Would You Like the Four Noble Truths With That?

With the expenses of graduate school looming, I've been trying to keep a tighter rein on the funds. Among other things, this means bringing my lunch to work every day. In turn, bringing my lunch means getting up that much earlier every day to put the meal together. I've got it down to a squeeze- in- every- possible- minute- of- extra- sleep science, but there are still days I fall short. Last Wednesday for example, when I woke up 8 minutes before I was supposed to
leave for work. Or today, when I realized we had nothing in the fridge. I could kick myself for being so irresponsible. Alternatively, I could look at today as my big chance for Zen Burger. Option 2 sounds so much more appealing, doesn't it?

Zen Burger it is.

Zen Burger is a new chain - and it's currently a pretty small chain, since from what I can tell it's only in New York and Los Angeles - that does vegetarian fast food. We're talking burgers and fries fast food too, not edamame chickpea salad fast food. A vegetarian co-worker has been raving about it for weeks now, enough for me to overcome my reservations about fake meat. And anyhow, have chicken mcnuggets ever had the texture of traditional chicken? Don't McDonalds hamburgers already contain a lot of soy?

Long story short, my ZBBQ chicken sandwich and fries were fantastic. I'm not going to pretend the meal was especially healthy, since the fries left a little grease window in their paper sack. I also have to raise my eyebrows at Zen Burger's "better for the environment" spiel, since I had to throw away half of my meal's packaging. I didn't go to Zen Burger to save the planet however, so no harm, no foul.

Seriously though: how did they get soy to taste so much like chicken?