• Home
  • popular
  • Events
  • Submit New Event
  • Subscribe
  • About
  • News
  • Restaurants + Bars
  • City Life
  • Entertainment
  • Travel
  • Real Estate
  • Arts
  • Society
  • Home + Design
  • Fashion + Beauty
  • Innovation
  • Sports
  • Charity Guide
  • children
  • education
  • health
  • veterans
  • SOCIAL SERVICES
  • ARTS + CULTURE
  • animals
  • lgbtq
  • New Charity
  • Series
  • Delivery Limited
  • DTX Giveaway 2012
  • DTX Ski Magic
  • dtx woodford reserve manhattans
  • Your Home in the Sky
  • DTX Best of 2013
  • DTX Trailblazers
  • Tastemakers Dallas 2017
  • Healthy Perspectives
  • Neighborhood Eats 2015
  • The Art of Making Whiskey
  • DTX International Film Festival
  • DTX Tatum Brown
  • Tastemaker Awards 2016 Dallas
  • DTX McCurley 2014
  • DTX Cars in Lifestyle
  • DTX Beyond presents Party Perfect
  • DTX Texas Health Resources
  • DART 2018
  • Alexan Central
  • State Fair 2018
  • Formula 1 Giveaway
  • Zatar
  • CityLine
  • Vision Veritas
  • Okay to Say
  • Hearts on the Trinity
  • DFW Auto Show 2015
  • Northpark 50
  • Anteks Curated
  • Red Bull Cliff Diving
  • Maggie Louise Confections Dallas
  • Gaia
  • Red Bull Global Rally Cross
  • NorthPark Holiday 2015
  • Ethan's View Dallas
  • DTX City Centre 2013
  • Galleria Dallas
  • Briggs Freeman Sotheby's International Realty Luxury Homes in Dallas Texas
  • DTX Island Time
  • Simpson Property Group SkyHouse
  • DIFFA
  • Lotus Shop
  • Holiday Pop Up Shop Dallas
  • Clothes Circuit
  • DTX Tastemakers 2014
  • Elite Dental
  • Elan City Lights
  • Dallas Charity Guide
  • DTX Music Scene 2013
  • One Arts Party at the Plaza
  • J.R. Ewing
  • AMLI Design District Vibrant Living
  • Crest at Oak Park
  • Braun Enterprises Dallas
  • NorthPark
  • Victory Park
  • DTX Common Desk
  • DTX Osborne Advisors
  • DTX Comforts of Home 2012
  • DFW Showcase Tour of Homes
  • DTX Neighborhood Eats
  • DTX Comforts of Home 2013
  • DTX Auto Awards
  • Cottonwood Art Festival 2017
  • Nasher Store
  • Guardian of The Glenlivet
  • Zyn22
  • Dallas Rx
  • Yellow Rose Gala
  • Opendoor
  • DTX Sun and Ski
  • Crow Collection
  • DTX Tastes of the Season
  • Skye of Turtle Creek Dallas
  • Cottonwood Art Festival
  • DTX Charity Challenge
  • DTX Culture Motive
  • DTX Good Eats 2012
  • DTX_15Winks
  • St. Bernard Sports
  • Jose
  • DTX SMU 2014
  • DTX Up to Speed
  • st bernard
  • Ardan West Village
  • DTX New York Fashion Week spring 2016
  • Taste the Difference
  • Parktoberfest 2016
  • Bob's Steak and Chop House
  • DTX Smart Luxury
  • DTX Earth Day
  • DTX_Gaylord_Promoted_Series
  • IIDA Lavish
  • Huffhines Art Trails 2017
  • Red Bull Flying Bach Dallas
  • Y+A Real Estate
  • Beauty Basics
  • DTX Pet of the Week
  • Long Cove
  • Charity Challenge 2014
  • Legacy West
  • Wildflower
  • Stillwater Capital
  • Tulum
  • DTX Texas Traveler
