Loving Hut Demonstrated Vegan Cooking to College Students

On April 19th, 2012, the City of San Jose celebrated Earth Day at the beautiful campus of San Jose State University, with a variety of entertainment and activities from over 80 community organizations, public agencies, and businesses.

Loving Hut San Jose was invited by the City of San Jose to present vegan cooking demonstration during this event. Our cooking team attracted the attentive visitors, mostly students, to our booth to learn how to make simple and delicious vegan dishes including King Mushroom with Broccoli, Grilled Vegan Cheese Taco, Fried Rice, Tofu Scramble, and Eggless Salad.

After each demo, all guests present at the booth enjoyed the sample dish together and further interacted with our chefs about many more cooking tips, nutritional benefits and supporting resources for a vegan lifestyle. The recipes were distributed to the guests at our booth as well as posted online on Facebook for their future reference.

Many vegan supplies readily available in the local area were displayed to inspire the visitors to seek out healthy meatless alternatives for their future grocery shopping, such as vegan cheese, hot dogs, burger patties, veganaise, and non-MSG natural mushroom seasoning.

Moon Festival and Solano Stroll

Triple Treasure

Loving Hut San Jose participated at two events over the weekend of September 10th and 11th. On Saturday, we set up a food booth in Memorial Park, Cupertino during the Mid-Autumn festival celebration. Authentic Formosan delicacies such as Seaweed Rice Cake, Pepper and Salt Mushroom, and Savory Fried Rice were served, attracting a large crowd of people throughout the day. Besides enjoying the delicious food, visitors were also provided with information about the benefits of a vegan diet.

Fried Crispy Mushroom

We set up another food booth the next day at Solano Avenue Stroll, the largest street festival in the east bay of San Francisco. About 250,000 visitors participated at the festivities that stretched over 26 blocks. As the only pure vegan eatery, Loving Hut was one of the most attractive food booths in the progressive twin cities of Albany and Berkeley (the hosts of the festival). Summer rolls, Corn Dogs, Spring Rolls, Vegie Kabobs, Fried Mushrooms, BBQ and Tuno Sandwiches, Fresh lemonade and Hibiscus Tea gave the vegan food lovers plenty of choices. A happy visitor wrote: “I just want to say that the food I bought from you at the Solano Stroll today was absolutely WONDERFUL! Berkeley, Albany, El Cerrito, and Kensington area people would welcome your restaurant.”

Loving Hut is hot at the Father’s Day celebration

in Memorial Park, Cupertino, sponsored by World Journal, one of the largest Chinese newspaper in North America. In addition to serving "Spring Rolls" and "Fresh Lemonade" as in Oakridge Mall, we created a few special items for this outdoor festival including "Vegan Corn Dog" and "Veggie Noodle Soup".

Fried Tofu

One of the special dishes was “Fried Tofu”, a specialty from Taiwan. Tofu flavored with mushroom and spices were fried to form a golden crust and served with pickles. People loved it so much that we could not fry the tofu fast enough.

Sichuan Jelly

Another specialty was a well-kept secret from Sichuan, the Chinese province known for its spicy and hot cuisine. Jelly made from green bean powder was served cold with a sauce rich in garlic, chili and Sichuan pepper. In a hot summer day, “Sichuan Jelly” was especially refreshing and appetizing.

Those two specialties were so popular that they were sold out in less than 3 hours. We had to scramble to prepare more for the rest of the day. We are so encouraged by the overwhelming demand and appreciation for the plant-based food by the festival goers. We are considering of offering our loyal customers in Oakridge Mall some of the special dishes enjoyed by the festival goers as weekly specials, if requested.