Love Meat The Vegan Way
30 Oct 2016, by Sabriena Loh Li Ling
Located along an elegant row of Peranakan shophouses in the heart of Joo Chiat in Singapore, Loving Hut is a vegan restaurant that’s a seven-minute stroll from Dakota MRT. The route is a visual treat. Along the way, one is serenaded by old bungalows, eclectic stores and the audible harmonies of a nearby Chinese opera troupe.
We spot the restaurant from across the street. A cheerful yellow background with the words "Loving Hut" emblazoned in red hangs just above the entrance. The interior has touches of white, green and yellow overlaid on a light oak finish. The use of glass panels gives the interior a cosy, yet spacious feel.
* Cover Photo: Exterior of Loving Hut, Singapore. Photo courtesy of En Teen, Loving Hut SG
The words ‘Vegan & Love’ draw customers’ attention and makes a great conversation starter. Photo courtesy of En Teen, Loving Hut SG
Seated at a table near the kitchen, Mr Koh Chin Mong, chief of the Loving Hut branch in Singapore, welcomes us. He works in the banking industry, but is constantly making the time to improve the menu and quality standards of the restaurant.
Mr Koh Chin Mong (left) poses for a picture with one of his staff members.
LOVING ACROSS THE WORLD
Now a worldwide chain, Loving Hut was established in 2008 by Supreme Master Ching Hai, a spiritual teacher. As I flip through the menu, I ask Koh what they take into consideration when it comes to curating dishes for a Singaporean audience.
“In Singapore, we offer quite a number of Southeast Asian dishes. We're a bit more cosmopolitan, so we cater to the international crowd. So we have a bit more Western food and Asian food. Some are sourced from Peranakan culture and Chinese food…and then we fuse them!”
Koh recommends the restaurant’s take on local hawker eats. My friends and I decide to share an orh luak (oyster omelette), char kway teow (fried flat-rice noodles) and laksa, a Peranakan noodle soup dish. Other famous local dishes reproduced here are masak buah keluak (a go-to Peranakan dish which normally contains chicken immersed in a spiced curry) and kway chap (a Teochew dish of thick rice sheets in soy sauce stock usually accompanied by pig offal).
GOING “GLOCAL”
Already, the team at Loving Hut wins me over with their innovative business sense and knowledge of the local audience’s preferred tastes. Over in Brooklyn, New York, the branch there recreates 100% vegan alternatives of Japanese, Mediterranean, Malaysian and NY-inspired cuisines.
At Lake Klopein, Austria, the branch serves up vegan “Wiener Harmonie” or Vienna-style schnitzel. The restaurant in Peru also features their own twist on anticucho (Quechua for “cut stew meat”) and serves “Anticucho Veggi” on skewers.
COMPASSIONATE LIVING
While waiting for our food, Koh explains that the team at Loving Hut aims to encourage people to cut down on meat consumption, which reaps huge benefits for both the climate and our own bodies. They make it their mission to promote what they deem as “compassionate living”.
“We don't need to kill to sustain ourselves,” Koh affirms. In fact, the vegan mock meat that is served in Singapore’s Loving Hut branch is sourced from their factory in Taiwan. Koh says, "As vegans, we don't [consume] dairy, eggs or honey. I'm not a Buddhist, but we practice the five precepts: we don't kill, no sexual misconduct, we speak the truth, we don't take intoxicants and no stealing.”
One of the restaurant’s beverages, ”Morning Glory” is a concoction of soy and orange.
Midway, our drinks arrive. For a person who prefers alcohol to a glass of ice cold water any day, it surprises me that my taste buds can't discern the difference between a Heineken and the Malt White vegan beer I ordered, which does not contain a single drop of alcohol. I take another swig before asking Koh what he thinks of the increasing interest in veganism. He replies that it’s all about developing awareness.
He brings up the story of billionaire Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, who invested $330,000 into the making of a lab burger that consists mainly of “cultured beef”. This “cultured beef” is 100% plant-based and was first cultivated by professor Mark Post of Maastricht University. New Harvest, a research institute, funded Post's research with $50,000, which was then backed by Brin's family foundation soon after.
Similarly, Beyond Meat is another company that fights for the same cause, and is dedicated to replacing animal protein with plant protein. Read more about their vision and #TheBeyondBurger, among other products, on their blog.
But what exactly drives Loving Hut to do what they do with food? And why veganism?
LEAVE THE COWS ALONE
“I think the way we cultivate our milk and the way we treat our cows is so different from the old days…you should go and watch Cowspiracy.”
Cowspiracy is a feature-length environmental documentary by filmmakers Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn. The film explores and reveals how animal agriculture leads to devastating effects on the environment. It debunks the marketing myth propagated by farms, which makes farms seem like “an oasis for cows”, who are often mistreated and over-milked. The film also questions the authenticity of what is ‘sustainable’, a trigger word we frequently see on food packaging, which influences us to be quick to purchase products.
“The poultry industry is also very cruel,” Koh continues. “Male chicks, you know, once they're hatched, they will be [rejected] because they are of no economic value. Within hours, they are ground alive. After that, the female chicks don't have a good life either because they will also have their beaks cut; force fed with growth hormones and all that—it's terrible. So that's why we don't want this anymore.”
ALT-LAKSA
An “alternative” vegan laksa topped with shredded cucumber and pea shoots
He lights up as our laksa arrives. Surprisingly, it smells just like… laksa. I volunteer to be the first taste-tester. By the time I take my first spoonful, I am already gawking at my friends and at Koh himself, who is now grinning from ear to ear.
"Good ah! The real laksa, you know. Not the 'geh' [fake] laksa. Except there's no hum," Koh explains. Hum is Hokkien for cockles. When it comes to laksa, cockles are considered to be the icing on the cake.
My friend Nat pipes in. "I... I can't believe there's no egg," he says, referring to the orh luak that's just been served as well.
A recreation of local orh luak; the oysters are replaced with mushrooms in this dish.
We find out that the base of the orh luak is made from "scrambled tofu", which sounds scrumptious even if we are meant to eat it on its own. Koh tells us that it is actually vegan "cheesy tofu". We notice the slight, yellowish tinge.
"Turmeric!” Koh exclaims. “We try not to use dyes. If you see red, it's probably beetroot or carrot."
A plate of vegan char kway teow completes the meal.
PEACE BEGINS ON YOUR PLATE
—a Loving Hut tagline
As we eat, I ask about the competition Loving Hut faces from other vegetarian restaurants.
“Our target audience is non-vegetarian. So the real competition is from the non-vegetarian restaurants, not the vegetarian restaurants. I am not afraid of competitors because they're helping us to achieve this world-vegan, world-peace mission.”
Koh tells us how Loving Hut remains dedicated to imitating tastes that appeal most to a non-vegetarian crowd. The chefs rely on common condiments like onion and garlic to spice up the restaurant’s dishes, which suit the local Singaporean’s taste more.
“I am using exactly what the [non-vegetarian] cooks use so we can achieve as close a taste—except it has no meat. Even the mock meat that we use, we make sure it is pure, vegan soya protein.
“[Nowadays] we've got very good quality vegan cheese, vegan meat, vegan chocolate. Vegan cakes!"
I spot blueberry cheese pie on the dessert menu. They also serve orh nee (Teochew yam paste), a childhood favourite of mine.
Loving Hut Singapore sells a range of vegan goodies – from pumpkin crackers to vegan chocolate wafers and nori sheets.
Photo courtesy of En Teen, Loving Hut SG