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Menu Tracker

Menu Tracker: New items from Dairy Queen, Sweetgreen and Panda Express

Plus innovation from Cowboy Chicken, Farmer Boys, Fogo de Chão, Great American Cookies, Joella’s Hot Chicken, Nekter Juice Bar, Next Level Burger, Paris Baguette, Pizza Ranch, Scooter’s Coffee, and Velvet Taco

It can be difficult to accurately describe vegan food made with plant-based meat analogs and non-dairy cheese substitutes without sounding biased against them. But you can’t simply call a non-dairy food “cheese” without modifiers or explanations. Similarly, “plant-based chicken” literally doesn’t make any sense.

Next Level Burger makes it a little easier by calling its chicken substitute chik’n, and the meaning seems clear enough as long as you know it’s a vegan restaurant.

“Plant-based,” in case you’re unfamiliar with the term, which you probably are if you’re reading this, means “vegan” but without the socio-political baggage.

Anyway, Next Level Burger has a bunch of new menu items that are detailed in this gallery. So does Fogo de Chão, which has greatly expanded its Bar Fogo à la carte menu for people who don’t want the whole all-you-can-eat “Churrasco experience.”

In other meaty news, Dairy Queen has a new burger line, and Farmer Boys has a new cheeseburger in Parmesan-crusted sourdough.

Cowboy Chicken is selling tacos now, Pizza Ranch has a sweet chile pizza and Joella’s Hot Chicken has a new spice level that is hotter than “hot,” but not as hot as “Fire-in Da-Hole,” which you apparently have to sign a waiver to try.

Nekter Juice Bar has some peanut-butter-focused items, Paris Baguette has mochi doughnuts, Great American Cookies has a “kitchen sink” treat, Scooter’s Coffee has fruit-and-water “Quenchers,” Panda Express is bringing back its Wok-Fired-Shrimp, Sweetgreen has specials dressed in chimichurri and Velvet Taco’s Weekly Taco Feature is made with mahi mahi. It is still Lent, after all.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiary

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