Loving Hut in Portland!

A few weeks ago Ian and I were driving down SW Jefferson (doing something for Oasis, but I don't remember what) and out the passenger window, what did a see?

A Loving Hut.  A LOVING HUT.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the international chain of vegan restaurants, go here, here, here and here.

Really do follow those links, it's fascinating stuff, albeit a little off putting.

Ian and I first discovered Loving Hut on our first trip to Seoul.  I remember that we looked around for one of the restaurants (which I had found via HappyCow), but then gave up.  That might have been a different trip entirely.  In fact, that might have been Busan.  I don't have a reliable memory.  We'll just say it was Seoul.

We eventually found the restaurant and it became a stand by for us when we were in the city.  We never made it over to the buffet, which I hear beats any of the "menued" locations.

We knew that there were a couple in the US (I actually only thought they were in California, but the website showed me otherwise), but we didn't expect to drive by one in our city.  It was a little surreal, since we associate Loving Hut with Korea.

The Loving Hut on SW Jefferson is in it's soft opening, so we decided to go there for lunch today.  We were so impressed.  

Sterile and simple, just like we remember.  No worries, Supreme Master TV is prominently featured, just like in Korea.   Here are a couple of posts that feature Loving Hut from Everybody Jecheon:  1, 2.

Since they are still in their soft opening, they gave us free sweet and sour soup to try.  I'm not usually a fan of sweet and sour because it's usually too much of one of the flavors.  But, I really enjoyed this.

"Ham salad."  Ian and I shared this as an appetizer.  Lettuce, crispy vermicelli noodles and soy ham.  The whole thing was seasoned with an awesome salty, vegetable seasoning that reminded me of this broth powder we used on basically everything in Korea.

Carrot cake.  It was super moist, dense and literally full of carrots.  It had raisins in it, but it was so good I didn't mind.

I didn't get any photos of our main dishes.  I was too caught up in everything.  Ian ordered a sweet and sour stir fry dish (which I can't remember the cute name for) and I got "Golden Beauty," fried protein covered in a dried lemongrass and chili mixture.  We shared both dishes.  I think the "Golden Beauty" was better, but I'm just not stoked about stir fry dishes that feature pineapple.

We'll definitely be back, the food rocks, even if the organization behind the curtain is a little questionable.