  • Dallas DART
  • Soldiers' Angels
  • Alexan Riveredge
  • Ebby Halliday Realtors
  • Zephyr Gin
  • Sixty Five Hundred Scene
  • Christy Berry
  • Entertainment Destination
  • Dallas Art Fair 2015
  • St. Bernard Sports Duck Head
  • Jameson DTX
  • Alara Uptown Dallas
  • Cottonwood Art Festival fall 2017
  • DTX Tastemakers 2015
  • Cottonwood Arts Festival
  • The Taylor
  • Decks in the Park
  • Alexan Henderson
  • Gallery at Turtle Creek
  • Omni Hotel DTX
  • Red on the Runway
  • Whole Foods Dallas 2018
  • Artizone Essential Eats
  • Galleria Dallas Runway Revue
  • State Fair 2016 Promoted
  • Trigger's Toys Ultimate Cocktail Experience
  • Dean's Texas Cuisine
  • Real Weddings Dallas
  • Real Housewives of Dallas
  • Jan Barboglio
  • Wildflower Arts and Music Festival
  • Hearts for Hounds
  • Okay to Say Dallas
  • Indochino Dallas
  • Old Forester Dallas
  • Dallas Apartment Locators
  • Dallas Summer Musicals
  • PSW Real Estate Dallas
  • Paintzen
  • DTX Dave Perry-Miller
  • DTX Reliant
  • Get in the Spirit
  • Bachendorf's
  • Holiday Wonder
  • Village on the Parkway
  • City Lifestyle
  • opportunity knox villa-o restaurant
  • Nasher Summer Sale
  • Simpson Property Group
  • Holiday Gift Guide 2017 Dallas
  • Carlisle & Vine
  • DTX New Beginnings
  • Get in the Game
  • Red Bull Air Race
  • Dallas DanceFest
  • 2015 Dallas Stylemaker
  • Youth With Faces
  • Energy Ogre
  • DTX Renewable You
  • Galleria Dallas Decadence
  • Bella MD
  • Tractorbeam
  • Young Texans Against Cancer
  • Fresh Start Dallas
  • Dallas Farmers Market
  • Soldier's Angels Dallas
  • Shipt
  • Elite Dental
  • Texas Restaurant Association 2017
  • State Fair 2017
  • Scottish Rite
  • Brooklyn Brewery
  • DTX_Stylemakers
  • Alexan Crossings
  • Ascent Victory Park
  • Top Texans Under 30 Dallas
  • Discover Downtown Dallas
  • San Luis Resort Dallas
  • Greystar The Collection
  • FIG Finale
  • Greystar M Line Tower
  • Lincoln Motor Company
  • The Shelby
  • Jonathan Goldwater Events
  • Windrose Tower
  • Gift Guide 2016
  • State Fair of Texas 2016
  • Choctaw Dallas
  • TodayTix Dallas promoted
  • Whole Foods
  • Unbranded 2014
  • Frisco Square
  • Unbranded 2016
  • Circuit of the Americas 2018
  • The Katy
  • Snap Kitchen
  • Partners Card
  • Omni Hotels Dallas
  • Landmark on Lovers
  • Harwood Herd
  • Galveston.com Dallas
  • Holiday Happenings Dallas 2018
  • TenantBase
  • Cottonwood Art Festival 2018
  • Hawkins-Welwood Homes
  • The Inner Circle Dallas
  • Eating in Season Dallas
  • ATTPAC Behind the Curtain
  • TodayTix Dallas
  • The Alexan
  • Toyota Music Factory
  • Nosh Box Eatery
  • Wildflower 2018
  • Society Style Dallas 2018
  • Texas Scottish Rite Hospital 2018
  • 5 Mockingbird
  • 4110 Fairmount
  • Visit Taos
  • Allegro Addison
  • Dallas Tastemakers 2018
  • The Village apartments
  • City of Burleson Dallas

