Forbes writes that Berkeley, California, is so vegan-friendly that it passed a resolution that required only vegan food to be served once per week at all the city’s meetings and events. It’s also home to a wide variety of vegan, vegetarian, and vegan-friendly eateries. Many people argue that The Butcher’s Son is one of the top ten vegan places in Berkeley. With our vegan guest, Kate, in town, we decided to visit this place after our big meal at Green’s Restaurant.
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The HappyCow App
Kate has introduced us to a vegan-oriented website and app called HappyCow for locating vegan and vegetarian places. HappyCow was founded in 1999 as a public service website focused on assisting vegans, travelers, and people everywhere find plant-oriented and healthy food.
She used this app to identify a number of places she wanted to visit, and we had our own list as well. The Butcher’s Son came up on both our lists.
If you read the reviews keep an eye out for her name, she wrote several of them while on our vegan vacation in the Bay Area.
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The Butcher’s Son Restaurant
The Butcher’s Son is a deli and bakery located on one of the main streets in Berkeley, California.
Peter Fikaris and his sister Christina Stobing co-own the The Butcher’s Son, and yet neither are children of a butcher, nor do they sell meat products (1). But, as SFGate writes: his butcher shop, and others like it that are opening around the country, represent the next generation of plant-based proteins: vegan meats and cheeses that look, smell and even “bleed” just like the real thing.
- One Vegan issue is the question: are we are creating meats to duplicate the experience of eating real meat; thus the comment above out it appearing to “bleed”.
- But making a red beet juice leak out of plant protein is kind of gross and seems to say we are trying to convince non-vegans that this approximates real animal flesh.
- Kind of counterproductive in terms of advertising to Vegans I think.
SFGate continues: Fikaris spent years developing his recipes, and these are among the most advanced vegan meats I’ve ever encountered. Sriracha pepper steak, garlic-chili chicken and roast beef are all made with seitan or yuba, with vital wheat gluten and high-protein flour to enhance the texture. They are flavored with oils, vinegars and spices, as well as soy sauce and chile and teriyaki sauces to give them the right taste.
The proteins Kate, Joy and I ate for lunch were sophisticated, and replicated the experience of eating meat-based sandwiches, although obviously they were not.
Our Lunch
We ordered our food on-line for pickup. Then took our food and went down the street, and across the highway, to César E. Chávez Park for a picnic. The park is 90 acres Berkeley set aside for a city park, located on the peninsula with views of Alcatraz, Golden Gate Bridge, Marin headlands, and San Francisco.
We found a nice spot that had a bench and unobstructed views of our surroundings. A wonderful place to sit, enjoy the bay views, and ocean smells. Although it was a very windy day, it was still warm enough to enjoy the sun and company.
We also had some visitors in the form of ground squirrels, and various birds (crows, seagulls, etc.). Out of all the food we had, we felt the unseasoned french fry was the safest to share with our friends.
Kate’s Lunch
Kate chose the Killer BLAT sandwich. This meal was built on tasty sliced sourdough bread. It featured fried “chicken”, mayo, lettuce, sliced red tomato, “bacon”, pickled jalapeño, and smashed avocado. It also came with a dill pickle.
Kate said it was truely a delicious club-type sandwich. The “bacon” had a great flavor, “chicken” was crispy; the avocado and mayo added a layer of creaminess; and the lettuce and tomato provided a crisp, fresh taste. She said she would not hesitate to recommend this sandwich to others.
Joy’s Lunch
Joy ordered the Chicken Tenders + French Fries with a honey-mustard dipping sauce. The chicken tenders were good, crispy and the texture of the “chicken” meat was good.
The french fries were a bit limp, but were tasty. She said they were sprinkled with something reddish, but did not know what it was.
The sauce was good, and added flavor to the protein, but what she liked was that the sauce had a little kick.
Patty’s Lunch
I ate Fish and Chips. The texture of the “fish” was crispy and rather dense and chewy, it was not fluffy and airy like fried fish usually feels. There also was no flavor of fish, the protein was all texture. I was expecting perhaps some little bit of seaweed in the batter to introduce a hint fish-flavor, but that was not the case.
My french fries were also limp, but tasty. I decided to dip them in the “tarter” sauce rather than use ketchup as the sauce was good, but not really tarter. The tarter sauce they made was a creamy looking, yet runny vinegar-based sauce. It did not match what you would expect from a tarter sauce, but in-and-of-itself it was a tasty sauce that added much to the “fish” protein.
Extra Salads + Dessert
We also bought a macaroni salad, and a cole slaw, while Kate picked up a Chocolate Chip Cookie.
The macaroni salad tasted fine with I imagine a soy-based mayo, but it needed a bit of salt to bring out its flavor. The coleslaw was a sort-of creamy vinegar sauce and tasted just fine. Both worked for our picnic.
In terms of the cookie, I was with two sweet-toothed chocaholics so that was much appreciated.
Closing Thoughts
Do you need to name vegan dishes after the meat-based dish being re-imagined?
So my “fish and chips” lunch did not smell nor taste like fish. But in-and-of-itself it was a nice, crunchy and chewy chunk of protein. The only real flavor was provided by the dipping sauce, which was mainly a vinegar based dip. So why call it “fish”?
- Kate argued that it is to provide the customer with an expectation of what is being ordered; to give a context or a reference point for the meal.
- But my argument was that it would then not meet a customer’s expectation since there was nothing fishy about the dish at all.
- Joy thought the better solution is we should come up with different names, such as “fried protein and chips”.
The other question is who is the audience for plant proteins and do they need to approximate the animal proteins they are trying to replace.
- Joy things advertising “bleeding” protein to vegans, or to talk about meat bleeding is just gross.
- I think that if the intent is to convince meat eaters to eat plant meats, or if the intent is to fool people into thinking plant proteins are real meats, this may be a factor in doing that.
- However, I think the practice of making plant protein “bleed” is indeed gross and not appropriate. I would not buy bleeding, plant protein.
These questions are part of the ongoing debates regarding plant protein. I actually was expecting a fishy taste, or hint of one, from the protein, and I thought it would be fluffy and light gluten-type mixture on the inside. Otherwise you could have called the protein “chicken” or “beef” or some other name and it would fit just as well.
I guess I believe if you are going to name something “fish”, be sure there is something fishy in the meal, even if it is just a bit of pulverized seaweed or sprinkle of a vegan Furikake. And if I am eating vegetarian or vegan, for god’s sake do not make it bleed.
—Patty