What does Doomworld think about veggie burgers?

[[McD] James]

I think they're fucking delicious is what I think. They have a really satisfying and unique texture to them, and there are so many different ways of preparing them. Now, I'm not talking about the GMO crap you find in the frozen aisle at your grocery store. I'm talking about the proper shit that's made from scratch at one of those chic hippie restaurants. They go great with alfalfa sprouts, grain mustard, and tempeh bacon. Why not complete your meal with a side of delicious French Fries topped with sea salt? 

[Nine Inch Heels]

I'm not particularly fond of the vegetarian options that many fast food chains have been trying to establish in order to gain a slice of the market comprised of vegetarians and vegans... More often than not, when it's an actual fast food chain, you can just taste that it's cheaply made, never mind that fast food chains gunning for the vegetarians and vegans is an exercise in futility just on the basis that many vegetarians and vegans know about the ever so lengthy rat's tail of "follow-up-costs" that comes with the fast food industry...

 

On the other hand, there's the restaurant quality stuff, handmade with care, and cooked to order... And I would have to agree that a fine veggie burger is a fine veggie burger is a... You get the idea... On that note, if you're in the market for vegetarian fast food, try falafel if you can get it at a restaurant where it's made from scratch, you won't regret it... Falafel, as well as börek filled with feta cheese and spinach are some of Turkey's best "food exports", and I think more people should try those...

[plums]

Grocery stores around here have lots of good veggie burgers. Brands like Sol and Gardein do a lot of interesting things like black bean burgers and vegetable patties, as well as imitation meat burgers that generally taste good. There's the Beyond Burger too which you can get at A&Ws in Canada, as well as fancier places where they'll dress it up a bit more. Of course living in a large city helps with selection a lot.

 

Fancy burgers are always nice and in that situation I much prefer ones that have interesting ingredients rather than ones that try to imitate meat.

[Biodegradable]

I never grew up mate, I still hate my veggies. I'm going to be a kid forever!

[DooM Bear]

Had one of those V2 / beyond burgers (can’t remember which one it was but am assuming they are both similar) from a fast food place before and it was alright :-D Not like “oh wow I can’t tell the difference” great but still pretty damn tasty compared to a lot of vegan food I’ve had in the past :-)

 

Have never had a gourmet veggie burger though as am a bit of a carnivore in general and am happy to “waste” $5 trying a takeaway veggie burger where as am most likely gonna play it safe with a $20+ burger :-P

[Maes]

They are OK for a different taste experience, IMO, but it depends on the kind and the flavoring. Some are actual "veggie burgers" aka made with chopped up/minced vegetables, and some are textured vegetable protein/soy of some sort. TBQH, I prefer the taste of the latter (esp. since they are often smoked), while the former remind me more of spring rolls.

[loveless]

i had a decent veggie burger from Herbivorve in SF years ago.  the old veggie burger's that Burger King had from 2002-2004ish were alright for fast food, too.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

I'd rather have an actual veggie sandwich. Falafel\hummus or bean sandwiches.

[DRM-MAN]

I've always preferred vegetable wraps over veggie sandwiches, but if im going to be honest, i really don't have much to say on them, it's just a veggie sandwich, the only difference being the toppings, or the quality, but that's just my opinion.

[SilverMiner]

What do I think about it?

Thanks to you I got to know about their existence

[Pseudonaut]

I'm sure they're fine, but there's nothing like the real thing. I've probably tried one at some point, don't really remember.

[holaareola]

They're good, depending on the type. I'm a pescetarian that loves the distant memory of the, uh, land meat, so I generally prefer the hyperprocessed meat imitation burgers to the patties made of actual vegetables. Prefer Impossible to the Beyond one, though for UK dwellers I recommend these more than either. Of the burgers I've had that don't have an ingredients block that screams chemistry lab more than your shampoo bottle, the best have been black bean based as mentioned by @plums. My least favourite are the pub style breadcrumb-coated mushpiles.

 

Falafel is rubbish, I'd count myself lucky to never be confronted with one of those deep fried, dry little balls taking up space that could otherwise be occupied by delicious vegetables ever again. And yes, I've had the "good" ones. I grew up in Cyprus, where there were a lot of great Lebanese sandwich shops.

