The Loving Hut sounds like it should be something to do with psychedelia and the swinging 60’s, but it is actually a new-ish eating place in Southgate that has an entirely vegan menu. While I am not vegan myself, or even vegetarian, some of the family are and they have been raving about this place ever since it opened.

Frankie goes there quite a lot for the vegan cheeseburger which he thinks is not just the best vege burger he has ever had, but the best burger of any sort he has ever had.

Aftr hearing everybody go on about the place, I decided to take Jayne there for lunch today, as it helps with our intention to cut down on how much meat we eat. When we got there, we found Frankie there on his lunch break, having the inevitable cheeseburger. Jayne copied him, but I fancied something a bit different.

There are quite a few oriental dishes on the menu, so I decided to go for a ‘chicken’ satay with rice, and very nice it was too. Obviously the fake chicken doesn’t have the same texture as proper chicken, but there were lots of crumchy vegetables in it and the satay sauce was a proper Malaysian style with quite a sting in the tail – good job I had that cold tin of organic lemonade to hand.

The Loving Hut is part of a chain that only has a few branches in the UK, two of them, unsurprisingly, in Brighton. I don’t know how or why they ended up in Crawley, but I am glad they did because it is a welcome addition to the choice of food in town.

While there is pretty much no chance that I am going to go totally meat-free, I expect I will be visiting this place again. I was going to recommend the place to some of my fellow councillors who are vegetarians, but when I did a search on the place, the first thing I found was a review from another councillor, so I expect they already know.