plant based – Michael Eats

Shockingly Tasty Plant-Based Ice Cream at Honey’s

Published on August 22, 2021 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1448 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: https://honeysicecream.ca/

I’ll admit that I tried Honey’s — a dessert shop that specializes in “premium plant-based ice creams” — more for the novelty value than anything else. I mean, isn’t plant-based ice cream an oxymoron? That can’t possibly be good, right? Right…?

Wrong, it turns out. And I’ve never been so delighted to be wrong.

They have about a dozen flavours to choose from; I went with peanut butter & saltine, and I was shocked at how good it was. The consistency was probably a bit thinner than traditional ice cream, but if you just handed it to me without context, I don’t think I would have guessed that it’s dairy-free.

It’s rich, creamy, and intensely peanut buttery, with nice pops of flavour from the saltines; their texture has been transformed into something almost cakey, and they work perfectly with the peanut butter ice cream (“ice cream”? Should that be in quotes?).

I’m very curious to come back and try some other flavours, because how is ice cream without cream this good? Has my whole life been a lie??

A Sandwich with Issues at Parka Food Co.

Published on December 4, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 424 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.parkafoodco.com/

I don’t know what it is about “plant-based” restaurants serving sandwiches with overly dense buns, but I had that issue at Planta, I had it at Fresh, and now it’s happened again at Parka Food Co.

Is it the plant-based thing? The lack of dairy? Or is it a coincidence I’m reading too much into? I don’t know.

(Also, whichever marketer came up with the term “plant-based” to make veganism sound more hip and healthy: kudos to you. You have succeeded beyond your wildest dreams.)

I tried the broccoli sandwich at Parka Food Co., which comes with “lightly battered broccoli, cashew cheese sauce, dill pickles, sauteed onions, roasted garlic, lettuce, parka aioli,” and it was mostly decent enough — but then there was that bun.

It’s all about Newton’s third law of motion: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The bun is so firm and dense that the force of you holding it and biting into it has nowhere to go but down into the components of the sandwich. A normal bun would absorb some of that force, but not this one.

Instead, everything gets squished out within a couple of bites. I had to eat the sandwich with a fork and knife. It’s not a big deal, but I kinda wanted to eat my sandwich like a sandwich.

Aside from that, it wasn’t bad. The broccoli has a nice crispy, battered exterior, and the inside is perfectly cooked — it’s tender but not mushy, with a satisfying bite.

The cashew “cheese” sauce is basically just a thick, gooey paste, without a whole lot of cheese-like properties. But it’s fine on the sandwich.

And the sweet aioli and the pickles do a nice job of cutting through the richness of the fried broccoli and the “cheese.” It’s a pretty good sandwich… or at least it would be if you could eat it like a sandwich.

Nine Layer Burrito at Fresh

Published on October 17, 2019October 17, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Toronto
Website: https://freshplantpowered.com/

Fresh, a chain that specializes in vegan eats, is fine. I recently had their “burger” and thought it was fine (though it obviously bore no resemblance to an actual hamburger). I just tried the Nine Layer Burrito, and yeah — it’s fine.

It’s definitely crammed with a lot of stuff: “mushroom & artichoke chorizo, marinated black beans, pico de gallo, cashew queso, jalapeno crema, avocado, shredded lettuce, brown rice, pickled jalapenos.”

It’s… fine. It’s not as good as a burrito from any decent burrito place, but if you find yourself at Fresh, I’m sure you could do worse.

There’s a whole bunch of stuff in there, and it tastes like there’s a whole bunch of stuff in there. It doesn’t have a ton of cohesion, but it’s tasty enough for what it is.

I was kinda curious about the faux “chorizo”, but of course, it’s hard to pick out any one element with all of the flavours that are going on here. So I tried some on its own; it basically just tastes like funky pureed mushrooms, with absolutely no resemblance to chorizo.

The only element of the burrito I found overtly unappealing was the whole wheat tortilla. I like whole wheat bread as much as the next guy, but it’s just wrong on a burrito. It calls attention to itself and tastes off.

I also tried the salad with house vinaigrette. The vinaigrette seemed like it might have been okay, but it was applied so sparingly you could barely taste it. The “salad” basically tasted like undressed greens.