 

@[McD]James what makes you say that about GMO? People have been tinkering with plant genetics forever, just in yes, the most natural, but also the slowest and most imprecise way possible. Golden rice was a disaster, could have saved a million kids by now from blindness or death but for the successful lobbying of fucking Greenpeace (who in general I'm all for). 

Edited February 4, 2021 by holaareola

[stewboy]

I tried a bit of a Beyond Burger once at a decent bar and it was really good. I've also occasionally tried other sorts of vegetarian burgers at various places and they're generally at least decent, if not mindblowing. 

I've actually been trying quite a few processed meat substitutes in the last few months just for the sake of variety. I've found that most of the soy-based ones, even supermarket own brand ones, are pretty nice if you take them as their own thing - the closest anything's gotten to replicating the actual taste of meat for me is probably Linda Mccartney meatballs. In contrast, most quorn-based products I've tried have a weird slightly unpleasant flavour for me (though their 'mince' is OK), but I don't know if that's just me having a weird reaction to them. I've also tried a couple seitan things, but I think I still prefer the taste of soy-based products.
I can also recommend 'THIS' bacon, though it might only be available in the UK at the moment. It does a decent job of replacing bacon in sandwiches - I've started putting it in my morning breakfast wrap every day.
I recently tried some 'soya chunks' but I'm having trouble getting over the very weird texture.

 

12 minutes ago, holaareola said:

Falafel is rubbish

Blasphemy! Falafel is the most amazing thing to ever grace this Earth. Well okay maybe not quite, but I think it's still perfectly decent. There's an amazing falafel wrap place right next to where I did my postgrad and it was very reliably delicious.

Edited February 4, 2021 by stewboy

[holaareola]

22 minutes ago, stewboy said:

I've actually been trying quite a few processed meat substitutes in the last few months just for the sake of variety. I've found that most of the soy-based ones, even supermarket own brand ones, are pretty nice if you take them as their own thing - the closest anything's gotten to replicating the actual taste of meat for me is probably Linda Mccartney meatballs. In contrast, most quorn-based products I've tried have a weird slightly unpleasant flavour for me (though their 'mince' is OK), but I don't know if that's just me having a weird reaction to them. I've also tried a couple seitan things, but I think I still prefer the taste of soy-based products.
I can also recommend 'THIS' bacon, though it might only be available in the UK at the moment. It does a decent job of replacing bacon in sandwiches - I've started putting it in my morning breakfast wrap every day.
I recently tried some 'soya chunks' but I'm having trouble getting over the very weird texture.

Oh, I'll give the Linda Mccartney balls a try if I see them. The Quorn meatballs are amazing btw and don't taste at all like the rest of their stuff -- but they're so hard to get at the moment. Even total carnivore friends of mine love them coated in a load of thyme and black pepper.

 

I'm with you on seitan, I was a bit underwhelmed but I've only had it at one place.

 

22 minutes ago, stewboy said:

Blasphemy! Falafel is the most amazing thing to ever grace this Earth. Well okay maybe not quite, but I think it's still perfectly decent. There's an amazing falafel wrap place right next to where I did my postgrad and it was very reliably delicious.

Take away the shredded veg, pickles and that amazing lemon-garlic sauce that often accompanies, and can those little balls of fried powder stand on their own, take centre stage, carry the crowd? No way! Who let the local support band stage-invade the headliners?

 

I love arguing about food. It's the one area of life where nothing's at stake (except maybe for Israel-Lebanon hummus wars?) and it can always stay good-natured!

Edited February 4, 2021 by holaareola

[inkoalawetrust]

I don't think anything of veggie burgers because I've never even seen one up close, let alone eaten one. Even when it comes to normal hamburgers, I've only eaten a few of them in my life, I did like the ones I ate though.

 

5 hours ago, [McD]James said:

I'm not talking about the GMO crap you find in the frozen aisle at your grocery store.

You'll be hard pressed to find out that all vegetables and fruits (And livestock.) we eat have been genetically engineered over the course of generations by humans through artificial selection, far before we were able to directly genetically engineer them. The only difference between pre-GMO artificially selected food and GMOs, besides making people terrified because "me no understand spooky new technology", is that using genetic engineering just makes the process far faster. Though sometimes people DO have actual legitimate concerns about GMOs though such as that IIRC, genetically engineered crops are pretty homogenous, so if they got struck by some kind of disease/blight/whatever, I'd be pretty easy for it to spread. Being scared of it because of playing God or whatever is not a legitimate concern though.

