Tasting the Impossible Burger at the Ivy Room

For some reason, I follow the Ivy Room's unofficial Instagram @ivynightz. And that's how I came to see this: Now, I had heard rumors of the Impossible Burger (in fact, here's probably the most "Brown" thing you'll hear today: a girl in my creative nonfiction seminar last year handed in a hand-sewn series of essays on the Impossible Burger as her final project) and I was immediately intrigued. A burger?? Made of plants?? That tastes like meat?? The Impossible Burger was launched in 2016 by Impossible Foods Inc., a company dedicated to producing plant-based substitutes for meat and diary products. The Impossible Burger is famous for "bleeding" and sizzling as it cooks, and the completely vegan patty is supposed to be indistinguishable from a real burger. The "tastier, juicier and more nutritious" Impossible Burger 2.0 debuted just this January. Impossible Burgers are not yet sold at retail locations, and are available only at select restaurants and franchise locations. So, it's pretty cool that the Ivy Room landed some of these for us to try.As the most qualified food critic on the Blognonian staff only person I know still on meal plan, I immediately saw this as an opportunity to put my remaining credits to good, journalistic (and nutritious!) use. I assembled a team... ...and I made my way to the Ivy Room for dinner. *** NOTE TO READER: This is not the first vegetarian review I have done for Blog, or, as I like to call it "the organization I'm a part of that forces me to eat vegetables and then write about it." But, for those of you unfamiliar with my work, let's make one thing clear. I love meat. I eat so much meat that I seriously do not even consider chicken to be meat. I eat meat for almost every meal. And sometimes, I feel bad about the impact my meat consumption is having on the environment. I'm probably single-handedly responsible for the destruction of an entire forest the size of Rhode Island. So, if the Impossible Burger TM gives me some thing that tastes just like meat (and yet is better for me AND the planet), I'm all about that thing. I went into this Ivy Room tasting full of hope and excitement. I went into this Ivy Room tasting having eaten exactly one veggie burger before in my entire life (and, yes, that was the veggie burger I ate for my review of By Chloe).  The Impossible Burger tasting did not start off well. As my partner and I walked up to the Ratty, we noticed that the #bros of Beta Rho were grilling up some kosher burgers and hot dogs on their patio. The smell of meat was overpowering. We almost succumbed. But we had a mission to accomplish. We descended into the Ivy Room, trying to ignore the warm, familiar scent of "animal protein." Tonight was all about plant protein, baby.There was a definite lack of cooking-burger-smell in the Ivy Room kitchen. But, the final product did look sort of good. So, our resolves as strong as ever, we got in line and waited for our Impossible Burgers. The Ivy Room was serving them in potato buns with lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles and fries — just your standard burger stuff. They also gave the option of cheese (a yellow American) or no cheese. I opted for cheese because I figured that if I hated the taste of the burger I could at least enjoy the melted cheese. I used two credits to pay for the burgers, and my partner and I sat down for the moment of truth. I decided to wait to apply ketchup (one of my burger staples) until after I could really appreciate the taste of the Impossible Burger.Now, I'm not the biggest expert in veggie burgers, but I feel like they are usually dry and sort of falafel-like in texture and bland in taste. My partner (who keeps kosher) confirmed these suspicions. From the outside, the Impossible Burger had the kind of crispy shell I associate with falafel. However, upon cutting into the patty, I could immediately tell this was nothing like the one veggie burger I had tasted before. It was moist and juicy. It was kind of pink in the middle. It really did look almost just like meat, albeit a very thin patty. It would be way more convincing if it was a little thicker.Taking my first bite, what surprised me the most again was the sensation of biting into something juicy — a sensation I usually only associate with meat. The texture was incredible, and a little unsettling. If it wasn't blood oozing out of this burger then what could it possibly be?* The crispy outside that had made me somewhat wary felt just like the thin crust of fat that forms on the outside of a cooked burger. Although the texture was spot-on, I regret to say that the Impossible Burger did not taste exactly like meat. But it was pretty close. The burger had an earthy, meaty flavor that I could not place, but something was a little off. The aftertaste was sort of like popcorn that you have been chewing for too long. Unfortunately, the more of the burger I ate, the more I missed real meat. Although the Impossible Burger pleasantly surprised me with its juicy texture, I think this is because my initial expectations were so low. It definitely did not ooze as much juice and fat as a real ground-beef patty. Ultimately, I have to compare the Impossible Burger to a very thin, very over-cooked beef burger with a kind of weird aftertaste. My partner compared this aftertaste to seitan. I cannot confirm because I have never eaten seitan. If I could choose between the Impossible Burger and a normal meat burger, I would choose the meat burger. But, if I was at a barbecue and someone passed me this all bunned up and slathered in ketchup and melted cheese... I don't think I would know the difference. And if this burger really is so much better for the environment, then you know what? A sustainable world where the majority of the population eats these instead of beef burgers doesn't seem that bad. As long as I get to enjoy the occasional real burger, I'm down.At Cornell, the Impossible Burger has become a staple at two of their campus eateries; Trillium and the super creatively-named Ivy Room. Was this Brown's way of feeling out if they want to do the same?  * Upon further investigation (a quick google search), it turns out that the "blood" of the Impossible Burger is the compound heme (found in the hemoglobin of animals), extracted from a soy plant protein produced by genetically modified yeast. Yum. Read more science here. Images via, via Ebba Brunnstrom '19, via.