The Black Sheep plant-based lamb is *amazing*—game-y, barn-yard-y, savory.
At least in the context of spiced meatballs in Souvla's salad, I'm indifferent between the real lamb and Black Sheep. Don't think that's happened with a substitute before.
Conversation
I'm not a vegan, but I'm a "reducitarian", so I'm really excited about the rapid progress in this space.
Looking forward to trying cell-based artificial meats in the next couple years—have any of you tried yet? What's really got me pumped there is: custom tissue composition!
1
38
As I understand it Black Sheep tried to figure out what makes lamb taste gamey and so on, then added those to their product. What's surprising to me is they're not yet using fermentation to produce those compounds, like Impossible—they're extracting them from plants?
2
26
On "custom tissue composition", here's Wildtype's cultured salmon. Amazing that they've got the alternating fat! While we're at it: we could print "toro" salmon with dense marbling; could align all fiber bundles are as if an expert sushi chef cut perfectly against grain; etc etc
6
18
138
seeing this reminds me, have you tried Shizen SF?
1
Yep! I think the concept could be great but I honestly wasn't impressed: felt they didn't select and prepare the produce as carefully as many of the great meat-serving New American restaurants in SF. Felt similarly about Baia: great idea, needed stronger execution.
1
interesting! they exceed my expectations every time but I don’t think too hard about the specific ingredients in the same way I might with SF fine dining. if I approached it from that angle I might feel differently.
1
Replying to
I don’t think it’s in the same ballpark as, say, Atelier Crenn or Wakuriya or something. But when I crave “just some sushi” and get Shizen instead, I come away happy. (-ier than expected?)
That’s not something I expected to happen with sushi just yet. Hence parallel track.
2