5 Napkin Burger Happy Hour

I’ve been working such long hours that I usually don’t have time to eat anything for dinner before yoga classes. So it seemed inevitable that one day I would end up at 5 Napkin Burger for a very-late dinner after a hot yoga class, since the Astoria location of this restaurant is only a few blocks from my yoga studio…

And, lucky me, by the time my yoga class is over, their happy hour menu is in effect! $4 for veggie sliders? Yes please!



If you recall, I already reviewed 5 Napkin’s veggie burger – and gave it 5 stars. So I was pretty confident I would enjoy their sliders as well…



Oh, sweet deliciousness! These sliders are just as amazingly tasty as 5 Napkin’s full-sized veggie burger. The patties are moist and flavorful, and in case you’re unfamiliar with the 5 Napkin Veggie burgers, that’s not undercooked meat that’s making them look pink – it’s beets! One of my favorite veggie burger ingredients!



They are topped with plenty of pickles, and that yummy, tangy “5N” sauce. Really the only difference between this and the regular veggie burger, other than the size (obviously) is that the sliders don’t come with tomato and lettuce. Probably because there’s no room left for them! And the bun seemed softer and sweeter, maybe a different type of bread. A $4 order of sliders includes two adorable little baby burgers. I also ordered a happy hour guacamole, and that along with the sliders was filling enough for me. But if you wanted to get really crazy, a hungry person could probably eat 2 orders of the sliders (4 total – about the size of a regular burger).

I’m going to go ahead and say these are 5-star sliders, because the full-sized 5 Napkin veggie burger is a 5-star burger, and these mini versions of that burger are equally awesome!

Cost: $4 for two sliders
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Burger patty: 5       Bun: 4      Toppings: 5

Read my original review of the full-sized 5 Napkin veggie burger here.

Five Napkin Burger
35-01 36th Street
Astoria, NY 11106
718.433.2727
locations in Manhattan as well, check website for addresses

YumVeggieBurger review #111

SoL Cuisine Sprouted Quinoa Chia Burger

I was picking up some groceries at whole foods recently, and thought I would try a new veggie burger, so I picked this one out of their frozen food section (I like quinoa and sweet potato, so it seemed like a good bet, even though I had never heard of the brand before).


The frozen burger patty, before cooking


After frying for a few minutes with a little bit of olive oil.


I melted a slice of my favorite Daiya swiss “cheese” on top of the patty, and toasted a whole wheat bun.



It smelled really good when I took it out of the frying pan! But the texture of the patty was odd, it wasn’t grainy or bready or even mushy – which are the categories most veggie burger patties seem to fall into. Instead, it was very smooth, almost like it had some kind of gelling agent in it (I’m not familiar with chia seeds, but I did a little research and it turns out that they form a gel when they react with water, so that explains that!). This is a very weird texture for a burger. There were also very large, flat slabs of onion mixed in, which I wasn’t a huge fan of. I didn’t taste any of the sweet potato that the package advertised.

Overall, it was a disappointment – I was expecting more from a product that sounded so good on the box (vegan, gluten-free, healthy, tasty ingredients!). I don’t think there was any way I could have cooked it that would have made the taste or texture better. The melted Daiya on top was the best part, but I don’t think I would buy these patties again when there are so many better ones on the market.

Has anyone else tried these burgers? What are your thoughts?

Rating: ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
SoL Cuisine
purchased at: Whole Foods in NYC
price: $5.49 for a box of 4

YumVeggieBurger review #110

The Grey Dog

The Grey Dog is my go-to spot near Union Square to meet people for tea, and my sister and I have shared many a cozy drink at its tiny tables (getting a seat can be tricky when it’s crowded though!). But until I met a friend there for dinner last week, I had not tried any of the food. And I hadn’t even realized that they serve a veggie burger!



My first thought was that the burger seemed kind of small, but maybe that was just because it was dwarfed by the massive pile of fries next to it? I substituted sweet potato fries in place of the regular fries – and they were delicious.



The bun was a little dry, and kind of dense. But the toppings were great – really fresh and crispy pea shoots, tomato, and onion. The pesto was quite tasty, (I am a big fan of pesto!). I only wished there was some other sauce as well to balance out the dryness of the bun.

The patty was homemade – a blend of veggies and some hearty grains. It was about average, there was nothing too special about the flavor, but it tasted hearty and healthy. I asked if the burger was vegan, and the café staff showed me this handy little ingredient card that they keep behind the counter:



So the patty itself is vegan, they told me – but the bun is not (contains dairy). They did offer to serve it on a bed of lettuce for any vegans who were interested in ordering it though. And kudos to them for being so well-informed about their ingredients and prepared to answer their customer’s questions! More restaurants should learn from that example.

