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Hotel Icon experiments with the Impossible

Richard Hatter, general manager of the Hotel Icon in Hong Kong, has been leery of beef since a recent outbreak of mad cow disease in the United Kingdom. When he eats out with his family, he usually orders vegetarian. So he was intrigued when he heard about the plant-based Impossible Burger, which is available in more than 1,400 U.S. restaurants in the U.S.

Hong Kong's Hotel Icon is serving the plant-based meat alternative Impossible Burger.
Hong Kong’s Hotel Icon is serving the plant-based meat alternative Impossible Burger.

“I reached out to [California-based] Impossible Foods,” Hatter recalled. “They were very hard to convince that we should have the product here.” Yet he ultimately was persuasive.

Icon, a research and training hotel owned by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, became the first hotel outside the U.S. to launch the burger. It’s offered at the hotel’s Green restaurant at HK$140 plus 10% service charge (about US$19.60), less than the grass-fed beef burger at HK$198 plus 10% service charge (US$27.60) “in order to prompt trial,” Hatter said. It’s served with onions and pickles and sweet potato fries on a vegetarian bun and can be loaded with additional ingredients such as fried egg, avocado or cheese.

The Impossible Burger is available at Hong Kong restaurants and is to be rolled out to other city hotels.

The semi-autonomous Chinese city leads Asia in per capita beef consumption, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Foreign Agricultural Service. Hatter sees the plant-based burger targeted more to meat lovers than vegetarians. “The idea is to create a more sustainable alternative to conventional ground beef,” he said. “Our customers are always curious to try something different, original and refreshing.”

At a preview launch event May 14, the hotel hosted six area chefs who created dishes using the plant-based food. The entrees included baked meatballs, tandoori kebab, samosas and pan-fried Thai country sausage. The guests, “a young crowd of early adopters,” a spokeswoman said, gave high marks to the burgers, samosas and kebabs but said the wontons were just OK. “Maybe the batter was too thick?”

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