Opened in May, Yamchops is a new vegetarian butcher located in the heart of Little Italy. I was intrigued by their seemingly paradoxical title, but the concept is sound. Yamchops offers a variety of plant based protein alternatives with prepared foods, meals, fresh pressed juice and lots of gourmet vegetarian food products.

Disclaimer: All drinks and dishes were provided free of charge by the restaurant. All opinions expressed below are wholly mine.

I had the opportunity to visit the store and sample their wares during a recent media event with my friend who is vegetarian (for a second opinion since I’m quite the carnivore). We started with samples of Au Jus, a line of fresh pressed juices. I loved the watermelon juice with a touch of lemon. It had a strong, full flavour and not overly sweet. All of the juices tasted exactly like their name from Pineapple to Salad Days.

The selection of prepared foods at Yamchops range in flavours from Asian to BBQ. In general, I found that none of the food substitutions tried to mimic the meat directly but more in flavour and texture. I liked that you could still taste the natural ingredients in every dish and it wasn’t an unknown soy mixture. We tried many of the offerings including:

• Carrot lox, made with cured organic carrots
• Raw pad thai made of spiralized carrots, zucchini and beets
• Coconut Ba-con
• Tuna-less Tuna made with chickpeas
• No Pork Pulled Pork made with cabbage
• Roasted Pineapple Chutney
• Shawarma “beef”
• Korean BBQ “chicken”

The flavour and seasoning of each dish was authentic and I really loved the tangy and sweet Korean BBQ “chicken”. The No Pork Pulled Pork was like a slaw with a great BBQ sauce and coconut ba-con was a great treat reminding me of coconut candy I had in Maui. I was impressed by the international breadth and creativity of the menu selection at Yamchops. The dishes were truly unique and satisfied this carnivore.

Each dish can be purchased by weight in addition to set lunch boxes. Yamchops is open daily from 11am to 7pm and also takes orders online at https://yamchops.com/collections/all.