For vegans and vegetarians who don’t eat eggs but eat dairy, dining while traveling has always been a challenge. With the debut of two new vegetarian burgers, the Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat Burger, life just became easier.
Beyond Meat Burgers are the closest I’ve ever tasted to the meat burgers many ate before adopting a vegetarian diet. The Impossible Burger then arrived to provide that same realistic taste, texture, and mouth feel!
What a delight to find that they are now available in many restaurant chains, so that wherever one travels, even if there are not many other vegetarian or vegan options on the menu at least we know we can get a vege-burger.
While traveling in places such as San Diego, there was no dearth of house-made vegetarian restaurants that offer their own version of vegetarian burgers that are out of this world. However, in other places around the country it was always hard to find. One has to troll the Happy Cow website to find a good vegetarian or vegan restaurant or vegetarian or vegan friendly options in standard restaurants. In my recent travels to Florida, Wisconsin, and North Carolina, and even in the suburbs of Chicago (that often do not have many vegetarian and vegan options as is found in the city of Chicago), restaurant after restaurant are now offering the Impossible Burger or the Beyond Meat Burger.
Even Chef Joshua North at 240 West at The Abbey Resort at Lake Geneva, in Fontana, Wisconsin, specially served the Beyond Meat Burger to us to accommodate our vegetarian and vegan diets… but may experiment to make his own unique burger to surpass it as he specializes in offering gourmet items no one else has! Can’t wait to see what he comes up with!
While some regular stand-alone burger places offer them now, large franchises and chain restaurants such as The Cheesecake Factory, Houlihan’s, White Castle, and TGIF’s carry them.
What’s fun to do is order them for non-vegetarian friends and family and try to convince them it’s not meat! They can barely tell the difference.
We will know that times have really changed when MacDonald’s and Burger King get on board and start carrying them.
BUT–whoever carries them–be kind to gluten-free people who don’t eat eggs and order gluten-free vegan buns to go with the Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat Burger, so we don’t have to bring out own!