Another
restaurant review? Yes! Because everyone loves new places to eat and
pictures of food seem to lure people to read blog entries. I know how to market to my audience. But an important part of all of these
restaurant reviews is the fact that a lot of these places are relatively
inexpensive. For these cafés or
restaurants that we go to, we are just as full leaving after a meal as we would
be leaving a typical omnivore restaurant (Olive Garden, Red Robin, etc.,
etc.,). It’s good info to know since
everybody and their mother seems to ask vegans, “Oh, I’d go vegan but it’s sooooo
expensive to do!” These are typically
the people who also eat out 4-5 times a week because they don’t feel like
making meals at home. So, do you love
to eat out but have only $20 left to last you until tomorrow? Go to one of these places for a filling meal
and you’ll go to bed with a happy stomach.
This entry featuring Loving Heart is no different.
My wife and
I went to Loving Heart last week to celebrate her graduating a 2-year college
program. Out of all the places we
could’ve gone, Loving Heart was at the top of her list. I’m super glad it was, too.
Once we
made it past the endless expressway traffic and the side streets that were no
better, it was a matter of locating the actual building the restaurant was
in. If you blink, you’re going to miss
it, but maybe that has more to do with me being blind than not seeing the sign.
Hm. The restaurant is a hop, skip, and
a jump away from Lake Michigan and it’s just a few blocks away from Urban
Vegan. Go to Loving Heart in the
afternoon, walk around the lakefront, and then hit up Urban Vegan for dinner!
Anyway. The interior is pleasant, warm, and
inviting. Once you directly go inside,
there is a wall on the right that has a bunch of famous vegans and facts about
going vegan. Directly next to the
posters is the counter and across from the counter, against the left wall, are
a few tables. There is a small divider
after the tables that somewhat separates another dining area. After scanning the menu we placed our order
and waited for the woman behind the counter to call us for our food. At 5pm, it wasn’t that busy so we were able
to order and eat pretty quickly.
It was
nearly impossible to decide what to eat because everything sounded so
good! I hate it when that happens. And like most of our trips out, we pretty
much starved ourselves so we could gorge on the food there. We ordered two appetizers, two drinks, and
three main meals all for about $40. If
you’re going alone, it’ll probably be about $20 – less if you don’t order a
drink. How sweet is that!
I ordered a
banana mango smoothie, which is both gluten and nut free and quite good. My wife had a hot cinnamon and ginger tea
latte. For you fellow coffee drinkers,
they do have both hot and iced coffee drinks available. The iced coffee comes with soymilk.
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| Look at that amazingness! |
The first
appetizer we ordered was a rice roll (it comes with two rolls for the
order). I really enjoyed this one and
it’s a roll version to a salad version that’s available. It comes with a ginger pesto sauce,
avocadoes, spinach, their house special soy-beef slices (very good!), seaweed,
onions, red bell peppers, and cilantro.
I don’t know how Asian restaurants do it but I’ve always had the best
‘beef’ and ‘chicken’ options at these restaurants than anywhere else. I really liked this and I’m not even a huge
pesto fan. This can be gluten free if
needed.
The second
appetizer we ordered was an order of pot stickers that were steamed. They were stuffed with zucchini, cabbage,
carrot, tofu, sweet potato noodles, onion, and mushroom. The order is nut free for those of you who
need to know. They were also very good.
My first
main meal I ordered was the order of BiBim Noodles. It’s basically a salad mix on top of noodles but it is so good
because the sauce is a blend of spicy, tangy, and sweet. Fantastic!
It comes with avocadoes, their house special soy-beef slices, carrots,
zucchinis, carrots, lettuce, red bell peppers, and wheat noodles. It’s nut free and there is also a gluten
free option available. Good god was
this so good! Check it out if you go. The combination of salad with noodles and
their sauce was perfect.
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| There really is truth in advertising! |
They have a
bunch of desserts available, from which my wife was going to order something,
but the two options my wife wanted were out.
Bummer. I couldn’t bring myself
to eat anything else. I didn’t want to
explode.
Part of the
fun of going to these vegan or vegetarian places is getting to talk to the
people who work there (or who happen to own the place). Outside of the big, major vegetarian/vegan
restaurants (i.e. – The Chicago Diner), when you express how you really enjoyed
the food or show your excitement over their establishment, they seem to truly
love what you have to say. You can see
the joy right on their faces and what’s a better way to bring people together
than to share in food? And since there
aren’t a ton of vegans out there, any feedback and patronage is probably quite
appreciated.
As a funny
side-note, since my wife and I tend to order so much whenever we go out, a lot
of servers seem shocked at the amount of food we order. When we were at the Loving Heart, our server
was almost going to walk away after we ordered two appetizers and two meals but
stopped short when we placed an order for a third main meal. I wonder if she doubted our ability to scarf
all of that food down? Either way, it
was all fantastic and I highly suggest you spend your money there.
Until next
time, keep calm and vegan on!
Loving Heart is located at 838 W. Montrose Avenue, Chicago,
IL, 60613
Their phone number is 773-561-5399
It was so good! I can't wait to go back!
ReplyDeleteSame here!
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