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If you haven't heard of Loving Hut, look it up to see if there are any in your area. It is a delicious vegan restaurant, which promotes compassionate and green consumption.
You'll notice on the site that each location has its own custom menu.
If you happen to be lucky to live near one, visit it immediately!
I first heard of Loving Hut when I was taking a trip to NYC and was looking up some good vegan eateries. Loving Hut was highly reviewed and recommended. When I visited it, I realized why.
At the NYC Loving Hut, I tried the spinach quesadilla, crispy burger, and dumplings. All were delectable. Even my carnivorous friends tried it and enjoyed it. The restaurant itself is tiny and has limited seating but that's normal since most places in NYC are small.
Imagine my excitement when I discovered a Loving Hut opened up only a few miles away from my place! Loving Hut in Falls Church opened up around March 2011. Their food is mostly Vietnamese oriented.
My favorite so far is the quiche and the dumplings. They offer a crispy burger here but I prefer the crispy burger in NYC. The one here has a more chicken-y taste. Still very tasty! Their quesadilla is delicious, however they give a relatively small portion.Below is a picture of the spinach (with Daiya cheese) quesadilla and the crispy burger.
One of the best things about my local Loving Hut (and a reason I visit it so frequently) are their desserts. They offer Vegan Treats desserts. Vegan Treats has THE best cakes. I blogged about them here. The Death by Chocolate cake and the Smores cheesecake are my favorites. If you're a guy, you'll most likely love the Peanut Butter Bomb cake. They also have donuts, whoopie pies (yum!), and a large variety of cupcakes, all by Vegan Treats. I'm not crazy about Vegan Treat's cupcakes. It's not as flavorful and sweet as my favorite cupcakes, which are from Bakeshop.
Oh and if you are into bubble teas (and even if you aren't), you MUST try their strawberry bubble tea. It tastes just like a strawberry milkshake and it wonderfully satisfies the sweet craving.
If you discover a favorite dish here, there will most likely be an option to buy the raw/uncooked ingredients to take home and attempt to re-create. Loving Hut in Falls Church has a freezer full of faux meats and seafood and other ingredients they use in their dishes, available for sale to the public. This way you can make more of what you like, however you like it, cheaper!
If I were an entrepreneur in the food industry, opening up a Loving Hut would definitely have been part of my venture.
Loving Hut, Falls Church
Loving Hut, NYC
I have been posting a lot about cupcakes so this will be one of my last posts about it (unless, of course, another cupcake joint that offers vegan cupcakes opens up). But really, who can resist these damn tasty miniature cakes?
The cupcakes pictured above are from Red Velvet Cupcakery. Even though they only have one flavor, "Black Velvet," a.k.a. chocolate, it's very much worth going into one of their two locations in DC to try. Looks like from their site, they're going to be opening up shop in Arlington too! Bakeshop better watch out! Just kidding. Bakeshop is delicious and their cupcakes have their own delicious signature taste.
These chocolate cupcakes are deliciously moist with a medium thickness of chocolate frosting, which is very chocolatey tasting. It definitely is up there as one of my favorite vegan cupcakes. I'd say it's a tie between them and Bakeshop. The difference is that Bakeshop's cupcake are much lighter and fluffier tasting. Bakeshop's frosting is also lighter and more whipped compared to the denser, thicker frosting and cake of Red Velvet Cupcakery's. As a very nice added touch, Red Velvet Cupcakery tops their Black Velvet with colorful sugar sprinkles, which adds a lovely sweet crunch.
In the end, it's all a matter of what you'd prefer biting into. If I had to choose between the two, I'd choose Bakeshop only because they have many more flavors to choose from.
Sprinkles Cupcakes just opened up in Georgetown. This is very close to my work so a couple coworkers walked there and brought back some cupcakes. They have only one vegan option, which is the vegan red velvet.
