cheap options in the city.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWithin Abu Dhabi, my favorite dish is the vegan platter from Bonna Annee Ethiopian restaurant! This beautiful dish comes with peanut curry, cabbage, spinach, spicy lentil curry, stewed potatoes, and beetroot, all on a platter of injera bread. Also, the servers at this restaurant are so incredibly nice!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 While there is no \u201cusual\u201d cuisine in Abu Dhabi according to Greene, some of the local Arabic\/Lebanese food is vegan without any adaptations necessary. This includes flatbreads like Za\u2019atar manakish and desserts like luqaimat, which are \u201cessentially mini donut holes in date syrup with sesame seeds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cA lot of Arabic\/Lebanese cuisine is naturally vegan and delicious: hummus, falafel, vine leaves, fattoush salad (delicious salad with pomegranate and dried pita on top), tabbouleh, mouhammara (walnut and pomegranate), eggplant salad, moutabbal (eggplant and sesame spread), and fatayer (spinach wrapped in dough),\u201d Greene said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Additionally, Greene hopes that any vegans visiting Abu Dhabi enjoy the variety of restaurants without only sticking to \u201cAmerican\u201d mainstream restaurants. This also will help one keep their meals low-cost.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cMy favorite thing to do is to wander around the city without any destination in mind, exploring whatever streets seem intriguing and stopping at new restaurants along the way. There are many familiar \u2018Western\u2019 or \u2018American\u2019 restaurants, but the most flavorful and affordable restaurants are the ones with menu items you may never have seen before! English is the most widely spoken language, so you can relatively easily communicate that you are \u2018full vegetarian\u2019 and don\u2019t eat ghee, egg, labneh\/laban (yogurt), cheese, or any other animal products.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Greene is glad to have gained a better understanding of how \u201cfundamentally delicious and simple\u201d vegan food can be across the world. She has also become part of an international vegetarian community.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cBeing part of the Veggie Might Student Interest Group helped create a community of vegans, vegetarians, and people trying to cut down on meat consumption, helping us be supportive of all […] Living here and enjoying so many different cuisines showed me how universal veganism can be; of course many fancy restaurants and stores make vegan dishes extra expensive, but vegan food can be fundamentally delicious and simple,\u201d Greene said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For any vegans heading to Abu Dhabi Greene also recommends the Facebook Group \u201cAbu Dhabi Vegans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Note:<\/em> Hannah Green is a former Vegetarian Resource Group intern. See:
https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/12\/my-experience-as-a-vegetarian-resource-group-intern\/<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Lucia Rivera, Vegetarian Resource Group Intern In the capital of the United Arab Emirates, Hannah Greene has discovered a plentiful variety of vegan foods to enjoy and restaurants to visit. After nearly 2 years vegan in Abu Dhabi as a university student, Greene has discovered \u201chow universal veganism can be.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Beginning at her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15539"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15541,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15539\/revisions\/15541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}