    Vegan News

    Dallas taste-off: Vegan chicken tenders and nuggets in the supermarket

    Teresa Gubbins
    Nov 15, 2021 | 3:39 pm

    Chicken nuggets are one of the most innocuous, nondescript foodstuffs ever invented. But with at least two generations having grown up on this "kids meal" staple, we now have 80 million locations of Raising Cane's, Zaxby's, and Chick Fil-A where it's not just kids but also full-grown adults recreating the meal they grew up with.

    The problem with nuggets, aka tenders, aka fingers, is the processing of chicken. It's bad for the animals, bad for workers, it's wasteful by the industry's own account, and bad for the environment, with negative effects on water quality, climate change, and natural habitat.

    Since chicken nuggets are inherently bland (even designed to be so), they're the perfect food to veganize. Vegan chicken on restaurant menus has been forecast as the No. 3 food trend for 2022.

    It's not like anyone would be missing out on a fantastic flavor experience. Tenders are mostly about texture: crunchy crust with a moist, tender though-slightly-"meaty" inside.

    In the past year, major companies have turned their focus to vegan chicken nuggets, and they're all now available in stores around Dallas. This can mean only one thing: TASTEOFF.

    Here's our taste test on the 5 hottest vegan chicken nuggets, ranked from 1 to 5. (They're listed below not by ranking, but in order of the nuggets in the photo above.) Each entry has the product, price, key ingredients, a summary of the manufacturer, a summary of the nugget, and a ranking on how it tastes.

    On to the nuggets:

    Fry's Chick'n Nuggets
    10.8-oz box with 12 nuggets, $5 at Sprouts. Ingredients: soy, wheat

    Who: Fry's is a cool family business founded in 1991 in South Africa, whose products recently got added by the Sprouts supermarket chain. (If you want to find vegan stuff, Sprouts is where it's at.)

    What: Fry's rectangular shape was the most similar to actual chicken (along with the Gardein), and afforded two bites per nugget. Crust was pale, with a shaggy, almost like panko crumb-like crust. The inside was flaked, not fibrous, neither dry nor overly moist.

    How good: 3. Flavor was good, almost like chicken matzo ball soup, with a little buttery flavor thrown in. The crust and the inside were both about the same degree of good. Like a real tender, these were likable for their nondescriptness.

    Beyond Chicken Tenders
    8-oz bag with 6 tenders, $5 at Walmart. Ingredients: fava beans

    Who: Buzzy faux-meat company known for its Beyond Beef and Beyond Sausage just introduced these tenders, made from "faba" (fava) beans, which have become a cause celebre in the international plant-based world.

    What: These being tenders, they were almost twice the size of others, which makes it an unfair comparison. They had an elongated teardrop shape with a light crust, and a higher ratio of inside to crust than the rest.

    How good: 4. The texture was juicy and meaty, with a pronounced flavor of thyme, strongly summoning the taste of turkey stuffing. Predictably, these were less crusty, which is one of the things you like about a tender. However, they'd be great in a sandwich, two on a bun with some toppings, maybe a spoonful of cranberry sauce.

    Gardein Ultimate Chick'n Nuggets
    14.7-oz bag, with 25 nuggets, $7 at Whole Foods. Ingredients: wheat, soy, and pea

    Who: Old-school vegan pioneer founded in Canada in 2003 introduced their nuggets well ahead of the curve in 2019. They also have tenders and filets for sandwiches.

    What: Bite-size nuggets, almost like popcorn chicken, with a light crust and a relately fibrous interior.

    How good: 2. These nuggets get their 2 for being most convincing, in terms of texture: more fibrous and therefore more chicken-like than the others. This may have to do with the fact that it's a rounded, single-bite-size nugget versus the longer disc shape most of the other nuggets embody. They had a mild chicken flavor, and even though these ranked higher, I'd probably still get the Fry's or the Simulate before getting these again.

    Simulate Chicken Nuggs
    10.4-oz box with 15-16 nuggets, $7 at Lucky Mouth Grocery. Ingredients: wheat, soy

    Who: Simulate is a fun and irreverent company (on their website, they say that plant-based nuggs "kill you slower" than eating animals) with vivid packaging that shows a hand feeding a nugget to a chicken.

    What: Realistic-ish rectangular shape was similar to the Fry's, but the color was a lot more golden. The texture of the "chicken" was more "diced" than fibrous, but that is not criticism. It made real chicken seem kind of gross by comparison.