The frosting was a light cream cheese flavor and there was a fair amount on the cake, although I can always have more frosting. The cupcake itself is a nice size. The top part of the cupcake was disproportionately bigger than the bottom part. I guess this means a larger area to cover with frosting :)
The cake part was pretty good. It was not too light or too dense and it was VERY moist. The cake was a bit meal-y tasting but in a good way (reminded me of childhood). I recommend at least trying it. At $3.50 a cupcake, it's a pretty good price for a nice sized cupcake. AND if anything, better to give them business than stupid Georgetown cupcakes (I went into G-town cupcakes once to ask if they had vegan options and the girl there was short with me and immediately and unsympathetically replied no!). I believe a true bakery can make and accommodate all dietary needs. Thank you, Sprinkles! Now to get you guys to offer more flavors.
Every third Sunday of the month has been deemed 'Vegan Day' at Bakeshop in Arlington, VA. EVERYTHING in the shop is vegan that day. This means there is a lovely variety, which includes my favorite, chocolate ganache topped peanut butter rice krispy treats.
Ten percent of the sales goes to Compassion Over Killing. How generous of Bakeshop :)
The morning usually starts off with their wonderful vegan pancakes. They sometimes have 2 types of batter, plain and nutmeg. When asked what I wanted on it, I chose chocolate chips and pecans. BFF chose blueberries. Both were superb!!!
Afterwards, I bought buckeyes (chocolate, peanut butter balls), rice krispy treats, of course, dark chocolate truffles, and a variety of cupcakes, which included a cream filled (with frosting on top, as well) red velvet. That was definitely the winner of the day. I didn't get any, but they also had apricot cookies and 'crack' (i.e. some sort of buttery, thin, toffee delicious treat that melts in your mouth).
Ideas are being thrown out for what to do on subsequent 'Vegan Days.' I was told that the next one might consist of lunch or dinner and a BYOB! Did someone say mimosas?
The Zpizzas in the DC metro area now offer Daiya cheese. They've been offering it for over a year now. Before Daiya, they offered soy cheese, however it still contained casein. I think they finally realized that didn't qualify it as a vegan pizza. Anyway, Daiya cheese really is the best vegan cheese out there and it tastes great!
If I'm ever craving a vegan pizza (WITH cheese), I order from zpizza. Since my order is usually so complicated (because I substitute almost everything), I order online. They have a great online ordering system. It works well but the people that work at Zpizza don't always (they sometimes don't quite get it right -- be sure to check your pizza before you carry it out).
If you like a lot of toppings, the best thing to do is order the 'Berkeley Vegan' and substitute the toppings on there for what you do want. You get more toppings for your money doing this than you would if you created your own.
My favorite thing to do is order the Berkeley Vegan and substitute the soy crumbles (I don't care for their Gardein brand crumbles since I don't like the taste of sausage), zucchini, and bell peppers for roasted red peppers, pineapples, and avocados. I keep the onions, tomatoes, and mushrooms on it. That's six toppings on a pizza! OH and be sure to substitute the marinara sauce for roasted garlic while telling them to mix some marinara in it. The sauce really makes this pizza!
Be sure to sign up for their mailing list, 'ztribe'. They offer great money saving coupons from time to time.
Update: Veg DC provided a site with a listing of all the vegan pizza offerings in the area.
I discovered this great charity over a year ago and I decided to attend their holiday fundraiser last year with my BFF. I had such a great time, I vowed to attend again this year and that is exactly what I did.
This year, not only did they celebrate their holiday fundraiser but also their 15 year anniversary. This event took place on Saturday, December 4, 7pm in downtown Silver Spring, MD. My roommate, 3 friends, and I arrived at 8:30. The attendees appeared to have doubled from last year (approx. 200 this year vs. 100 last year). The minimum suggested donation was $50 but if you donated $100 or more, you received a Sjaak's box of assorted vegan chocolates. These chocolates are very delicious and gourmet tasting! We combined the donations to take advantage of this offer. Since there was 5 of us that attended, we donated $250 and received 2 boxes of these chocolates.
Sjaak's chocloates (gift with $100 donation)
The event included an all you can eat vegan buffet and all you can drink (alcohol and non-alcohol). I have to mention that their vegan buffet selection was half that of last year's. I'm not sure why this was. I was little disappointed in that aspect since the majority of the offerings consisted of meat alternatives and I don't particularly care much for those. There was vegan chicken and meatloaf. There was a variety of veggie sushi rolls but we arrived too late for that. There was also hummous and pita.