The Plant-Based, Beyond Meat P.L.T. at McDonald’s

Published on September 30, 2019September 30, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 980 Dundas Street, Woodstock
Website: https://www.mcdonalds.com/ca/en-ca.html

What have I been up to today? Oh, you know, not much, just driving 120 kilometres to try a veggie burger at McDonald’s. That’s 120 kilometres one way, so 240 kilometres total, or about three hours of driving.

You know, a totally rational, normal way to spend a Monday. Not crazy at all.

Yes, in case you haven’t heard, McDonald’s recently embraced the inevitable and announced that they’re going to be joining the increasingly crowded fake meat game.

They’ve teamed up with Beyond Meat, probably the most famous purveyor of veggie burgers that (supposedly) taste like the real deal, and they’re testing them out at 28 locations in and around London, Ontario.

The faux-burger is called the P.L.T. (Plant, Lettuce and Tomato), and they describe it on their website as “a juicy, plant-based patty made with Beyond Meat® and served on a sesame seed bun with tomato, lettuce, pickles, onions, mayo-style sauce, ketchup, mustard, and a slice of processed cheddar cheese.”

It’s… fine, I guess? It’s a Beyond Meat burger through and through, so if you’ve had one of those, then you know what to expect. The McDonald’s publicity machine is claiming that they’ve been working with Beyond Meat to create a custom patty that matches the flavour of their standard burgers, and maybe that’s true. But if it is, I certainly couldn’t tell.

The advance buzz — that this tastes just like a regular McDonald’s burger — is absolutely, positively not the case. It’s basically fine for what it is, but unless it’s been many, many years since you’ve had a burger at the Golden Arches, you’re not going to be fooled.

The biggest issues are the taste and the texture (so… everything, basically). The flavour is vaguely meat-like, but it also tastes off and lacks anything even remotely resembling beefiness. It’s not gross, but it kind of falls into the uncanny valley of hamburgers.

The texture is about the same — close, but not quite there. It vaguely approximates an actual hamburger, but again, it’s off; it’s a bit too soft and mushy.

I recently had the Beyond Burger at Tim Hortons; this is going to sound completely insane, but that one was better. In this particular case, Tim Hortons’ incompetence worked in their favour — the patty had obviously been cooked in advance and kept warm, which dried it out a bit and helped to reduce the off-putting squishy texture.

Everything else about the burger was fine — the many condiments were all McDonald’s standbys, and they were all tasty enough.

Honestly, it could have used more toppings. The patty was still the dominant flavour, and in this case that’s definitely not a good thing. The version at Tim Hortons was more successful in covering up the flavour of the patty with a welcome deluge of assertive condiments.

Is this worth a three hour drive? For a maniac like me who’s eaten at McDonald’s all over the world, maybe? For everyone else, absolutely not. It’s fine for what it is, but when Tim friggin’ Hortons is beating you at your own game, you know you’re in trouble.

Beyond Burger at Tim Hortons

Published on July 18, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 4100 Dixie Road, Mississauga
Website: https://www.timhortons.com/ca/en/index.php

The Beyond Burger at Tim Hortons is way better than it has any right to be. Is it particularly good? No, not really. Would I order it again? Absolutely not. But it’s perfectly acceptable. It’s not gross.

Maybe that’s a low bar. But Tim Hortons isn’t exactly known for having an appetizing lunch selection. And their last foray into the fake meat game — the Beyond Sausage breakfast sandwich — featured an impressive emulation of actual meat, but was otherwise pretty lousy.

Beyond Meat has clearly been evolving their product since I tried the Beyond burger at A&W last summer. I found that one to be off-puttingly mushy. The texture of the burger I just had at Tim’s was much, much better.

If you compare it to a good quality burger, it’s pretty much garbage. But! It actually compares quite favourably to the frozen burgers that are served all over the city. If I had eaten it blind, that’s what I would have assumed it was. It’s impressive.

In fact, I think I might have liked this a bit better than that type of frozen burger; those ones sometimes have a gamy, off meat flavour that’s a bit off-putting. This one, on the other hand, has a generic meaty flavour that’s not unpleasant. Again, it’s not particularly good, but it’s not bad either. It’s fine.

They top it with cheese (which isn’t melted, of course), lettuce, tomato, ketchup, and mustard, which successfully covers up the patty’s lack of a beefy flavour. Between the assertive condiments and the impressively accurate cheap burger texture, you’d never know that you’re not eating a lousy (but real!) hamburger. I know that’s not exactly high praise, but I’m actually really impressed.