Ive been a vegetarian for nine years. I very quickly learned that you can tell the quality of a restaurant by the type of vegetation dishes it has. 'meat substitution' is lazy and generally means a poor chef.

As a note - many traditional curries are vegetarian, which isn't surprising as India has a long history of vegetarianism. Paneer curries have been around for at least a few hundred years with reasonable evidence for a few thousand. Whilst it may be a substitute for meat in a westernised 'x tikka masala', and half decent Indian restaurant should have some established dishes designed around the paneer.