I’ll have the alfalfa sprouts and a plate of mashed yeast

Lick's proudly touts is Nature Burger as "award winning" and "the best bar none." Those are pretty lofty claims for the simple little vegan soy patty, but as anyone who has tasted it will tell you; it's pretty damn good.

As I mentioned previously, in my efforts to stay vegetarian for the month (really only three weeks or so) I have eaten a lot of salad, a lot of pasta and tried a few new tricks in the kitchen, but lately I've turned to meatless burgers to quench my thirst for cow.

After falling in love with the Harvey's Veggie Burger a few days back, it was time to take The Gullet over to Lick's last night and see if they could measure up.

There's no doubt, at a quarter of a pound, the Lick's Nature Burger is bigger, but I can't say it's any better. While the flavour of the Harvey's Veggie Burger could best be compared to... a Harvey's Original Hamburger, the Nature Burger has a unique flavour all it's own that screams out soy.

It's not that it doesn't taste good, it's just that it's not going to fool anybody into thinking they're chowing down on a real quarter-pounder. A tasty sandwich, but the next time I go to Lick's it'll be for the Home Burger, while I am still considering making the Veggie Burger my regular choice at Harvey's.

Unfortunately, that next trip to Lick's may be quite far off as The Gullet ran into a few issues with the staff there last night. We had to draw a road map to the spicy mustard sitting right in front of the girl serving us as pointing and screaming didn't seem to get The Gullet's desires across to her. Then when we arrived home and pulled the burgers out of the bag it was too late to remind the condiment-challenged counter staff about that cheese on top she'd bought and paid for. A little less than satisfied with the service, The Gullet could only remark that the Nature Burger had tasted better the last time she bought a box full of frozen ones and made it herself - Surprisingly, she had zero complaints about the fries and onion rings though.

While these meat-free burgers have dominated the menu during my vegetarian experiment the last couple of days, I do understand that eating out for the average vegetarian is about more than just meat substitutes slapped between two sides of a bun - Although, in the city of Toronto, there's really not that much more to it.

Vegetarian restaurants in this city seem to fall into just two tiny categories. First we have the trendy, where you might find yourself chewing on a plate of steamed bok choy, kale, swiss chard and broccoli with grilled tempeh, pickled ginger, toasted sunflower seeds, tahini sauce,
toasted nori and ginger tamari sauce while sipping on a wheatgrass shake - not that there's anything wrong with that.

There's about a dozen of these spots scattered throughout the downtown core filled with new-age hippies plotting the death of George W while crunching away on portion sizes that are less than hearty. The chefs at most should be commended for their creative use of veggies, but I hate paying for food that just makes me want to go out to eat afterwards.

The other kind of vegetarian restaurant you can find in Toronto is, of course, Indian. Indian restaurants across the planet have been offering great vegetarian food forever, but with an increasing number of people being drawn to the benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle, more and more strictly vegetarian Indian eateries are popping up all over the map.

Always a fan of Indian fare, meatless or not, I took The Gullet to Siddhartha Pure Vegetarian Cuisine this past weekend. We opted for the $11 dinner buffet filled with Vegetarian South and North Indian delights including dosas, dals, vegetable curries, naan, and a few different variations on basmati rice. While everything was quite tasty, certainly fresh and dripping with Ghee, it's worth noting The Gullet claimed the Pakora were the best she'd ever had.

The four or five block stretch of Gerrard where the restaurant is found is known as Little India and along with Siddhartha Pure Vegetarian, a whole whack of other Indian restaurants and way too many saree shops to count, you'll find Siddhartha Pure Vegetarian Cuisine's meaty little cousin Siddhartha, commonly referred to as one of the best Indian restaurants in the city.

Knowing how good vegetarian Indian food can be, there was never any doubt it would be on the menu at home during this vegetarian cleanse as well. Last week I decided to throw a few new twists into my standard quick-curry recipe and came out with a Spinach and Eggplant Curry that tasted great just off the stove and even better the next day (as usual).

It begins, like all my curries, with a slab of butter (three or four tablespoons) and a chopped onion. I usually cook the onion in the butter until you can see through it and then add potatoes and chick peas. However, this time I cubed up an eggplant and threw it in instead.

After mixing the onion and eggplant around a little I covered it in curry powder, picked the stems off a half a bag of spinach, washed it and threw it in as well.

This is the time I usually cover the ingredients in chicken stock and let it cook down, but continuing with the vegetarian theme I used vegetable stock this time around. I understand most people cooking at home don't have the time or the desire to make their own stock, but it's important not to use plain old water here (or anywhere else for that matter). Just boil a little water and add a vegetable bouillon cube if you must.

Once the ingredients are covered in stock I'll add a tomato, whole or sometimes cut in half, throw in a couple chillies for flavour, bring it to a boil, turn down the temperature and let it cook down, uncovered for a good hour or so. This brings all the flavours together and usually allows the liquid to cook down to a nice thick sauce. Once thickened, I served it hot over a little basmati rice to rave reviews from The Gullet that night. But after I let it cool and threw it in the fridge overnight, it made an even better filling for a roti the next day for lunch.

It's dishes like this that make me think the vegetarian lifestyle is almost livable. This particular curry also renewed my interest in eggplant, which I cooked up with a little Italian flair a few days later, but I'll save that tasty recipe for my next post.