So a few weeks back, I took my friend out to Boerum Hill to eat at a Pan-Asian vegan cafe since she was vegan though I had never tried any vegan alternatives to the foods I usually eat. So coming into the restaurant, I looked at the menu and decided to go for anything that had an ingredient or description that was unfamiliar and the word Seitan immediately caught my attention especially with the BBQ letters in front of the word.

After doing research after ordering, I learned that seitan is supposedly Japanese for wheat gluten/wheat meat so it didn’t really excite me as much as I thought it would since it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. However since it was the protein coming from wheat, I wanted to see how it was compared to the regular proteins I consumed. Truthfully, it wasn’t that far off from expectations. While it had a very nice and soft texture and it had spices from the peppers on the skewers, it was a little lacking in flavor. It felt as if the richness and the juicyness had been ripped from my palate. It literally was as advertised, the very bland flavor of wheat but rewarding health benefits nonetheless which is important to me. The barbecue sauce was good though which puts its taste up a bit with the tangy and sweetness but the actual seitan didn’t do it for me. However, as long as it isn’t pungent like durian, I could definitely eat this but with a sauce preferably.