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I was really excited by the vegetarian food scene in Ljubljana, Slovenia - it's way more interesting than most other cities I've been so far. That's because there's lots to try, with modern vegan/vegetarian stuff going on, BUT ALSO there's lots of local flavour and regional cuisine mixed in there. I had a lot of things I've not tried before. And lots was great!

Let's start with a bit of fine dining. We didn't have time go to "Gaudi & Naan", a well-established posh veggie restaurant, but we went to Bistro Maha which is a small place that's recently started s 3-couse evening meal service. This is what we ate:

• Starters:
  • Witloof (chicory) with king oyster mushroom, a cream sauce, and a fantastic "caviar" (made from what?! not sure)
  • Pea and asparagus sponge, with strawberry
• Main course: Lionsmane "steaks", with dauphinoise potatoes, a fruity red wine sauce, and crispy leeks
• Dessert: Fermented soy cheesecake with strawberry coulis

Everything was fabulously flavoured, and we chatted to the host about the food. Coming from the Netherlands it was interesting to try a fancy version of witloof.

Next, let's move on to the street-food: on the weekly street-food market there were a couple of local veggies. There's a Slovenian fake-meat company called "Amaze", whose Amaze-burgers were... yeah pretty amazing. A different stall on the same market sells "štruklji", the spiral-rolled wheat dumpling that's everywhere in this region. THe most common is savoury, a cheese štruklji. I had the buckwheat and walnut štrukjli as my afters, since it looked the most different, and it was lovely. Buckwheat is common round here too, so I'm told.

Abi Falafel is a falafel-and-more place that's very popular, cheap, and flipping delicious. Our falafel and our dolma were great.

Another place that can definitely give you lots of regional specialities (in veggie form) is Gujžina. They specialise in a big menu of dishes from the North-East of Slovenia. It was super interesting - not perfect, I must say, a bit bland. But they have a variety of different regional sausages. I had lionsmane "liver-style" served with turnip and millet. Plenty to try.

The tourist adverts will tell you to try "kremšnita". A fancy dessert/pastry, with a protected name. Hilariously, though, it's exactly the same as the "vanilla slice"/"custard slice" that I grew up with in Britain, or also the "tompouce" popular in the Netherlands. The idea of taking an intercontinental train to seek out the custard slice is kinda funny. ... It tastes good, though, all the same.

Strudel is another widespread pastry. Here in Ljubljana we had a couple of great ones: cherry (lots of cherries grown there!), and a really tasty savoury one, asparagus and cheese strudel. Speaking of cheese, up in the hills (Velika Planina) we also sampled a more traditional cheese: a hand-churned raw cheese which we bought direct from a cowherd.

Oh and I almost forgot coffee. A fabulous density of really tasty modern coffee houses. You should drink at ALL these coffee shops: Črno Zrno, Mala Pražarna, Čockl, Kavarna Moderna, Stow. I've had great coffee in London, Glasgow, Berlin, and more, but here in Ljubljana I was bowled over by how many of the coffees were really delicious. Great filter coffee, cold brew, espresso.

One thing new to us was the "espresso tonic", though since we came back home, it seems this drink is cropping up everywhere in summer. We first encountered it as espresso mixed with tonic water, ice, and grapefruit juice. What? Well I drank it. I thought it was merely weird, a "dirty fruit juice" of some weird sort. Much tastier in my opinion was "cascara" - again new to me but apparently that's a Spanish word for a tea (tisane) made from coffee berries. The overall effect is a dark iced-tea-like drink reminscent of berry fruit and coffee, very refreshing.