Rating:

 

I was excited during my latest trip to the supermarket to see that Safeway has started making alt-burgers. The true indicator that a product has reached mass appeal is when your major supermarket starts making a generic version of it. Unfortunately, my excitement didn't last very long. Safeway seems to have spent about as much time developing these alt-burgers as they did naming them.

The Meatless Burgers come out of the box with the (unfortunately) common look of compressed cat food. After nuking a patty for 1:45 and slapping a piece of American cheese on it, it didn't look much better (as you can see from the first picture below). After taking a couple bites, I was reminded again of cat food. Not that I know what cat food tastes like mind you - just what I *think* it tastes like.

Safeway employs the common practice of overloading on the fake smokey grilled flavor to cover up the lack of taste in the patty. Without the cheese and condiments, I would have found the burger to be hard to swallow (literally and figuratively).

I will not be buying these again. And I'm not looking forward to having to finish the other three patties in the box. Maybe I'll see if my dogs will eat them.