Note: the veggie burger is found under the “Michigan Sandwiches” section of the menu, not the “Burgers” section!

Cost: $9 including fries
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
Burger patty: 3       Bun: 3      Toppings: 4

The Grey Dog
90 University Pl
between 12th & 11th Street
New York, NY 10003
212.414.4739
two other locations in Manhattan, check website for address

YumVeggieBurger review #109

The Best Thing I Ate This Month That Wasn't A Veggie Burger

If you follow me on twitter, you've already heard this - but I am in LOVE with Daiya's new flavor of vegan cheese: swiss!

I used to eat grilled swiss cheese sandwiches all the time - so when I decided to (mostly) stop eating dairy, that was one of the things I missed the most. I had the occasional grilled cheese sandwich made with vegan "cheddar" cheese, but it wasn't the same. So I was thrilled when I saw vegan SWISS cheese at the store!



Of course it doesn't taste exactly like "real" swiss cheese. And the texture is quite different, as all vegan cheeses are. But still - it makes a delicious vegan grilled cheese sandwich!

I buy Daiya at several little health food stores near my apartment, and I've seen Daiya products at Whole Foods as well.
Look on their website to find out where they might be sold near you.

And no, Daiya is not paying me or giving me free stuff to write this. This is just the best thing I ate this month that wasn't a veggie burger :)

Umami Burger

Apparently the recent (just 4 weeks ago) opening of Umami burger in NYC is a big deal – I had personally never heard of the California-based burger chain before, but I did hear people excitedly sharing rumors a few months ago, in anticipation of it’s NYC debut. But then I forgot about it, until my friend Evan worked on a video for Zagat TV about the popular burger place. All the burgers featured in that segment are meat-burgers, unsurprisingly. But Umami has a veggie burger too – and I felt inspired to go try it... assuming, of course, the wait was not 3 hours as I had heard it rumored to be!



I was in luck – I had a couple hours to spare before a meeting, so when I showed up just before 2pm, the wait for a single spot at the bar was only about 10 minutes! Couples arriving at the same time were told the wait for 2 people would be about 30 minutes.



Excited, I sat down at the bar, ready to place my order – from the “Un-Beef” section of the menu! But when I told the waitress I wanted the “earth burger”, she said “we don’t have any left today”. My heart skipped a beat. She must have noticed how devastated I looked at this news, because she then said “Let me double check that though...” and hastened off to the kitchen. When she came back, she said “We have two left!” and I breathed a sigh of relief. I wonder if these veggie burgers are proving more popular than they had anticipated?


The earth burger



The bun was deliciously light and sweet – almost like a pastry. Not soggy at all, and not too thick or dense to bite into, but it still held everything together well. The toppings were delicious – I had never had a burger with chili on it before, but this soyrizo chili was a surprisingly a great addition, and gave it a great spicy kick. The “fresh cilantro crema” didn’t really add much flavor for me, personally. But the guacamole beneath the patty was a nice, cool, creamy note to balance out the spicy chili (and a surprise element, since it wasn’t listed with the other toppings on the menu!) The whole thing was a really awesome flavor combination. Both the sauce and the bun contain dairy, although the waitress told me they offer a lettuce wrap instead of the bun, if you request it (and you could order the burger without the crema topping).



The patty, however, is vegan – an earthy blend of black beans, forbidden rice, and charred corn (although I didn’t really taste much of the corn among the beans and rice). It fell apart a bit, but was large enough that even after pieces fell out, there was still a substantial amount left between the buns. And I ate the fallen chunks with a fork, because they were too tasty to abandon.


Delicious!

Would it have been worth it if I’d actually had to wait in line for three hours? Well, I don’t know about that… I’ve never waited that long for any veggie burger, not even from The Cinnamon Snail on a really busy lunch day! …but it was one of the most delicious veggie burgers I have eaten. Yup, it’s another five-star veggie burger! And I now understand all the hype around Umami Burger...



Cost: $12.00
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Burger patty: 4       Bun: 5      Toppings: 5

Umami Burger
432 6th Avenue
between 9th & 10th Street
New York, NY 10011
212.677.8626

YumVeggieBurger review #108

Burger Bistro

I bought a Living Social deal to Burger Bistro, so before it expired (I have a tendency to wait until the last minute on these things!) I made a trip out to Brooklyn to eat a veggie burger at this restaurant I had never heard of until I saw the Living Social email in my inbox one morning.



