Tucked away on a busy street in Holloway Road, we ventured out into the extreme cold to dine at a vegetarian Chinese restaurant called Peking Palace (apparently now taking on the less appealing name, “Loving Hut”). Strange? You betcha. Good? Indeed. Our relatives in New York once took us to a similar place, apparently Buddhist run to typical Chinese dishes with mock meat. Here was us testing this small restaurant.

Things looked pretty good with this first platter of appetisers. Boy were we hungry. The ribs probably felt the least close though tasted strangely the same as one would expect. The “prawn” toast also felt a little bit gummy, as I suspected some sort of turnip paste instead.

We next went for the “duck” and isn’t it strange to see how close it looked like to the original. It even had whatever was the equivalent of the crispy skin and meaty flesh minus all the typical oil of the real duck. Served with spring onions, hoisin sauce and pancakes it really didn’t seem to be any different from the original.

Next up, “crispy beef”. We wouldn’t normally order this when dining at a Chinese restaurant yet wanted to see how it compared. Very close to the original as well. The “beef” was very thin yet the taste persisted even with its crispy coating.

Probably the weakest dish that we had, the meatballs seemed a little bit doughy if not slightly chewy and one jumped off the table as I tried to put my fork in it. We were also a little disappointed the sauce seemed to close to the our next dish.

The aubergine. No need for mock meat here.

We decided to have fried rice with “king prawns” and the wobbly equivalents sat on top of the rice when they first delivered it. Reasonable tasting fried rice.

Apparently the carrot cake was pretty good.

My toffee banana was devine, and despite asking if they had non-vegan ice cream it turned out surprising well. I think it might have been a soya-based equivalent instead of a rice milk that makes ice cream too gritty for my liking.

I really enjoyed myself at this restaurant and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a healthier Chinese meal equivalent. Everything tasted very light and surprisingly packed full of flavour. I think their other name was probably better and I’m surprised they changed the name after only a few weeks when we ate there.

Name: Peking Palace (now Loving Hut)
Found at: 669 Holloway Rd, London, United Kingdom N19 5SE
Website: http://www.thepekingpalace.com/