Tiny dog feels that it is high time to address the woefully underreported subject of faux meat products with the masses today, being that she has sampled just about all existing permutations on the market (save for anything faux-chicken, because, well, chicken is disgusting, faux or no) and would like to share her vast knowledge of this subject with you, the consumer.

Is tiny dog a vegetarian? Alas, no, she is that hideous hybrid eater known as a "flexitarian," someone who usually avoids meat, but has no particularly religious feelings about food, as do most -eterians, who mostly form holy rolling sects around the avoidance of various culinary bogeymen such as carbs, dairy, refined sugar, or anything heated over 112 degrees.  

For those of you who scoff at simu-meat products, and actually anything vegetarian as unpalatable, tiny dog excuses your unschooled prejudice, and invites you to peruse our faux meat reviews, in this guide to God's own chosen, textured-protein goodness.

BURGERS

McDonald's McVeggie

I have religiously avoided McDonalds for 15 years, being that it lacks anything on the menu except for basically disgusting meat burgers and cartoon-themed toy prizes. I have recently crept back in to the sinister corporation's walls on two occasions to eat a McVeggie, however, I have to admit. McDonald's gets one thing right, and that is, the pickle. The McVeggie is basically a middle of the road veggie burger offering, with a sort of unhealthy, compressed feel of a fast food burger, and that signature pickle slice, which instantly elevates it a few stars to surprisingly palatable. No residue of the dreaded pseudo smoke taste.

Burger King Veggie Burger

Some sort of unholy smoke flavored simu-spray kind of flavoring is infused throughout the BK Veggie, causing me to declare it a one star affair. Do not attempt. This is not a random slam, the flavor was alarmingly faux. I still ate the whole thing though. It wasn't that bad if you chased each bite with a few fries.

Kidd Valley: Garden Burger

Exceptionally burgerlike in spirit, with all the weird pink burger sauce and shredded lettuce you can imagine, and a more of a garden-burger style patty that is nonetheless not garden burger in origin as far as I can tell.  

It lacks any sort of strange fast food compression, or smoke flavored spray, and is generous with the pickles and tomatoes. As though an actual vegetarian thought it up. Darrned good. You can really feel the all American burger eating wind in your hair with this one, however, only if you live in Washington state.

Boca: Burgers (original)

If you really don't like beef --and I don't, I think it is disgusting--you may not like boca burgers in particular, because they have a way of creepily resembling the texture and appearance of beef. After years of avoiding them, I finally was able to wrap my head around the fact that they are really not beef. They are pretty good, but something about them still weirds me out. When ordering them in restaurants, I always stare at the burger, and smell it to convince myself they didn't bring me beef by mistake. You'll never have this problem with a garden burger.

Garden Burger: Burgers (various)

I ate these for years without complaint, then suddenly, within the last year, I got tired of their more cereal-based, very unmeatlike comportment and soft texture, and switched to Boca burgers. I will probably go back at some point because Garden Burgers are the basic staple of a non-meat diet, and they are very good. However, they come in annoying plastic packages of two burgers per bag, necessitating that you find a new bag for the second patty once you've eaten the first.  

SAUSAGE AND HOT DOGS

Boca: Bratwurst and Italian Sausage

Insanely great. Very authentic flavor and texture, boca generally makes products intended for the meat-eating yet health-conscious consumer. The sausages have no sort of fey bland veggieness about them. The Italian sausage tastes just like pepperoni - exactly like it. I have never had a real bratwurst, but this bratwurst is so many leagues better than any veggie dog I've ever tasted, that I can't help but assume that it, too, is authentic. With some roasted peppers and onions, you really feel like you are at the big kid's table with all of your meat-eating pals.

Yves: Veggie Dogs

Most vegetarian hot dogs give faux meat a bad name. These are no exception, and are representative, which is why I am not bothering to review Tofu Pups and other brands I've eaten. Like all veggie dogs, these have a strange smoke patina, and a distressing sense of rubbery tastelessness.   However this does not prevent me from eating them on occasion, because when you are starving, they make an instant meal, a sort of tubular dog food for human vegetarians.

FREEWHEELIN' MEATS

Garden Burger: Meatless riblets and 1/2

Sinisterly sinewy, of strangely small portion, necessitating an unappetizing in-the-bag cooking session, in which you have to lance a plastic bubble to release the riblets onto your plate.   Scared you yet?

They are still weirdly good, in that "how can this possibly not be meat" way. Needs more BBQ sauce.

Garden Burger: Meatloaf

Wow, not good, not good at all. Kind of dense and creepy, and too small of a portion. Not meatloafy in any way that I recall meatloaf to be. Thumbs down. Try again, garden burger food scientists. You need a serious clue from the veggie meat loaf geniuses at Amy's.  

Yves: Veggie Ground Round and 1/2

Not a bad stand-in for nachos, shepherd's pie, tacos, whatever ground round shenanigans you have going on in your kitchen. The husband even eats it without complaint, if properly disguised. It is dryer than beef, of course, and lacks all of the grease and fat chunks and all of those things which, to me, make ground beef singularly repulsive above all meats. Just the sight of veggie ground round requires me to remind myself repeatedly that this isn't in fact, beef. Once I get past the willies, I think this stuff is pretty good.  

FROZEN DINNERS

Amy's Veggie Loaf Whole Meal

The holy grail of vegetarian meat. The meatloaf is meatloafesque, with a perfectly complimentary tomato based-gravy, and an utterly authentic food-type taste with a base-note of lentil, that brings to mind no sort of faux sprays or suspicious density. It is accompanied by mashed potatoes and peas that taste nothing whatsoever like frozen food and seem to have just been prepared. I have eaten these for days in a row until I could no longer stand the sight of them, and always came back for more. It is the frozen dinner of the ages, vegetarian or no.  

Amy's Country Dinner and ½

Weird and basically not good. This surprises me. The Salisbury steak has this sort of thick cheese-flavored weird gravy over it that leaves an odd, airless aftertaste. The green beans seem dry and strung out, and there is no way to avoid overcooking the underwhelming portion of apple dessert stuff.   How can this be related to the veggie loaf whole meal??? This in no way harks back to the favored tin-tray Salisbury steak TV dinners of my suburban youth.

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