I have several close friends both fitness minded and other not so much. Both groups however have worked me pretty hard in my 3 some years now in San Diego to try out the vegetarian landscape, specifically the vegetarian burger in all its forms, shapes and types. I have come to truly enjoy the classical black bean burger quite a bit in the past few years. In the past 8 months I have explored even further and tried other types of vegetarian burgers and found myself really pretty impressed with what I have found. And this coming from a truly hard core meat based burger lover. I am known to almost haunt places like Fuddruckers and Slaters 50/50 for their meat based burgers and build it yourself design features.
This past week I wanted to put the veggie burger to the test and see how I would respond to the top 4 highest rated veggie burgers as rated by Yelp.com in the San Diego County area. The 4 venues below are what came up and so on a Wednesday afternoon I hit the road and made stops at each venue to get a take out order of their #1 selling veggie burger. Below is what I sampled out. To be frank, I would order each one again no questions asked. Although black bean(any bean) veggie burgers are still my personal favorite, I must say, I am a fan of others as well such as those made from quinoa, tempeh, hemp seeds, soy, and ancient grains now as well.
Leave it to a city like SD to take an alternative to the real thing and answer the demand of the cities vegetarians and go all out with a worthy product that even this meat freak finds appealing and worthy of calling A Better Bite!
Mushroom Swiss Burger $7.25
Black bean patty, lettuce, tomato, Swiss, sauteed mushrooms, Vegan Mayo (I omitted this)
The melted Swiss and mushroom over the bean patty was amazing! You don't go wrong with a classic like this!
NATIVE SOUTHWESTERN
BURGER $10.29
Signature savory patty with guacamole,
Santa Fe salsa and spicy grilled jalapeños, served
on a multi-grain ciabatta.
Loved the almost real texture and taste of crispy fried chicken in this burger. Very hearty and complementary use of bread choice for this burger.
The Rambler $7.95
Organic black bean patty, crispy onion rings, cheddar 'cheese', BBQ, chipotle 'aioli', lettuce and tomato.
An amazing combo of ingredients that really made it feel, look ans taste like an authentic beef burger. Loved the onion rings and cheddar cheese on this bad boy. Great sauces as well!
Grilled Quinoa + Veg Burger 10.95
Scratch-made blend of organic quinoa + kale +
mushrooms, Chao cheese, house-pickled onions,
arugula, veg mayo, drizzled cilantro pesto.
The simplest construction of them all, only some arugula and pickled onions were on this one besides the patty, "cheese" and bun. Very nice earthy taste and chewy patty however.
