Loving Hut, Victoria Park

Arghhh, just came on to do a new post and realised that this one was saved as a draft and never published. I’ll pop this up and another one will be very soon to come….

Before I continue on my backlog rampage, I just wanted to take a moment to say a big THANK YOU to all the folks who have nominated me for awards in the last couple of months. At this stage, I haven’t formally accepted any on my blog. As you can see, I’m having enough trouble just keeping up with my own posts at the moment! But I wanted to say how grateful I am to be nominated – I never thought when I started this blog earlier this year that I would have so many wonderful followerss from all over the world who would take the time to read my ramblings. ❤

Onto the next eats.

We had some time to kill while we had a window seal replaced on our van, and thought – what better way to kill it than with food? Enter Loving Hut.

Loving Hut is a chain of vegan restaurants, with locations all over the world! While offering mostly Asian style cuisine, each restaurant tends to have their own style and ‘specialties’, with the common goal of serving affordable food that encourages a peaceful and harmonious lifestyle.

We visited last year and enjoyed the raw mango wraps we had so much that we wanted to go back and try something else. They have a range of hot foods (curries, veg dishes, etc) and raw foods, but this time, Billy couldn’t resist the lure of a hot pie. He went with the ‘Aussie’.

This was a good mock up of a meaty pie, with a chewy tvp based filling. The top was kind of strange – not a flaky pastry but as though it had been cooked in a sandwich press – but still delicious! We are not entirely sure what the Aussie flavour of a pie is supposed to be – I kind of pictured egg and bacon, but there was none of that in sight. Regardless, it was yum.

I resisted my urge to get a pie too, as I had my eye on a piece of quiche in the cabinet.

Yum! This was a lovely version of a quiche, full of kale and topped with some tomato and a slice of Notzarella. The pastry was great too, and there was the option of having a gluten free crust if desired too.

Last visit, most dishes were offered with a side salad. This time, they had introduced a salad bar to the cafe, where there were about five or six different salads that you could choose from or mix and match. I’m not sure how I felt about this. I liked having the options of different salads, though I wished you could pick some to come out on your plate with your meal. Instead, you had to purchase a salad container which you could fill up as you pleased. I suppose there needs to be some kind of portion control. It sort of felt like being in the 90’s back at Sizzler or Pizza Hut, and the salad bar was in a strange position over near the window. Anyway…

I can’t remember what each salad was, I got a little of everything. There was a pumpkin quinoa one, a pineapple and tempeh one, one with tofu and eggplant and I think some sort of chickpea kale salad. Anyway, they were all nice, and I have to admit I enjoyed being able to taste so many different salads rather than just a standard side green one.

Now, the moment we had been waiting for. We had spotted the sundaes on the menu on our way in, and there was no way these were going to escape our grasp. We ordered one berry and one cookies and cream one to share.

I think our eyes were a bit bigger than our tummies here, and one would have really been enough. As much as I want to say we liked the berry one better, it was all about the cookies and cream, with the layer of crushed oreos. The berry one was okay, but the berries were all frozen – I think it would have been far nicer with fresh or at least thawed ones.

The softserve was great, the sauces were that cheap sugary style, and I wasn’t a huge fan of the sweet coconut whipped cream on top. It sure satisfied some sweet cravings, but it wasn’t the greatest sundae in the world. To each their own though!

I found it disappointing that they had reduced their already tiny mini-mart to only a few shelf items and a refrigerator/freezer. I had intended to pick up a few things, including some Cheezly, but they were no longer on offer. They have quite a few cold items – their own pies, Tofutti cream cheeses and icecreams, Sweet and Sara marshmallows (which I am still yet to try) and Notzarella, but it’s definitely less than last time. They didn’t disappoint with their range of cakes at the counter though, and while we intended to take some back to Nanna and Grandads for dessert, after our sundaes we couldn’t face another sweet thing.

Loving Hut is definitely worth a visit, the food is nice and the staff are nicer. They have a restaurant nearby in Vic Park which is open for dinners too, though I’ve never been. Will have to add it to the list for next time.

Loving Hut
366 Albany Highway, Victoria Park
Mon-Fri – 11.30am-2.30pm
Sat-Sun – 10am-4.30pm