The menu was one of those check-the-items-you-want style ones, like at The Meatball Shop (I don’t know where they originated from, but that was my first experience with them). It was exciting having so many toppings to choose from! I picked the veggie burger (vegan), with guacamole, pickled jalapenos, lettuce, tomato, and chipotle mayo (not vegan) – all on a whole wheat bun (which is not vegan - if you want your vegan patty to be on a vegan bun, the only option here is the lettuce wrap). I also ordered a side of house-made chips, because I had Living Social bucks left to burn.



Hmm… my burger arrived with the “frizzled onions” instead of the jalapenos, but I had places to be after my dinner, and didn’t want to be late, so I didn’t complain. The onions weren’t bad, kind of like very fragile onion rings, or pieces of one of those “blooming onion” monstrosities. My burger was already pretty overloaded though, so I ate them separately. The rest of the toppings were tasty too – plenty of guacamole!



The patty was a nice blend of vegetables – carrots, corn, spinach, peppers, soy beans, and herbs. It had a unique flavor that I hadn’t tasted in a veggie burger before, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Unfortunately, despite its fried-to-a-nice-crisp exterior, the inside was quite mushy and it smushed together with the plentiful toppings and then oozed out of the bun.

The bun itself was way too dense and thick – trying to wrap my mouth around it only resulted in compressing the patty and toppings more, until they oozed out and I was just left with a mouthful of guacamole-soaked bun. It seemed slightly stale, too. I ate half of it, and then dissected the other half – eating the patty and the toppings with a fork, and leaving the bun on the plate.

My stomach was full the rest of the evening – so I certainly got my money’s worth from my Living Social deal. And that was from the burger alone - the homemade chips I had ordered as a side tasted delicious, but were way too greasy for me to eat more than a few.

Cost: $8.00 for just the burger with lettuce and tomato (total for my burger and toppings: $12.75), chips $4.25 extra
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
Burger patty: 3       Bun: 2      Toppings: 4

Burger Bistro
117 5th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11217
718.398.9800
locations in Astoria, Bay Ridge, and the Upper East Side too, check website for addresses

YumVeggieBurger review #107

Burger Club

It’s taken me awhile to check out Burger Club, even though it opened in my neighborhood last year. Why? I’m not sure, it seems like we’ve had a flood of new burger joints opening in the past couple years, and I guess there are just too many other veggie burgers that I know and love in Astoria, so it takes a lot to tempt me away from my favorites…


no, my camera didn’t flip the photo – that’s really how their sign is designed!

But I finally had a chance to stop in here one afternoon, and I was in time for their lunch special, which included their “farmer’s market burger”:



The patty is homemade, which I must give them due credit for. It contained a lot of beans, celery, carrots, yellow squash, zucchini, and onions, which all sound great – but it was too mushy. It would have greatly benefitted from being cooked a bit more until the outside was a bit crisp, and some of the carrot pieces inside were not fully cooked either, and were unpleasantly crunchy. The flavoring was actually quite nice though – I ate a chunk of the patty on its own, after it fell out of the bun, and I really enjoyed the way it was seasoned.



The toppings were generous – tomato, lettuce, avocado (a good amount, too, they didn’t skimp like some places do!), sprouts, red onion, and a Portobello – which I, mushroom-hater than I am, even enjoyed! (it was well-marinated). I skipped the goat cheese, but that is one of the toppings that is included, if you want it. The bun (wheat) was a bit too thick and dense to eat with all the patty and toppings inside. And it was surprisingly cold in temperature compared to the patty, as though it had just come out of the fridge, although it looked like it had been lightly toasted on one side.

While the staff told me the patty is vegan (and if you order it without the cheese, the toppings are vegan too), they said they did not know if the bun was vegan because they do not make the buns there. So, eat at your own risk if you are concerned the bun might have dairy in it.

I’ve heard other people mention that this place seems like it is trying to be Astoria’s next Bare Burger, and the similarities are certainly there – Burger Club definitely has an extensive and creative menu, it’s not just another boring burger joint. But Bare Burger’s veggie burger is still superior, in my opinion.

Cost: lunch special - $9.75 (burger, fries, and soda), regular menu - $8.25 for the burger, fries $2.75
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
Burger patty: 3       Bun: 2      Toppings: 4

Burger Club
32-02 30th Ave
on the corner of 32nd Street
Astoria, NY 11102
718.777.7788

YumVeggieBurger review #106

Foodswings in the news

Wow! I'm catching up on my blog reading, and I just read this post on the SuperVegan blog about Brooklyn vegan restaurant Foodswings being for sale!

