Monday, October 8 Beyond Meat Sandwiches Rating: 3.75

One of the things we really wanted to try in San Francisco was Beyond Meat (or as Seth calls it, Twitter Meat since Biz Stone is one of the financial backers). Thankfully, there was a Whole Foods that carried it really close to our hotel, so we went by the deli and grabbed a few sandwiches for lunch and dinner since we’d be travelling most of the day. Seth actually tried it on Sunday (for breakfast) and we both liked it and the chicken-style salad they make with it is really tasty. They were out of that particular salad on Monday, so we tried the other two they make with it. OK, you have to love WF in San Francisco – three different kinds of vegan chicken salad, premade and ready to go in the deli. The one they normally use on sandwiches is a Sonoma style salad with grapes, vegan mayo & whatnot - that’s the one Seth had on Sunday and it’s really good. The other two were a sesame salad with sesame seeds, veggies and a tasty sesame oil dressing (no mayo). It’s a little spicy and we liked it a lot too.  (It’s the one in the photo, which in fairness had travelled cross country and gotten a little bit smooshed in my backpack.) The third salad is a tarragon salad with mayo, veggies and, predictably tarragon; also very good. So, does Beyond Meat live up to the hype? Yes. And no. It’s good and I would have it again, especially in a chicken salad for a sandwich. I think we just had a few issues that have nothing to do with the quality of the product – the first is that it’s been about 20 years since either of us has eaten actual chicken so I’m not really certain what it tasted like anymore. Based on my recollection, yes, it’s pretty close to what I think it was like. The texture is a little denser than I recall, which is probably good because the texture of meat was something I never liked. It’s just gross (meat, that is). The second thing is that neither of us is really big on the vegan meats, probably because we never cared for meat all that much to begin with. Also, we’d eaten a lot of seitan-based meals all weekend, so I think we were getting ready for a little more veg, a little less other stuff. So even though we didn’t go into transports of happiness when we tasted Beyond Meat, I still think it’s really good. If you’re one of those folks who really misses meat or like the analog products a lot, then this is the product for you, it’s the best one out there so far. 

 

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