[Redneckerz]

They are decent for the occassion. I don't mind them if it is served. I am a meatlover by heart though.

[stewboy]

52 minutes ago, holaareola said:

Take away the shredded veg, pickles and that amazing lemon-garlic sauce that often accompanies, and can those little balls of fried powder stand on their own, take centre stage, carry the crowd? No way! Who let the local support band stage-invade the headliners?

I think 'fried powder' is being a bit unfair, but even if I grant you that falafel balls can be a bit dry on their own, I don't think that should count against them. I wouldn't necessarily eat an entire burger patty by itself (especially veggie patties, which admittedly can sometimes be a little bland) but I still like burgers that contain them. Tofu is another good example of something that is quite bland (though whenever I chop it up and fry it I always eat a couple pieces immediately), but I really like it when it's in a larger dish like a curry or stir-fry.
A falafel sandwich just wouldn't be the same without the falafel. You wouldn't just drink a glass of pure sauce, right? But you still say the sauce is amazing, because it's being used in a context that just works for it.

Edited February 4, 2021 by stewboy

[Szymanski]

I tried beyond burgers and they had a weird aftertaste, almost plastic. I'm planting some beef and onion plants (Toona sinensis) to see if they are as flavourful as claimed, the leaves contain heme which give it a meaty taste.

[holaareola]

15 minutes ago, stewboy said:

I think 'fried powder' is being a bit unfair

Absolutely is, but isn't the advantage of a non-tribal topic is that you can go straight to polemic? If we were talking culture wars, I'd take a broader perspective.

 

13 minutes ago, stewboy said:

A falafel sandwich just wouldn't be the same without the falafel.

I can agree with that, it'd be better. Nah, I just think the classic shredded vegetables plus pickles plus sauce filling is so tasty that falafel only subtracts from my joy.

[[McD] James]

I'm not actually a no-GMO elitist, but I generally prefer to buy organic when it's available. And I don't really mind Beyond Meat and other similar brands at all, but as plums said, veggie burgers are at their best when they're trying to do their own thing, rather than attempting to imitate beef as closely as possible. 

[Azuris]

Had good ones, had bad ones.

Depends on how they immitade the Flesh.

[Pirx]

4 hours ago, Biodegradable said:

I never grew up mate, I still hate my veggies. I'm going to be a kid forever!

 

real meat. you can't beat it.

[frag enabler]

Does soy count? Because someone tried fooling me with a soy burger once. It was the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted, like munching on a mouthful of salty snot. I spat it out immediately.

[MFG38]

Never actually eaten a veggie burger. Remind me to try one ASAP.

[0o0[ULTIM4TE]L1FE[F0RM]0o0]

I never ate a veggie burger but I think the more meat there is on a burger, the better it is.

[DJVCardMaster]

Soy or black bean ones? I think they are a good alternative if you are starting to think you are going to save the work by reducing your meat consumption. They have similar taste to the meat ones, until you get the aftertaste. Your opinion on them is going to depend on it, if you are the kind of person that does not like "weird aftertastes" , I think it is not recommended, I guess it's bearable by the way. You should try them of course, as they are not bad though.

[CorianderCastor]

If I wasn't so lazy, I probably could eat vegan. It's good food dammit! Then again, I've oft been told I have no taste.

[kwc]

When it comes to those "imitation" type veggie burgers, Beyond and Impossible are both pretty great. That said, the former needs to be eaten rather quickly after it's been cooked or else it becomes weird and sloppy.
In Canada there was this chain called Licks that had the Nature Burger, up until that time, the best veggie burger around. I miss those.
I agree with the sentiment that often times a veggie burger is better when the patty is off on it's own thing, black bean burgers and Field Roast brand patties are tops.
Veggie chicken burgers and nuggets etc have pretty much gotten as close as they are going to get at emulating the emulsified chicken lump-turned-food-product that most people are used to as well, butthole-free no less. 

Edited February 4, 2021 by kwc

[NoXion]

Most veggie burgers that I've eaten have been a bit rubbish in my opinion. Beanburgers mainly, I haven't tried anything like the Impossible Burger, although I do want to try one.

 

Do they make Quornburgers? I love Quorn. It makes for non-meat sausages that are ace. It's just a shame that the stuff is so damn expensive!

[wallabra]

Look, all I know is that, in the future, comedy will be randomly generated, okay?