Not Sure If Its Love?

I went to Loving Hut tonight on El Cajon Blvd. with a friend of mine and I cant say that I loved it. It is an all vegan restaurant. I think the concept is great! Be Veg, Go Green, Save The Planet.

The food was just okay to me. Since I have only been a vegan for two days I am not sure if I want to jump in and try the soy chicken or the soy ham. I had soy cheese this week and I wanted to throw up! I would rather have no cheese at all then soy cheese. Cheese is something I can eat as a meal with a baguette and wash down with a bottle of wine. I can’t eat faux cheese. It’s just not happening. With that said I am not sure I am enjoying the whole faux meat thing either. Baby steps people! I can do tofu, legumes (beans), veggies, and whole grains. That’s all great. Soy shrimp…I’ll pass thank you.

What I did LOVE is that every item on the menu had a picture with it. You can check out the full menu here. It really helped when ordering and everything looked so good on the menu. I think it took us 20 minutes to decide what to order partly because it all looked great and partly because we didn’t want to make the wrong choice.

We started with the Loving Hut Special Rolls which was Vermicelli, mint, soy paste dip with salted bean curd and pineapple sauce with peanuts. This was pretty good although I have had better spring rolls before. I think I even make a pretty good spring roll myself. Although I did seem to finish them off without any problem.

We also had a small house salad which was huge and came with a ton of lettuce. It would have been nice if it was half the amount of lettuce and more vegetables. It was okay, lots left over and not good enough to take home.

The Lemongrass Soy Chicken was recommended to me and looked like real chicken in the picture but I played it safe and went with the Lemongrass Tofu. Fried tofu, fresh lemongrass, garlic, tomatoes, cucumbers, cilantro and mix seasoning aside brown rice with sesame seeds. I didn’t love the texture of the tofu. I have had friend tofu before but this was really hard on the outside. I think it was deep fried not pan fried? The flavors were minimal and nothing spectacular. Again I seemed to finish it but not sure if that had anything to do with:

1. I am vegan for the week and pretty hungry by the time dinner rolls around or B. If I enjoyed it? I think I am leaning towards A.

My friend ordered the Cherish Green Bean with carrots with a light ginger sauce and brown rice. This was pretty good. The green beans were fresh and crispy.

I think I would give this place another try. Maybe I didn’t order the right thing and maybe there is some incredible dish I missed. Or maybe this whole vegan thing is pretty foreign to me and my palate is being tormented with something new? Who knows? It wasn’t awful but wasn’t my new favorite that’s for sure. My friend did mention that when she doesn't want to eat a lot for dinner she will go to Loving Hut. Thinking she said that because she didn't really enjoy the food therefore she won't eat much? Not such a good thing.

One thing we noticed as we were leaving. Every single person in the restaurant, young and old, was as skinny as can be. Hummm… that’s one reason to go back right?

Loving Hut

1905 El Cajon Blvd. San Diego, CA. 92104

619-683-9490