Vegan, Welcome to Critique

This text is from the weekly newsletter The Antigourmet Critic, in which Ian Oliver writes reviews of São Paulo's gastronomy. The author explains that few things on the internet generate as much reaction as criticizing a vegan restaurant. He recounts that the previous week he had made a critique of a restaurant called Pop Vegan, commenting that the beans were overloaded with paprika, the paella-style rice resembled a herb bomb, the salad was tired, and the soy meat felt like a sponge covered in overly sweet barbecue sauce. He says the criticism was aimed at four specific items on the plate, but that within a few hours he discovered that, in fact, he had attacked vegan food, food accessibility, people in vulnerable situations, delivery workers, the animal rights cause, the audience's intelligence, and the methodology.