You don't win friends with fake meat

Vegan restaurants, stop it.  Just stop trying to make fake meats.  You will not be able to imitate the taste and texture of meat, so just stop trying.  Accept that fact, and move on, embrace your animal-product-less cuisine.  Explore a little.  Be adventurous.  Plenty of cultures have naturally vegan dishes without having to resort to fake meats.  One of the problems is that as Americans, we have lost touch with the way we used to eat, when people kept their own chickens and cows and keeping a cow or chicken alive for its milk or eggs, respectively, was your only choice.  Better to have milk and eggs everyday than to have one chicken dinner.  The other problem is that vegan places think they will be able to ease people into their diet by offering them something slightly familiar.  Give people more credit!  If an omnivore is willing to try a vegan place then they are open to having something they are not used to, something new, something exotic, so to speak.  So give them that!  Don't have a vegan chicken ranch burger or a bacon cheese burger (BTW, why the two fake meats??!).  Learn from other cultures and try to make vegan dishes American style, not American dishes vegan style.  I've learned my lesson at that place, stick to the gluten free vegan mac and cheese, soups, and salads, and steer clear of the fake meats!



And one of my favourite Homer moments, although there are so many it's really hard to choose:


Wow, three days of Simpsons clips.