Loving Hut

There's a new, all-vegan restaurant on South street called Loving Hut, an international vegan fast food chain founded by the animal, planet, and veg-loving, cultish leader Supreme Master Ching Hai.

Like most Loving Huts in the United States and around the world, the South Street Philly outpost of Loving Hut has a television dialed to Supreme Master TV at all times, but don't worry, you'd never notice Supreme Master Ching Hai on the boob tube in the back of the restaurant willing your money into her bank account unless you speak Taiwanese (I believe?), or someone told you about the woman behind Loving Hut.Please don't let this stop you from eating at Loving Hut. Your all-American neighbor two doors down undoubtedly has crazier notions than anyone who follows the Supreme Master, plus the food at Loving Hut is not bad — it's a known fact that cults and religious groups make some of the best vegan and vegetarian food around; if you ever have a chance to eat at a Krishna temple, I highly recommend it — and the Philly Loving Hut owners are super sweet.

Loving Hut serves bubble tea and food with a pan-Asian bent, but also offers up Western items like burgers and chicken nuggets. Each location has a similar, but different menu, letting the owners decide what to sell in their market. Unfortunately, the Philly location is working with a severely limited menu, whereas other US locations have menus two to four times larger. Yes, Philly vegans, you are missing out on vegan corn dogs, vegan pho, vegan teriyaki kabobs, and vegan wonton soup.Summer rolls filled with tofu, vegan ham, rice noodles, jicama, carrot, cucumber and lettuce are just as good as any summer roll you can find at any restaurant, although I'd love to see some aromatic herbs like basil, mint, or cilantro thrown in the mix. The thick, sweet peanut sauce comes pre-made out of a container. The Fluffly Quinoa salad is more of a greens and vegetable salad than a quinoa salad, with only a small portion of quinoa tossed with mixed greens, shredded carrots, cucumber, bell peppers, cilantro, and a light peanut and lime dressing. Thin slices of soy chicken top the salad adding a bit of protein that I so often miss when eating salads out. All ingredients were extremely fresh, and the salad was made to order.Golden Cheesy Bread will certainly fulfill any vegan's cheesy, greasy, salty, carby cravings. Seeded baguette slices are topped with a vegan mayonnaise spread studded with vegan ham, vegan cheese, and scallions, then popped into a toaster oven. A little too yummy, actually. Glad there were only four pieces to the order.Guru Curry Rice is a mild Indian curry studded with potatoes, onions, carrots, tofu, and soy protein serves with an attractive, purplish 5-grain rice and side of broccoli. Since this is a fast food chain in theory (many Loving Huts are in mall food courts), the curry is pre-made and gets a go in the microwave, and the side of broccoli comes from the refrigerator. Rice comes out of a steamer like at any restaurant, sit-down or fast food. Even with the microwaving, this dish still tasted fresh. You'd only be so lucky to find such a dish in a mall food court.
The vegan carrot cake was the only disappointing item I tried. Tasting like lemon cake rather than a spicy carrot cake, the cake was moist, but not in a good way — like it could have been baked longer. The sprinkled sugar topping also tasted a little off. A sugar substitute, perhaps?

Dining in at Loving Hut can be uncomfortable since it's often empty and the owners keep the back room in the dark, and the front room only lit by a few of the available lights. There is no music, just the sound of Supreme Master TV coming from the back room. The only customers I saw on multiple visits were South Street slackers taking advantage of the two computers at the front of the restaurant.

With a limited menu, a dining room that feels dead, and a South Street location that sees mostly tourists and Hot Topic teenagers, I'm just not sure about the longevity of Loving Hut. I'm most definitely pro cult vegan dining, but wish Loving Hut had opened in Center City were there are thousands of office workers who would certainly fill the seats at lunch for healthy, affordable, vegan eats.

Loving Hut
742 South Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147
215-454-2898
Sun-Thurs: 11am-9pm
Fri-Sat: 11am-10pm

Le Shio

The Pan Asian restaurant, Le Shio, opened up in the Fairfax Shopping Center on Concord pike back in January, so I convince a friend to meet me there for lunch a couple months after the restaurant's opening. I haven't seen her since. Hope she's not mad at me about the dining choice.

Dark and minimal describes the sleek, industrial black interior of Le Shio. A bar sits off in the front corner, a low wall bisects the middle, and a sushi bar resides on the back wall. Even in the daytime, Le Shio keeps the lights dimmed down low on their food.

The menu is extensive and spans many Asian cuisines, so making up your mind on what to order may be difficult. Most items have a vegetable or tofu option, and there's even a "wok self creation" where you choose the protein, vegetables, and sauce.
A 24-piece vegetarian maki sushi platter for $11 sounds too good to be true. And it is. The platter lacks the variety you find on standard vegetable sushi platters. You're given three maki rolls, each cut into eight pieces.

You'd do better ordering three vegetable maki rolls of your choice than having the choice be made for you. The platter had an avocado, cucumber asparagus and radish roll; avocado and cucumber roll; and oshinko roll. Order those three rolls a la cart for only $10.

Until now, I thought there was no way to make bad vegetable sushi, but Le Shio managed to do it. The maki rolls were loosely rolled, misshapen, and the rice on the outside of the nori was falling off.
Trying to up the fancy factor, Le Shio puts mixed greens in the Japanese carrot and ginger dressed salad. I prefer the crunch of classic iceberg in this situation with such a weighty dressing.
I have no idea what flavor the blue-green colored wrappers on the Chinese steamed vegetable dumplings is supposed to be. My guess is that these are not made in house (why would anyone make blue-green dumplings?), but are frozen. The chewy, hard edges also point to the dumplings being frozen.

Service at Le Shio with multiple servers tending to our table was atrocious. The worst of it was when one server actually swooped in and tried to wrestle the chopsticks out of my hand (no exaggeration) as I was packing up a to-go box, saying that they'd pack up the leftovers. No, it's too late. You lost your chance while you were tending some other table. Also, do not touch me.

Not impressed with my first visit, I waited about a month and stopped in for takeout to avoid a wrestling match, and to be able to see my food in the daylight. I was tempted to make my own wok creation, but those never come out as well as imagined, so decided to get pad Thai as a litmus test. It's not on the menu, but you can order pad Thai with tofu. Besides the standard mung bean sprouts, you'll also get a bevy of vegetables : carrots, broccoli, celery, mushrooms, baby corn, snap peas, and zucchini.

Le Shio's pad is one of the blandest I've had. If you like pad Thai funked up with fish sauce, you will not find it here. If you like pad Thai sweet and tangy, you won't find it here, either. It's noodle-y and Asian-esque, and that's about it. Now, there's nothing unpleasant about Le Shio's pad Thai — noodles, vegetables and tofu are cooked well — it's just bland.
The Balinese mango salad is advertised as coming with spicy chili dressing, but the dressing was only sweet.

It seems as though Le Shio is taking some shortcuts in the kitchen and dumbing down flavors. Reviews out there already are mixed with some in love and others not so much. My guess is that Le Shio has found favor with those who are comfortable with Asian cuisine only when it is toned down. This a strategy that will probably work for Le Shio.

Le Shio
Fairfax Shopping Center
2303 Concord Pike, Wilmington, DE 19803
302-888-0145
Sun-Thurs: 11am-10pm
Fri-Sat: 11am-11pm