Wiener and Still Champion out in Evanston, IL, does something like that, and I’m sure there must be other places that do, too. (It’s the fourth thumbnail on that page.)
I’m a meat eater, but aren’t opposed to trying veggie burgers. I’ve just never thought of it when it’s time to order.
Good lord no.
Boca Burgers, for me—they’re passably close enough to beef for my tastes, but more importantly, they’re faster, easier, and cleaner to prepare for a quick-ish meal. (I’m actually “off” them for the moment, though. Soylent Burgers do monotonous after awhile.)
I don’t have anything against them, but most of the ones I have seen are mushroom so I can’t eat them out of principle.
I love Boca Flame Grilled veggie burgers, but I eat them like steak, (no bun & dipped in A1.) They also make good Salisbury steaks.
I don’t eat many burgers of either variety, but I’ll happily eat “meat substitute” stuff. I don’t think of it as “pretend meat”, to me it’s just another kind of food. I love tofu, of any variety. I love vegetarian food in general.
I’m a meat eater, but I think people who insist on eating meat every day are crazy. A couple of meat meals a week is plenty. We evolved as hunter-gatherers, not predators, and h/gs eat meat when it’s available, not every single day. Even the societies that make a big deal of the hunting part of the equation consume more gathered food than hunted.
I’m no health-freak, by any means, but I do try to make some effort towards not dying of easily preventable diet-related diseases. And I like vegetarian food; prepared by someone with some cooking skill, and consumed because it tastes good, then it’s perfectly satisfying.
I am a meat eater, and I enjoy my meat meals a couple of times a week. I don’t feel at all like I’m denying myself anything, I eat what I like. I grew up eating the standard suburban meat and two veg diet, and I enjoy my current diet a heck of a lot more. Feel better, too. Win win.
I love meat.
But I also eat the occasional veggie burger. More often, veggie Italian sausages. Yum.
I think anybody who follows any so-called “scientific diet” or any one theory of food is perhaps schizophrenic and duly influenced by fad and playin’ fast and loose with the facts along with any number of cultural and psychological quirks and prejudices. I foresee a day when our diets are prescribed according to our genetic markers. I hope that fascio-scientio day never comes, but really, it’s already here.
I’ve had some before. They’re not bad in their own right but they’re no substitute for an actual meat-burger. You’d never fool anybody with one, it’s just something different in the bun.
The only vegiburger I ever liked was a vendor machine version from a local distributor. It was excellent and can only be described as a mushroom/rice pilaf kind of thing. I would easily order it at a fast food restaurant.
I like them, but only if the other choices are worse. I add my regular toppings of ketchup, mustard and other fixin’s, it’s pretty good. It’s still not a ‘real’ burger, but at least most brands don’t pretend that they’re meat.
That’s the type I would eat. Those of you describing them as being made of bean paste are turning me off. The only bean paste I like is homemade hummus and homemade refried beans. I’ve never tasted bean paste that wasn’t homemade that tasted good.
If I want to eat meat, I want to eat meat. If I want to eat something else, I want it to not be in drag.
I love veggie burgers. While the MoningStar buyers are acceptable, I prefer the make your own patty “Nature Burger” type fried up in plenty of grease. I’ll even put bacon on one of those. Like it has been said, it is not a meat substitute. It’s just tasty for it’s own sake.
As a carnivore, my experience has been…
EVERY time a vegetarian has tried to get me to eat ANY meat substitute, it’s been awful. When someone tells me “You won’t even taste the difference,” I’ve learned to run for the hills.
Hence, whenever I’ve had a veggie burger, I’ve reacted (like Joel Hodgson on “MST3K”), “This is just like a regular hamburger, only not good.”
That doesn’t mean I can’t or don’t sometimes like vegetarian cuisine. Done right, it CAN be tasty.
But a vegetarian who wants to win people over should avoid serving things that are SUPPOSED to taste “just like meat.” There are plenty of delicious things you can do with, say, an eggplant. But don’t waste a good eggplant trying to make it look or taste like a steak.
Try to make veggie dishes that taste good in their own right- you CAN’T make them into something they’re not.
I’m a meat eater. I rarely eat veggie burgers – there’s something a little mushy and homogenous about them that often turns me off. They’re fine now and again (and I like a Subway veggie patty if it’s got enough giardinera on it).
I do, however, rather like a lot of other veggie meat substitutes. Good faux chicken, beef, and sausages can be darn tasty, and I’d eat them a lot more often if they didn’t cost more and taste a little more like “fake” food than I like.
Fake bacon is a crime. Not because it’s bad in itself, but anything that isn’t actually bacon should never deign to wear that mantle.
Wrong. Fake bacon is bad in and of itself.
Yes. We often eat one or two vegetarian meals a week, and back in the good old days when we could get meetings catered by our cafeteria their roasted vegetable sandwiches were superior to the standard turkey. I didn’t take them first to leave them for real vegetarians, but when there were sandwiches left over I would grab them. But veggie burgers seem like a poor substitute for a real burger. Ditto with fake bacon.
Almost everything here matches me, except for whatever reason I do like (most) veggie burgers. Especially black bean-based ones.