I hope this turn of events ends well for Foodswings... not only because they have a plethora of different veggie burger styles on their menu (I reviewed the Buffalo Burger here)...



...But because I really don't know how I would live without their amazing vegan chicken wings and milkshakes. Seriously, almost every time I go to Williamsburg, my friend Michelle and I make a point to either stop by Foodswings or Vinnie's Pizza for our vegan food fix. Not the healthiest vegan food in the world, but oh-so-satisfying and delicious!

So, someone awesome please buy this restaurant, and keep it alive! Please don't deprive me of my vegan milkshakes!

The Best Thing I Ate This Month That Wasn't A Veggie Burger

Sometimes I eat something that isn't a veggie burger, but it's so good that I want to share it with the world anyway... Don't worry, this blog will always be about veggie burgers first and foremost! That is never going to change (there are still so many out there waiting for me to try them...!) But I've been tempted to start sharing one favorite non-veggie-burger vegetarian or vegan food item each month. How does that sound to you?

So, this month, the best thing I ate that wasn't a veggie burger was Peacefood Cafe's "doughnut-croissant hybrid":


Yes, that's a VEGAN "doughnut-croissant hybrid". And a chocolate-frosted, cream-filled one at that.


And yes, as this helpful little display sign at Peacefood explained... due to the cronut controversy, this is not a cronut, *wink*. It's merely a "croissant-donut hybrid".
Whatever, it tasted AMAZING.
I haven't tried a real cronut, so I can't say how it compares, but this was delicious enough for me! I don't know how often Peacefood has these available, or how quickly they sell out - I picked this one up before noon on a weekday, but I stopped in another day later this month and there were none in the display case. But if you see one, definitely give it a try!

Peacefood Cafe Downtown
41 East 11th Street
between Broadway & University Pl
New York, NY 10003
212.979.2288
(they have an uptown location as well, but I do not know if they serve these donuts there too)

New York Burger Co.

The best part about being a vegetarian in NYC is that you can be out running errands pretty much anywhere in the city, and if you are starving and need to grab a bite to eat, you never have to look very far for a vegetarian option. I had walked past New York Burger Co. for years before I finally had the time and appetite to stop for a late lunch here one afternoon.



I ordered the “vegetarian black bean burger” – I asked if it was vegan, and the cashier went and asked the cooks, who apparently said that both the patty and the bun are vegan, although I am not 100% sure that they understood my question or were entirely sure of the answer themselves… I sometimes get the feeling that people are just saying what they think you want to hear, when you ask questions like this. The cashier mentioned that a lot of people ask if it’s vegan (I refrained from asking her why she didn’t already know the answer to the question, if it’s one she gets asked so often!).


Look at that awesome sticker! I saved it and put it on my bulletin board at home. I wish all veggie burgers came with one!



This burger was massive – the wheat bun was like a giant flying saucer! It was a bit too large for the rest of the burger, although it did do a good job of holding everything together as I ate it. And it tasted nice. The patty seemed definitely homemade, which surprised me. I could definitely taste the black beans, but there were other flavors too – grains and carrots, and a little spice. It wasn’t as heavily “bean-y” as most patties that are billed as “black bean burgers”.



The toppings it came with were mango salsa, avocado, plum tomatoes, and romaine lettuce. I thought they skimped a little on the salsa, but what I tasted of it was delicious. A nice unique flavor on a burger – good for summer. I would definitely eat it again (maybe I should try mango salsa on my burgers at home too).



I was more impressed than I had expected to be by this place – I was anticipating a very average burger, probably a pre-made generic patty. There are so many burger joints in NYC, and so many of them DO cop-out and serve something mediocre as the veggie burger option. But once in awhile, you find a gem like this place that pleasantly surprises you. And kudos to any restaurant that comes up with creative toppings for a veggie burger that do not include cheese! My kinda-allergic-to-dairy body salutes you.

And with my stomach now more than full, I was able to walk across the street and buy groceries at Trader Joe’s without being so hungry that I ended up buying every snack in sight…

Cost: $8.50
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
Burger patty: 4       Bun: 3      Toppings: 4

New York Burger Co.
678 6th Avenue
between 21st & 22nd Street
New York, NY 10010
212.229.1404
second location in Chelsea as well, check website for address

YumVeggieBurger review #105

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Veggie Burgers in the News

Alright, I'm not a big fan of going to shows at large amphitheater-style venues... but I have to say, it's pretty awesome that vegetarianism and veggie burgers are becoming so mainstream:

Live Nation Amphitheaters to Source Foods Locally [The Daily Meal]

Would you eat a veggie burger while you're at a concert?