If you were under 25 in Manhattan in the 90s, you likely know and love the Dojo soy burger dinner — which is no longer available.
Dojo Restaurant NYC seems to have closed its last location, and there are about a billion Dojo soy burger mentions online. About 550,337 come from me, and I find the rest looking for a Dojo soy burger recipe.
Incidentally, Dojo (on Mercer) is the first NYC restaurant I took my late husband to on his first visit to New York in 2006. He ordered soup, weirdly.
Personally, I got my Dojo soy burger with cheddar. The whole thing was like $3.95, and in addition to the hot and crispy/crunchy soy patty, it had brown rice, salad, and a huge soup cup of Dojo miso dressing.
Over the years, I’ve sought out the Dojo soy burger recipe or something close, and I keep finding examples of a different Dojo favorite — the hijiki tofu burger. Which is great, but everyone is looking for Dojo’s soy burger recipe, and until today, I’ve never found anything close to it. Just the hijiki tofu version.
As an aside, with respect to the Dojo miso dressing (a carrot ginger dressing), my cousin Kari said this carrot dressing was a strong match for Dojo’s. And then I saw in the comments, this one from 2013:
oh my god it only took me 15 years but i finally found the recipe that tastes just like DOJO’s carrot ginger dressing! i did not modify anything except i used my blender for the whole process instead of using a food processor & switching to a blender. this recipe is simple & amazing! i am buying mason jars today to make them for my friends who miss DOJO’s. seriously people make this & eat it up! YUM!
So as of last September (2020) when I last put out feelers for a Dojo soy burger recipe, there was still nothing. When I saw the post come up in “On This Day,” I searched again — and this time found a Dojo soy burger recipe attempt!
The recipe is in the form of a YouTube video:
At the 0:56 mark, an ingredients list appears on the screen – and it’s short:
- soybeans;
- water;
- frying oil;
- soy sauce, and;
- breadcrumbs (I feel like it was panko possibly).
So I raced on over to Amazon and got next-day soybeans to try to make these ASAP:
Even though I haven’t tried the Dojo soy burger recipe embedded above, I had to blog about it because I know I’m not the only person who would die for one more Dojo soy burger dinner. I’ll update when I try it and tell you if the recipe works, and how it stacks up. And if you’re sitting on one, please speak up!
