Please, vegan restaurants, no more fake meat!

A couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of eating at an all-vegan restaurant within walking distance of my apartment. It bills itself as "organic!", "homemade!", and "chef-made!", while cranking out reasonably priced food in a quick service model. And for the most part, the restaurant delivered. There were loads of fresh vegetables, cooked just right, and an emphasis on whole grains, concepts that are foreign to most quick-service restaurants I've visited.

And yet, there was something deeply amiss. Among the party of six I dined with, all of us had a soy-based meat analogue on our plate. While I appreciate the desire to accommodate meat-eaters in order to broaden one's potential customer base, I couldn't help but feel frustrated as I picked over my soy chicken.

This oblong piece of textured tofu wasn't fooling anyone, least of all me. As a principled meat-eater, I know in my heart of hearts that this "fried chicken" would pass muster with very few of my fellow carnivores. And this is a shame, because as long as purveyors of vegan food lead their charm offensive with soy-based meat analogues, they're setting themselves up to fail. It will be a cold day in hell when I wake in the middle of the night to find myself craving soy meatballs. And I bet that's true of a lot vegans, too.

It is certainly possible to produce flavorful, healthful vegan food without leaning on soy-based pseudo-meat products. While soy is a crucial protein source for many vegans, vegan chefs and restaurateurs do their cause more good by showcasing the intricacies and possibilities of tofu or seitan as a centerpiece and not as a replicant.

It seems backward to have a vegan restaurant that constantly reminds its base demographic of what they're giving up by being vegan. And it seems equally backward to show skeptical meat-eaters that vegan food is dominated by merely second-rate approximations.

Also puzzling, many people turn to a vegan or vegetarian diet with a desire to eat more whole foods (not the grocery store) and eat fewer processed foods. Many textured pseudo-meat soy products, however, are heavily processed though, with dozens of ingredients.

Vegan chefs have a wide array of meatless, dairy-free, and egg-free recipes from cultures all around the world. And of those myriad cultures, only Americans are so obsessed with meat replacement. I'm sure there must be vegan restaurants that have jettisoned textured soy, but they seem few and far between. Until you take soy chicken off the menu, I'm going to steer clear.