As the world’s foremost meat blogger (according to myself), I am generally of the notion that vegetables need to be avoided and subbed in for meat or animal products at almost all times. Yet, when I was given the opportunity to head to The Counter in Phoenix and try out the Impossible Burger, I could not pass it up. But here’s where it gets weird, you see, the Impossible Burger is completely vegan.

What?! Yeah, I know, but here’s the thing: it’s not made for vegans. It’s actually made to taste as close to a burger as possible, using things like potatoes, wheat and a protein called “heme” that they claim to be the differentiator. You can order it cooked however you like it, just like a real burger, and runs the right shades that beef should.

The Counter has their own recommended ways to eat the Impossible Burger in salad and regular burger form. But, you can also order it customized in the classic Counter way. My wife and I got to try them as recommended and then to build our own.

I won’t spend too much time on the way they were recommended, other than to say they were not for me. First off, salad, so no. Second off, the burger was topped with crap like tomatoes, onions, greens and tomato jam that the herbed goat cheese, dijon balsamic and English muffin could not overcome. But this was all fine, because for my version, I went with bacon, gouda, a fried egg and gochujang aioli. This seemed to me like the best way to test out a vegan burger made for meat eaters.

The result was certainly something. For nearly all intents and purposes, it looked like meat. The same went for the texture, which was nothing like the hockey pucks you might come to expect from a vegan patty. Even the flavor seemed to be pretty on par with a normal burger, but it certainly helps to be dressed up with things like bacon and cheese. If it were just straight up a burger and a bun it might have been more noticeable, but who wants to eat that way with a beef burger anyway?

Probably my biggest complaint is that it just wasn’t as juicy as a burger should be. Was this The Counter’s fault? I don’t know. So I’ll have to have more of these to really find out. But truthfully I’ve had real beef burgers that were far worse than this.

The Impossible Burger clearly has a better impact on the environment, and that is something that really matters to me. The trouble is that it also comes with a heftier price tag. The Counter prices it at about $5 more than your standard beef patty, which puts it in line with premium burger options like Bison. Hopefully as the people behind the Impossible Burger scale up, they’ll be able to bring that price down, because if you’re after meat eaters, they aren’t going to pay a premium price for something that is nearly, but not quite as good as beef. For an extra buck, perhaps.

Regardless, I want to see the Impossible Burger succeed. I love my meat, but if the world can put together food that tastes like meat, is easier on the environment and costs about the same, I am very down with it, despite having a meat blog.

I generally try to avoid fancy restaurants. Really, they just aren’t my thing. But special occasions call for special eats, and so I found myself at Citizen Public House in Old Town Scottsdale in need of some food. And then, like a week later I found myself back there again. No joke, it was crazy.

So on round one, I kept it simple. I went with the Jucy Lucy, which is an import from Minneapolis. But there was a twist to this Jucy Lucy in that it was stuffed with Velveeta. I don’t know if this means gourmet burgers have jumped the shark because Velveeta is inherently like the bottom of the cheese food chain or if gourmet burgers are now better than ever because they can get away with such a thing. Either way, I freaking love Velveeta and I loved this burger. Plus, it’s not like you really ever pay a high price for a gourmet burger because of cheese, you buy it for the meat and everything else and this burger delivered.

On my return, I went more all out on the menu. It began with their Kilt Lifter Fondue, which I assumed was made with the Kilt Lifter Ale and was not intended to lift any kilts. This fondue was served with Asian Pears, hunks of bread and sausage slices. Probably the biggest, and really only, problem the fondue had was that it was heated up by a candle. Sure, it looked cute, but in a restaurant with a whole section open to the great outdoors, the candle failed to stay lit and keep the fondue bubbling. Bubbling or not, though, there was nothing not tasty about this fondue.

For my main course, I ordered probably the best fancy pork I’ve ever had. It was called the Gypsy Pork Shank and it was smoke and salt cured, with fingerling potatoes and Hungarian goulash. The pork was massive and it wasn’t just about the size of this pork, it was the tenderness and flavor that just basically blew me away. All I needed was a fork to take this thing apart and anytime it got a little too rich, I had the goulash to tone it down with some alternative flavor.

Between the burger and the pork shank in two trips to Citizen Public House, I had two amazing meals. It may be a fancy place, but it’s a fancy place made for an unvegan.

Harbor Springs in Northern Michigan is a long way from Japan, but that doesn’t stop a place called Vernales from sporting a Wagyu Brisket Burger. You see, Vernales is kind of a sports bar masquerading as an upscale restaurant, so it only makes sense that if they are going to serve a burger, it’s going to include some fancy beef. And after a long time looking over the menu, I knew that burger was what I had to have.

I should say, in addition to being topped with BBQ brisket, it also had cheddar cheese and onion straws on a kaiser bun. It was also served with fries, but there was no warning that pickles would also be alongside the burger on the plate. Fortunately the juices didn’t do any damage, but that’s always a tough thing to see.

As for the burger itself, unfortunately it did not quite live up to its perfectly unvegan description. I mean, yes, it was plenty unvegan, but the ingredients really lacked any sort of pop of flavor. Perhaps Vernales leaned too heavily on the fact that this was Wagyu beef and assumed that all the flavor would come from those tasty Wagyu fats. But The fact of the matter was that there seemed to be little seasoning on the patty and just not a lot to the brisket either. The fried onion strings and cheese tried to compensate, but unsuccessfully.

I can’t say that the Wagyu Brisket Burger was bad. It definitely was not. On the other hand, it really struggled more than it should have to be good.

There are a few things that you can always assume I will want to try. One is cheese dip and another is gigantic burgers (among other things). So, when I heard that a place called Roaring Fork in Scottsdale had something called the Big Ass Burger, it didn’t take much convincing to get me there. Getting me to eat outside in the middle of the desert summer, on the other hand, was a different story. But such is life when you want to take advantage of what is one of the best happy hours in the Phoenix area.

And while the Big Ass Burger has a nice discount during happy hour, there is also a little something called Queso Con Puerco, which is a cheesy dip that has braised pork mixed in. It comes with tortilla chips for dipping, but I could have easily eaten this stuff by the spoonful. The queso has a perfect thickness and viscosity, while the pork adds a meaty dimension that really every dipping sauce should have. It’s cheesy, porky goodness and it makes the world a better place simply by existing.

As for the Big Ass Burger, it comes topped with smoked pepper bacon, cheddar, poblano pepper, lettuce, tomato, pickles and onions. And also fries on the side. I ordered without the lettuce, tomato, pickles and onions, and at a medium-rare.

When it arrived, I could immediately tell that it lived up to its name. It was undoubtedly big, and would certainly contribute to the size of my ass. And somehow they found a bun to contain the meat. As I bit in, my mouth met with a juicy burger that was well-seasoned. Actually, it may have been a little too well-seasoned, as it was a little tough to handle the salt content of some of the bites. It was slightly overcooked, but not enough to really disappoint, and the bun was just a little too big. Now, with these complaints being said, they are all pretty minor and I don’t want it to seem like I didn’t like the Big Ass Burger.

On the contrary, I found it to be a very delicious experience and one that I won’t soon forget. Plus, there’s really no way to top the value for the money here during happy hour. My only hope is that next time (and there will be a next time) the meat is cooked a little more to my liking.