Quote:

"There's quite a difference between places that serve Garden Burgers and places that serve seitan "chicken"."

What would that difference be? ...



Since I've never heard of those restaurants, I'm guessing that you (evidently) may live somewhere with a much higher concentration of people with dietary restrictions or preferences than the US (or maybe some tree-hugging place like Seattle?). You could well be the one leaping to conclusions by not taking into account the culture of the comic's author. I've heard that in England even McDonald's has non-beef burgers of some sort but they don't here.

Garden Burger(TM) here is a premium quality brand name that was popular for a while and promoted by celebrities. It (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) was available in some "non-heath-food" restaurants as a substitute but I'd say this phase has already passed (though I still see turkey burgers in a few places). If you look at the package of Garden Burger or Morningstar Farms products (the two brands usually carried by "normal" grocery stores), they contain walnuts and carrots and lots of stuff that sounds good and cooks up in an attractive manner. It's not just processed plant proteins like wheatmeat, tofurkey, seitan, etc.