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Some of these Top Picks have mock meat. But they're all vegetarian. Which is, like, really cool, you know? Atlanta Boston Chicago Los Angeles Miami New York Portland San Francisco Seattle Washington D.C.

AMERICA

While India and China have devised, over centuries, complex systems for achieving faux meatiness, the American health food tradition has had far less time to mature. Hence the preponderance of tasteless veggie burgers and rubbery tempeh beef stews served nationwide in fern-filled cafes. But even in America, some good things are being done -- if you're lucky enough to find the right chef.

Kate's Joint, a cozy spot in New York's East Village, serves some mock-meat dishes that taste awfully good. Chef/owner Kate Halpern hates tempeh, so she uses only tofu (and tofu sheets), following the Chinese tradition of treating the stuff exactly like meat. Why does so much American mock meat taste so lousy? It's a matter of attitude; "I love meat...I've cooked meat in restaurants and eaten it all my life" says Halpern. She doesn't serve it to customers for fear of the "karmic fallout," but her familiarity with the Real Thing -- hard to find among health food chefs -- helps her to flavor and prepare the tofu in an authentic manner. Knowledge of intense, rich flavors lends a robustness to Halpern's cooking: her chili -- particularly meat-like -- is a standard good chili recipe, the marinated tofu worked and flavored exactly like meat (Halpern guards her secrets, but suggests that home chefs start with Burger Crumbles from Morningstar Farms, cryptically adding that the art "is all in the frying").

Hey: If it's good enough for Dirk Benedict of The A Team, it's good enough for me. Famous Vegetarians

Perhaps if all vegetarian chefs were required to put in some time in carnivorous kitchens -- amongst briskets and pork loins -- they'd learn to do better imitations ... and their cooking in general might become more flavorful. It's not the palate of ingredients that results in blandness, it's the mindset of many of these chefs. And this mindset makes their mock meat as dull as their carrot loaf.

BACON: THE GREAT EXCEPTION

The aforementioned Bac-os (a soy-based product, whatever that means) are by far the most ubiquitous mass market mock meat, which reminds me of how much dietary denial stems from wanton craving for real bacon. Several vegetarians I know chomp the stuff without a trace of guilt ("It's not REALLY meat!" "I need the iron!"), and I've spotted a couple of otherwise copiously kosher friends scarfing a slice or two ("it's not 'pork', it's nice ... it's CRUNCHY ...."). Funny that so little notice is made of the fact that Bac-os actually are a fairly decent flavor substitute for this most craved of meats. Do they capture the full rapturous soul, the greasy cathartic porcine splendor of bacon? Of course not. But if you want the soul of a thing, you've simply got to eat the thing itself; imitations can only go so far.