Follow a particular diet in Bratislava - Laurent

Travelling implies to adapt yourself to the local culture, food including… If you follow a particular diet, you ought to inform yourself about it. That's why I'll talk of Colin's, Chloë's (a friend from our university) and my experience as vegetarians in Slovakia.

First of all, you'll can't ignore the meat as it's omnipresent here. From my opinion, it's worse than in France because the gastronomy culture in Slovakia is not as much developed than in our natal country. Obviously, there are a very few traditional meals without meat. It may explain why the price of meat is so low here and why the meat supermarket aisle is so wide.

Thus, nearly all the products are indicated in Slovak. So, it takes time to select the products you're looking for. But from my experience, it's necessary. It might avoid you to confuse between light cream and milk with fat milk, or milk with milk kefir. For my defense, the packaging look the same.

I heard that it's the same situation in all the countries of central Europe. Moreover, I suppose it's the same all-around Europe. By comparison, it would explain why the French gastronomy is so diversify and well-known. You might see no difference between foreign countries and France food culture through this article, and you might be right. Indeed, this is the first time I have to do my own purchases, and my mother is not here to take care of the provenance of the products I eat. Yet, some friends who are studying in other countries, also noticed the abundance of meat.

That's why I advise you not to base your Erasmus destination choice on these criteria. I guess we should be grateful for our situation in France. All I can advise you is to base your diet on raw products and cook them yourself. You'll learn / perfect your cooking skills 😉

You'll noticed that I didn't talk about other kind of diet. I guess the hardest is for religious diet. Local people seem to be a little narrow-minded (to avoid other hard words), it might explain why I haven't seen kosher / halal aisles yet. Finally, from what I've seen so far, vegetalian diet is tough, but not impossible. If you want to enjoy a restaurant lunch or dinner, I share with you, right below, a really good place I've tested and approved. I brought a friend here (a meat lover…) and he didn't realize the place we were. I think he Is still convinced that he ates meat last evening !

Balans Bistro's address : Živnostenská 2, 81106 Bratislava 81 106 Bratislava