    How good: 5. The best part was the good crunch of the golden crust, although there was nothing wrong with the flavor, other than it was subtle. The fact that these came in "last" of the five and were still perfectly good and convincing tells you how easy it is to succeed in this category. These also come in a spicy variety, and that may be the way to go.

    Impossible Chicken Nuggets
    13.5-ounce bag with 20 nuggets, $7 at Walmart. Ingredients: wheat, soy

    Who: Faux-meat powerhouse known for its persuasive burger, so lifelike it "bleeds" just like real beef, now turns its sights to chicken.

    What: Golden round tenders with a thin, lightly crunchy crust enclosing a tender white-meat-style interior.

    How good: 1. These were definitely the most memorable of the five. They were almost symmetrically round, and in that respect most convincing as a chicken tender — which does not mean "most like chicken." They won on texture, with their contrast between delicate but crunchy outside and the plump, juicy inside. They tasted super-chicken-y — but as if they were flavored with chicken bouillon, and it hit hard from the smell and knocked it out with the first bite.

    So many tenders right now.

    vegan tenders
      
    Photo by TG
    So many tenders right now.
    reviewsvegan
    news/restaurants-bars

    Market News

    Small specialty grocer in Celina is a go-to for imported foods

    Raven Jordan
    May 14, 2025 | 6:34 pm
    Di Mantzios Greek & Italian Gourmet Market
    Di Mantzios Greek & Italian Gourmet Market
    Di Mantzios Greek & Italian Gourmet Market

    There's a gourmet shop in downtown Celina offering imported European foods: Called Di Mantzio’s Greek and Italian Gourmet Market, it's a small grocery and cafe at 204 E. Pecan St., Ste. C, where it's bringing in goods you might not find elsewhere in town.

    Owner Vasilios Mantzios is a native of Greece and former NATO military serviceman who moved to the U.S. in 2008. Missing the foods he'd enjoyed in Greece and Italy, he started a booth at the Frisco Fresh Market in 2015 selling olive oils, Balsamic dressing, olives, and Mediterranean salt. In late 2024, he made the move to open the storefront in Celina (coincidentally down Pecan Street from Mangiamo Italian Market & Deli, another highly personal deli and market, making pecan Street a fun destination for a foodie field trip).

    Di Mantzio's carries olive oils, pizza, cheese, charcuterie boards, flour, refrigerated meals, and meatballs with a Greek red sauce, made from a family recipe from Mantzios' aunts and their grandmothers. He also imports marinated lamb and beef meatballs from Greece.

    "I only have things that I would put on my table to personally eat — I pick out my items by the quality because I don't want people to have issues with the food," Mantzios says. "I have my mother test everything, so if you pass her, you're in the store."

    While he does offer Greek foods such as a recent special with beef kebabs and pita bread, there's a big demand for Italian items. He has a big selection of cheese: parmigiano reggiano, feta, mozzarella, and cheese from Il Forteto. Dry goods include Molino Paolo Mariani Manitaly flour, Caputo gluten-free flour, and Hellenic Farms and Lia extra virgin olive oil.

    Mantzios prioritizes small, family-owned businesses because they enjoy what they're providing to customers and value quality.

    Di Mantzios Greek & Italian Gourmet MarketDi Mantzios Greek & Italian Gourmet MarketDi Mantzios

    On the prepared food front, he does pizza using a wood-fired crust imported from Pizza Food Love in Italy, delivered to the shop every three weeks. The base can be topped with ingredients from Tuscany, Italy for a truly authentic experience. More prepared foods are one of the biggest requests he gets from customers, and it's a category he's continuing to expand, as well as adding wine and beer.

    They also have cakes and desserts such as cannoli, baklava, Greek rice pudding, French macarons, and gelato from Gelatys.

    The interior is neatly organized, with refrigerated foods as well as Greek and European decor such as pestle and mortar, a gladiator helmet, and Greek and Italian flags pinned to the walls.

    Mantzios thrives from the personal contact he gets with customers, and they find him equally charming as well.

    "The bulk of my customers come from Prosper and Celina, and Celina is the number one growing city with people coming from all around who can appreciate what we are doing," Mantzios says.

    supermarketsopenings
    news/restaurants-bars
    Loading...