'Chicken'
'Meatloaf'
Hummous and Pita
Pasta
The dessert assortment was not disappointing. There was dessert from Bakeshop, Dama Bakery, and another place I'm unsure of, where their large anniversary cake came from. Oh, and I cannot forget to mention the great chocolate fondue bar, which included fruits and cookies to dip in the melted dark chocolate.
One of the volunteers brought about 3 bowl-fuls of these chocolate chip cookies
Chocolate fondue
Damas Bakery's moist chocolate cake
Bakeshop's assortment of cupcakes
Anniversary cake
The speakers and presentations were both entertaining and touching and did not disappoint. Wendy Rieger, an anchorwoman, from NBC4 spoke. She mentioned doing stories of animal cruelty and the public's increasing awareness of it. Stated that with technology, people have been empowered with exposing more of the truth and that this was very important. Document everything with video and upload it to the Internet. Create an uproar and outrage and the media WILL follow!
Another great speaker was Carol Leifer, a vegan comedian, author, and writer for Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm. She had some funny jokes and mentioned how they have 6 rescue dogs and a couple rescue cats. A funny thing I remember her saying is that she saw someone wearing a t-shirt that said, 'Over the limit, but not a hoarder.' Haha!
The COK staff put together a presentation for their year in review, which included their accomplishments. One major accomplishment included having a restaurant chain, Freshii, commit to offering vegan meat alternatives in their burritos (vegan chicken and steak). It also showed some photos of animals in inhumane conditions, which is always a tearjerker.
A fun thing the staff does is come up with the top 3 best love and hate emails to read to the audience. The love-hate emails were read out loud alternatively. A female staff member read the love emails and a male staff member read the hate emails. A video of one of the 'love' emails being read out loud is below...
Update: Still trying to figure out how to upload this video (it's a very large file).
I wish I would have recorded at least one of the hate emails. The guy who read it got into character so it was very entertaining although the actual emails itself were very infuriating to hear (the sheer ignorance and hate of some people is just disgusting -- the staff says those types of letters simply motivate them to work harder :)). The hate emails included how farmers actually treat their animals so well, even better than family pets. Also, if animals weren't meant to be eaten, then why did they evolve to taste so good and why can't they be smart and strong enough to pry themselves from their cages. And have we ever heard of something called the food chain? Humans didn't get to be so smart just so we could eat tofu. Oh and how they hope we would all just drop dead. WOW! Again, the sheer stupidity of some people is just so frustrating!
One of the best part of the event is the silent auction. I ended up 'winning' a basket of goods last year, which consisted of 'Skinny Bastard' (a spin off of 'Skinny Bitch'). These books are HILARIOUS!! I really wanted my ex-bf to read it and he did end up reading a few pages but eventually gave up (as he did most things...sigh). The basket also consisted of a few vegan candy bars and a vegan powder supplement for men, which I ended up giving away.
UNFORTUNATELY, by the time I made my way to the silent auction, they announced it would be ending in 5 minutes and so I didn't have time to bid on anything. I was in the middle of writing in a bid when the sheet was pulled away from me :( They said my bid wouldn't count. When we arrived, we immediately began eating and during eating, the speakers and presentations began and so I wanted to wait until that ended before I went to the middle of the room to bid, however they ended the auction right after the speakers. Needless to say, I was highly disappointed but I did take note of the stuff I was interested in so I could look it up on the Internet to purchase on my own. There was these beautiful, touching art prints I had my eye on. Amanda Moeckel created these (click on 'galleries,' then 'liberation'). Today, I emailed her asking for a quote on these two prints...
'Dont Forget Me'
'The One Forgotten'
Silent auction items
Very cute centerpieces also included in the silent auction
Something seems a bit wrong with my camera as it makes the room looks more expanded and longer than in reality. Although, this will give you an idea about the number of attendees.
My friends and I :)
