What's love got to do with it? Restaurant review of Loving Hut

Restaurant: Loving Hut
Location: 516 Barber Lane, Milpitas CA and 165 University Avenue, Palo Alto CA
Style of cuisine: Vegan
Price: $6.95 - $9.95 (lunch menu)
Vegetarian options: You should hold your birthday party here
Website: Loving Hut

How does one even attempt to explain the Loving Hut? It's a restaurant, a cake shop, the largest Tofurky distributor on the west coast and a recruiting station for Supreme Master TV (whatever that is). An enormous, neon "Loving Hut" sign that is supposed to hang outside the restaurant is nailed to the ceiling inside the restaurant instead. It's one part Wonka chocolate factory (where up is down) and one part Buddhist temple.

See, the Loving Hut has a philosophy and that philosophy is veganism. Throughout the restaurant there are pictures of Richard Gere and Reese Witherspoon, their faces hanging above a caption that reads,

"These smart, beautiful, talented people are vegetarian. Why aren't you?"

If you don't mind a restaurant that has the ambiance of an Army recruiting station then you will probably like the Loving Hut.

One of the first things you'll notice about the Loving Hut as you walk through its glass doors (other than the two large TVs tuned to Supreme Master TV and the pictures of Richard Gere) is that it's actually refreshing to visit a restaurant that has a theory about food. Most restaurants seem to operate on the theory "you probably won't come back here anyway so we can treat you however we want". But the Loving Hut is serious about veganism and tries to meet all the needs of its vegan clientele; offering a full service bakery and a variety of hard to find vegan items. A perfect example is this cake, made completely out of vegetables:



Mmmm... Vegetables.

Apparently vegetables don't always come with frosting on them. Here is the bland potato soup that starts off your meal:



It's not something I'd write home to Mom about, but it's serviceable. I liked the water-based stock. It didn't seem to have any thickeners added to it, which gave me hope for the rest of the meal.

Next I had the Queens Lunch. The menu describes it as "white soy protein, onion and garlic, pan-fried in our house special sauce, served with rice". The soy protein was really outstanding. It had a nice, chewy consistency and the flavor was extremely delicate. The flavor mainly came from the sautéed onions, which were a thing of beauty. Here is a picture of the Queens Lunch which makes the onions look like they were run over by a truck (but, really, they were delicious):



If you've tried faux-meat before, you know there's extreme danger in allowing someone that does not eat meat to attempt to simulate the flavor of meat. Vegan chefs sometimes throw smoke flavoring into the mix, in a vain attempt to impart "meatiness". I did a little research into the matter and it turns out that the primary ingredients in smoke flavoring are yuck and gross. Smoke flavoring is so far from the taste of meat that it would have a better chance trying to taste like Liza Minnelli. Luckily, Loving Hut does not make this mistake and instead allows the natural flavors of the ingredients to come through. This gives the Queens Lunch a truly unique flavor.

Loving Hut also attempts a number of signature dishes from cuisines around the world: curry, chow mein, pho, pad thai and spaghetti are all present on the menu. Here is the Singapore Curry Mi Fun:



This was a really fun dish. The noodles were extremely light, ample curry had been applied, and very little oil was used in the preparation. This gave the dish a strong curry flavor.



There are so many great things to write about Loving Hut that I am reluctant to tell you about Supreme Master TV, for fear that it will color your perception. Here is what Supreme Master TV wants you to know:

Money is useless.
House is useless.
Power is useless.
Everybody will be gone. So we do what we can to make people realize that. We have to save the only planet that we have, and the most beautiful one that we know.

If you can handle eating at a place that thinks your house is useless (how did they know I live in an Eichler?) then you should give Loving Hut a little love.

Refrigerator rating: 8 yums (out of a possible 10)