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> if I visit all 3 Chinese grocery stores in the Seattle area (Asian Food Center in Seattle, Ranch 99 in Shoreline, Jing Jing in Factoria), I could probably get 6 or 7 in total out of 11

Are you sure?

I’m pretty sure you can get all but the Jianshui one (I actually don’t know what this is) at 99 Ranch in San Jose.

The catch is that someone might not know what these various tofus are if they don’t know what they look like uncut and/or they don’t read Chinese.

> The "20 kinds of tofu" you can get in any Chinese grocery stores are often slightly changed variants (i.e. silk, soft, firm, hard tofu are pretty similar)

This is definitely not true at 99 Ranch. There are way more than that.

> Are you sure?

>I’m pretty sure you can get all but the Jianshui one (I actually don’t know what this is) at 99 Ranch in San Jose.

You make a good point. My friend from San Jose always describes himself as being from the Seattle area. Sometimes he calls San Jose “Shoreline Washington” (apparently something locals say)

> They make Tofu taste like meat and looks like meat, it is definitely a big thing and you could search for photos on how close these food look like real meat/fish and the popularity.

That is not tofu, though, that is mock-meat, mock-fish, mock-chicken etc made entirely out of gluten and is highly processed.

Mock-whatever does, indeed, have the texture of and is flavoured according to what it «mocks». Tofu, on the other hand, can't be substantially textured, hence the choice of gluten.

The reason Chinese people would say it taste like meat is not because it "taste" like meat. it taste like what the meat dish is supposed to be. Our brain connects flavor with memory, and Chinese people would immediately connect the sensation with the meat dish they had before, that's why we say it tastes like meat. Gluten, Tofu, Mushrooms, there are many ingredients in Chinese cooking to replicate texture of meat.

"全素斋"/"vegetarian feast" restaurants definitely exist in the US. Buddha Bodai in Manhattan's Chinatown is excellent, even for meat eaters.